Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The legislation does not require developers to approach NBN Co. It sets out the standards by which it has to be built. I am sure you would agree, and I think even Senator Birmingham would agree with this aspect, although one of his amendments goes deliberately against this. We have to have a system that is able to be interlinked, so we have to set the technical standard. It would be like saying to everybody, 'Just build your own railway network to all the different places.' We would have little islands with their own rail network, with different rail gauges, different rules and all those sorts of things. It would be completely different. Actually someone did that; it was called Australia. We have now connected rail to South Australia from Victoria and we now do not have to, I think, change the trains onto new tracks anymore. That is the modern day equivalent of what those opposite are seeking to do. They are seeking to change the standards by which people are building by allowing them to offer layer 3 services. That is what this amendment seeks to do.

Most importantly it comes down to cherry-picking. If you allow developers to pick and choose which ones they want, they will go where they can make the most money and they will make NBN Co. pick up the tab for all of the areas in regional and rural Australia that they do not want to build to. They will just cherry-pick the big housing estates around metropolitan areas and they will leave the rest to the taxpayer to pick up the tab. The revenue will go to them for the cheaper installations and NBN Co. will be left to pick up the tab for the more expensive installations with the poorer customers. That is where it really goes down to destroying the economics of the NBN.

Senator Birmingham can pretend that is not what he is doing, but that is exactly what he is doing. He will allow them to cherry-pick the most expensive, best, biggest areas where they can make the most money. They will ignore regional and rural Australia. We all know that no-one is interested in providing fibre to the home in regional and rural Australia. They are just interested in cherry-picking big housing estates in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide et cetera. That is what this amendment would allow to happen. It would fundamentally undermine the economics of NBN Co.