Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her ongoing interest in the National Broadband Network and for the question. Her interest is in how the Australian people are embracing the opportunities created by the NBN. Of the many methods that are being peddled by those opposite, one is that Australians neither want nor need high-speed broadband. The story that gets peddled by the media is the claim that take-up is slow.

Let me give you just two examples. The Australian Financial Review, on 10 August last year, editorialised about supposed slow take-up rates. As recently as 21 March, the Australian claimed that slow take-up rates by consumers was a problem for NBN Co. But nothing could be further from the truth. Last December, I first compared take-up of the NBN to the take-up of fibre networks around the world and previous technologies here in Australia. In Europe, after three years of fibre in the home being available, the average take up is 21 per cent. In Singapore, up to 3½ years after it has had fibre to the home, it has a take-up rate of 20 per cent. After six years here in Australia of ADSL, the ABS found in 2006 that there was a 28 per cent take-up rate.

Compare that to what we are seeing around Australia today. Take-up of the NBN is now over 37 per cent in areas that have been connected for just six months. NBN Co.'s take-up rates here in Australia are world records. Given the opportunity to connect to fibre, Australians are signing up in droves. But those opposite—