Lin Thorp (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This has been most entertaining and I thank Senator Smith for his valiant effort to try to justify his government's position on this incredibly important area for Tasmania. I am extremely disappointed, but I cannot say surprised, to notice that there are no Tasmanian government senators in this place. Even Senator Bushby bolted as soon as he possibly could, because he knows what he was saying was complete rubbish.

The announcement that Tasmania was likely to be the first jurisdiction in the country to have the NBN rolled out was some of the best news Tasmania had had for a long time. And as Senator Bilyk noted quite effectively, Tasmania does require special treatment. We are an isolated jurisdiction. We are an island state. We have an ageing population. An incredibly large proportion of our population is in receipt of Commonwealth benefit. We do have special circumstances. The concept of the NBN—the proper NBN; the real NBN—being rolled out in Tasmania was some of the best news that our state had had for a long time. Then Premier David Bartlett celebrated it. As someone who is expert in the IT area, he had the vision to realise what it could do for Tasmania. There has been a lot of talk about contracts and weasel words around contracts. But I have in my hand the press release—

Senator McKenzie interjecting—

Senator McKenzie may chuckle but here it is, in black and white:

NBN Co seals construction contract to complete broadband rollout in Tasmania.

Up to 800 new jobs to be created at peak of rollout.

State Government backs training for school leavers and job seekers.

Very good news for the state, and celebrated at the time. At about the same time, Visionstream—subsidiary of the people to whom the contract was awarded, Leighton contractors—secured the $300 million NBN contract. It is in black and white.

NBN Co confirms it; the successful contractor confirms it. There were contracts let for the full rollout of NBN to Tasmania. Senator Bushby may try to obfuscate, but the reality is we knew that the rollout would involve about 20 per cent of wi-fi and 10 per cent of satellite from day one. This is because of the disparate nature of our population centres and because of our geography. We all knew that. But we knew that 70 per cent of Tasmanians, whether they be businesses or homes, would receive fibre to the-premises.

Of course, the election loomed and there was a bit of nervousness around. So we needed to get some clarification about what was really going to happen. Malcolm Turnbull said:

As we have stated in our policy we intend to honour existing contracts—the alternative would be to breach them and that is a course we would not countenance.

That was in May 2013. Then in August he said:

What we will do is honour the NBNco’s contracts.

The contract that I have just shown here is for a full, complete broadband rollout in Tasmania. You cannot get away from it. Mr Turnbull also said:

We’re not about to tear contracts up or walk away from contracts.

Now, that gave a certain level of confidence to the Tasmanian community, and TASICT Executive Officer, Mr Dean Winter, was comforted, as were many people in Tasmania, that the coalition—the now government—would honour their commitment to Tasmania. He welcomed the statements by now Minister Turnbull to that effect, by saying:

Tasmania is assured now to be the first jurisdiction fully connected to the NBN and may end up being the only jurisdiction to boast the full fibre to the premises rollout.

This is based on the fact that if the coalition's plan took off and our contract was honoured, we would be the only ones. We were not convinced though. We asked time and time again for confirmation of that.

The then Minister Julie Collins wrote letters to the editor—she wrote all over the place to try and get some confirmation—and was accused by Senator Bushby of manufacturing mistruths and distorting the truth as part of a scare campaign. But we were right, because look what has happened. We even had some comfort earlier from comments from Ziggy Switkowski who said that we should be encouraged that things could be fixed. But they are not going to be. Tasmania has been conned. We are going to be conned again.