Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed it is, Senator Bilyk. It is a disaster. It is a sell-out. They continue to tell the Australian people they are rolling out the NBN. They are rolling out an absolute mess! There is no ubiquitous delivery of the fair and equitable access to the future that a real NBN could deliver.

Questions were asked today by Senator McLucas about the HFC network possibilities. We know, from very early on, that this technology is completely inferior to fibre to the home; it is on a par with fibre to the node, and we have documented here the problems with that technology. There is a failure rate of 14 per cent—where it simply does not work. What we are seeing with the HFC rollout is another con, another sell-out, of the future technologies that Australia needs by this shameful government that has a massive credibility gap to bridge with the Australian people. We had a 17-year-old by the name of Kenneth Tsang provide a critique of the contestability problems on the HFC network—a 17-year-old can see through the disgraceful implementation of an inequitable distribution of access to the future through the NBN! We are getting a Dodgy Brothers version of the NBN instead of a real one under a government that refuses to tell the truth. (Time expired)