Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

A minister being relegated to the fifth position is not a good place to be.

This is why Labor planned and started the construction of the NBN and announced we would invest in STEM skills in our schools and introduce computer coding into our national curriculum. Access to the real NBN is the key to unlocking the potential, particularly in our rural and regional areas.

When it comes to innovation, the Turnbull government has been a big disappointment to Tasmania. It has failed to properly support schools, botched the rollout of the NBN and continued to cut jobs at the CSIRO.

Senator Colbeck interjecting—

As a Tasmanian in this chamber, I would be hanging my head in shame if I were the minister for tourism who has failed to ensure that his industry is equipped with the fastest NBN that we can have. He has failed.

Mr Turnbull has had one job in the last 2½ years, and that is to build the NBN, and he has made a mess of it, just as he has of the leadership of his party. Also, everything he promised he would do on the NBN he has failed to deliver. The cost has doubled, it is going to take twice as long to roll out and the cost of fixing the copper that makes Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate NBN work has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent. Almost three years ago Mr Turnbull promised that his second-rate NBN would reach every home in Tasmania by the end of this year. Failed, failed, failed. But now we will be lucky to have it by the end of the decade, and we are at risk of being left behind. One thing is for sure, there has never been a better time to have a poor and inefficient NBN connection with slow internet speeds under this government.

Mr Turnbull is right when he talks about the importance of innovation and skills to Australia's future. Words, however, do not mean much without action. Mr Turnbull is creating a name for himself by saying one thing today and doing something else tomorrow. In fact, when it comes to education, action on climate change and economic leadership, he has failed on all accounts. I have given up trying to work out what Mr Turnbull actually thinks. Quite frankly, a thought that he has in the morning will almost inevitably be gone by night.

The reality is that for two years he was a member of the Abbott cabinet that deliberately and systematically tore down the architecture Labor had built to support our national innovation system. He supported every measure in Joe Hockey's disastrous 2014 budget, which cut investment in science, research and innovation by $3 billion. He voted for cuts to the R&D tax incentive—three times. He oversaw the demise of Australia's world-class ICT research agency. And of course has failed dismally in delivering the innovation infrastructure of the future—the NBN.

Unlike the Turnbull government, the Labor opposition team led by Bill Shorten has announced a raft of meaningful policies to back the innovation and creativity of Australians wherever they live. We have consistently advocated a greater national effort in innovation. We recognise that innovation has no boundaries, but we must include regional and rural Australia as much as our big cities because we cannot be innovative and expect that all of that will happen out of Melbourne or Sydney.

We opposed the Liberals' reckless cuts to innovation and, of course, fought every step of the way against the Liberals unfair and unnecessary plan for $100,000 degrees, their cuts to TAFE and apprenticeships and their schools funding cuts. We have been consistently talking about the need to invest in education, in science and in research and innovation. We have a proud record in building Australia's national innovation system. In opposition, we put forward a number of policies to advance Australia beyond the mining boom by investing in our greatest resource—the creativity and capacity of our people. That is something that the current government have failed to do. This is an unfair, unimaginative and certainly not a very nimble government. (Time expired)