Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Faster and sooner. But what actually happened? The cost of the NBN, on the watch of Mr Turnbull, blew out to $50 billion, more than twice what had been promised by Mr Turnbull during his campaign. We had a promise from Mr Turnbull that every Australian household would have access to the NBN by 2016, and where are we now? At this point in time, more than seven million Australian households are still waiting for that service. Are people satisfied with the service that they are receiving from the NBN? No, they are not at all, and the number of complaints about the NBN has blown out by about 150 per cent in the last year alone. Who is responsible for this failure, you ask? There is no escaping it because one person and one person alone has claimed responsibility for this project, and that person is Mr Turnbull. That person is the Prime Minister. It is hard not to see a relationship between this failure, the Prime Minister's responsibility for this failure and the extraordinary decision undertaken by the NBN Co during an election to pursue a complaint that resulted in a raid on the offices of a sitting member of parliament who had been pursuing that failure.

It is time for the government to come clean about their role in this process, and I am afraid I have no confidence in the assurances provided here today, because, time and time again, instead of direct answers, we see obfuscation and deferral on issues of great significance in relation to the integrity of processes by this government. The Senate has applied itself to examining this issue and the legal issues. It is time for the government to do the same.

Question agreed to.