Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, and also on behalf of Senators O'Neill and Griff, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) the Minister for Communications and the Arts (the Minister) is seeking to legislate a $7.10 per month broadband levy, on the basis that it would offset the costs of regional National Broadband Network (NBN) services,

(ii) the Federal Government has not updated its proposed levy charge to reflect the latest $700 million cost increase in the regional NBN fixed-wireless rollout,

(iii) this lack of transparency means that the proposed levy formula will eventually produce a higher than expected charge in the future, if legislated,

(iv) the report of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network (the Committee) into the rollout of the NBN in rural and regional areas, which was presented on 19 November 2018, addresses the Minister's lack of transparency in recommendation 19, which states: 'The committee recommends the Government update its Regional Broadband Scheme levy modelling to account for the cost increases that have occurred since the original modelling was undertaken in 2015. The Government should report to the committee within two weeks of the tabling of this report to advise what the updated levy amount is',

(v) Government members of the committee agreed to recommendation 19,

(vi) the Government has since failed to advise the committee of the updated levy amount by 3 December 2018, in accordance with recommendation 19, and

(vii) the Minister is seemingly unable to deliver anything on time; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government to:

(i) stop hiding the full impact of its proposed Regional Broadband Scheme levy charge on consumers, and be transparent about its future impact, and

(ii) take urgent steps to comply with recommendation 19 of the report of the Committee, and provide the Committee with an estimate of the updated Regional Broadband Scheme levy charge by 21 December 2018.