Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Well, this afternoon it is of grave concern to yet again see the lack of accountability of this government in answering questions on notice. I did see Senator Hume come in here and explain that, despite the minister's best endeavours, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications has been unable to get NBN Co to answer these questions. I put to you that the troubles in this relationship and the troubles in the lack of accountability and the lack of reporting in outcomes of NBN Co's performance to this parliament go much, much deeper than that. For example, Senator Urquhart asked questions in relation to the forecast of the outstanding amount of debt and equity by financial year 2024. How much in free cash flow does the 2021 corporate plan forecast NBN will generate by financial year 2024? Have these cash flows been committed? If yes, towards what? What was the capex for the fixed wireless network as at 1 July 2020? How many fixed wireless towers have been built? How many fixed wireless cells have been deployed? Based on the 2021 corporate plan, what is cumulative capex for the fixed wireless out to 2024?

These were issues in previous corporate plans but, for some reason, the government and NBN Co saw fit not to adequately explain this information in the latest corporate plan. Now we find that, even still, despite these questions being asked by opposition senators, there are still no answers. The NBN corporate plan was missing information on peak funding from cost blowouts. There is no update on the NBN debt profile—again, a question that was asked by Senator Urquhart—and no updated capital expenditure by technology. You know, this is capex expenditure. It is a fairly basic thing to go in a corporate plan yet we cannot even get these questions answered in estimates. There is no operating expenditure profile.

The corporate plan shows a complete lack of transparency and, as the shadow minister, Michelle Rowlands, said, it was nothing short of a cover-up designed to conceal unfunded announcements made by Mr Fletcher today. The issue here is that this government keeps trying to assert that it is meeting the connection milestones, that it exceeds them and that it is doing a great job in managing NBN Co to deliver to Australians. So it is little wonder to me that NBN Co and the department of communications are also dragging their feet in answering these questions because, again, what it exposes is cost blowouts and consumer disappointment when the promises that the government has made are simply not met.

I will take you to some of the questions asked by Senator Green in estimates. Senator Green, asking about the 1.5 million premises being G.fast enabled, said:

One of them said it would be by 2020 and the minister is now saying it's 2023. Why won't fibre to the curb network be gigabyte capable by the end of 2020?

Mr Windeyer, the key official answering these questions from the department of communications, said:

I think there are some details here that would be worth raising with NBN or we can take them on notice, but I think NBN will be able to answer for you when they appear exactly what the state of the FTTC network is and its readiness.

As we see in the kinds of questions that remain unanswered, the department of communications said: 'Let NBN Co answer these questions. We could take them on notice, but best direct your questions over there.' Well, perhaps we should've asked both NBN Co and the department some of these questions, because now we've got the department complaining that they can't get NBN Co to answer these questions in a timely manner. What does this show about the accountability of this government in relation to the promises that it has made to the Australian people in relation to its NBN network?

It is an appalling state of affairs. I have been speaking to constituents that have responded to marketing and have signed up to certain megabit levels that simply cannot be met by the current infrastructure that exists in their local area. Essentially, they have been sold something that doesn't exist in their area. Senator Urquhart asks at question 188: 'How many FTTN premises cannot currently achieve a layer 2 speed of 25 megabits per second?', and they haven't answered it. What we're really talking about here is Australian consumers that were sold a dud product, where we have a government that refuses to be accountable for the promises that it made. This is an appalling state of affairs.

While I've seen many a government official at estimates complain about the number of questions that Senator Kitching asks—they tend to kind of go, 'Oh, here we go again'—there is a real relationship between things like executive bonuses, flowers bought, corporate culture, and how much is spent on entertainment and the like when you relate that back to poor performance and accountability. These are promises that are made to the Australian people, that this government is essentially responsible for, that are not delivered. They were asked:

In 2013, the Coalition promised every Australian would have access to minimum speeds of 25 Mbps by the end of 2016. Can you confirm this target was missed up by up to 7 million premises?

We're here in 2021 now. You would have thought that, somewhere in Minister Fletcher's accountability or the officers that the department of communications has sat with, they would be tracking their promises and the outcomes and that they would be able to say that the department would be able to answer, that the minister would be able to answer and, indeed, that NBN Co would be able to answer basic questions about the promises that they made as a government. But again, here you can see in these unanswered questions that we've got on one hand a government that likes to make big promises and pays no attention to the detail of getting them delivered. Not only is the government not paying attention to detail but it seemed to me, in the answers given by officials, that they did not have the technical know-how at a senior level to be able to answer the questions about the milestones NBN Co should be meeting in order to meet these commitments. That to me seems like an extraordinary state of affairs.

Senator Green also said in estimates, 'You don't have the details of the $70 per home that it's going to—by the government.' Mr Windeyer said: 'No, I don't have the technical details of what NBN is going to be spending money on over the next few years with respect to the FTTC network. I'll take that on notice, but I think they'll be happy to answer it.' Senator Green said: 'I think I have to hand over, but you said that this was a significant upgrade—it's so significant that you don't know what it is.' Mr Atkinson from the department said:

Can we just desist with this. I think Mr Windeyer is saying you'll get a better answer from the people who are actually going to be implementing the upgrade on the technical aspects of exactly what's going to happen to the FTTC.

We see that, when we ask technical questions of NBN Co, Senator Hume comes in here and says that the department is doing their best to get answers from NBN Co, and yet the department doesn't have the expertise to answer them themselves—which I think they should have. These are major announcements that are embedded in the translation between the announcements that the government has made and the relationship of the department with NBN Co that holds together that accountability to the Australian public. And still we come in here and Senator Hume says, 'We're doing our best to get NBN Co to answer these questions.' I remind Minister Fletcher and Senator Hume, who was indeed at the table at the time, that it was the department that directed many of these questions to NBN Co—questions that I believe they should have been able to answer. The failure to answer these questions very much underpins the disaster that is now the NBN and data promises that this government made to the Australian people about the technology that they should be able to have access to at work, at home and in the broader community.

The kinds of issues that are being raised by the opposition are in relation to NBN Co's financial year 2020 results. Again you can see NBN Co and the government trying to self-congratulate themselves on their outcomes, and yet when you dig down into the data—if you can get it through these processes, because the department doesn't seem to be able to ask NBN Co for this accountability—the claims being made don't stand up.

NBN Co, by all reports in their data, showed a great outcome by completing the volume rollout over COVID-19. But in this parliament we have a duty to scrutinise the kinds of claims being made, and the cost blowout from the multitechnology mix that the government has promoted has gone from $29.5 billion to $41 billion to $49 billion and now to $51 billion. The kinds of questions we asked about the corporate plan, which Senator Urquhart has asked, highlighted that the 2020 corporate plan saw significant revision downwards in targets, making it easier to exceed the stated claim and claim credit for having done so. If you compare the 2020 results with the unrevised 2019 corporate plan forecasts, capital costs are up $1.5 billion and revenue is down $100 billion. The kinds of questions that Senator Urquhart asked about capital expenditure remain unanswered.

It is little surprise to me that NBN Co is dragging its feet in answering these questions, but I find it completely galling that the government pretends it wants to be completely accountable to this parliament and that there's some kind of administrative accountability when we know that these issues go right down to the core of the disaster that is this government's commitments to the Australian people in relation to the NBN.

Question agreed to.