Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to document No. 10, NBN Co. Ltd., I read with great interest an article in yesterday's Australian, which I of course will not hold up because that is unparliamentary, but I will refer to that document. It is by Kevin Morgan, who was the ACTU member of former ALP leader Kim Beazley's advisory committee on telecommunications. It is headed: 'NBN's commercial viability is a joke'. This article is on page 12, and I think it is imperative that all those opposite at least read it so that they can know what a complete and utter farce the NBN is. In the article, Mr Morgan quite rightly indicates:

This financial year NBN Co will receive $4.7 billion, with a further $6.1bn billion to be injected in 2013-14.

He goes on to say:

But the pretence the NBN is commercial is dissolving and the McKinsey assumptions that led the ABS to grant the NBN its off-budget standing are no longer tenable. Much has changed.

He went on to say:

These failures haven't stopped NBN Co from paying 10 executives $640,000 in bonuses for the past 12 months. Hardly the mark of a commercial organisation. And the delivery of the few connections that have been established has scarcely occurred in a commercial manner. Technicians have been paid $500 for a half day's work to install an NBN box in a home, and when no work has been scheduled they have been paid $700 a day "idle time".

He went on to say:

Most tellingly, the revised corporate plan released in August confirms the original plan was way off the mark. The latter underestimated the size of the fibre network by 14 per cent about 25.000km.

Fourteen per cent—25,000 kilometres! And he finishes up—and this really has to be read, this article:

Like everything else about the NBN, its prices are driven by political, not commercial, imperatives.

I will repeat that:

Like everything else about the NBN, its prices are driven by political, not commercial, imperatives.

Indeed, this report just highlights again the Gillard Labor government's failure to manage public finances, to get things done and to do things well. On managing public finances, in 2007 Labor claimed that the NBN would require $4.7 billion from taxpayers. That was it! No more—no more than the $4.7 billion. Now, after almost four years, we already have $2.8 billion spent in taxpayers' funds and $923 million in losses. This financial year, as I said before, NBN Co. will receive about $4.7 billion and another $6.1 billion in the next year. No-one has any idea what the ultimate cost of this NBN will be! But, of course, it is off budget. As this Mr Morgan said, 'What a disgrace!' and:

… the pretence the NBN is commercial is dissolving and the McKinsey assumptions that led the ABS to grant the NBN its off-budget standing are no longer tenable.

I just want to turn to getting things done. Labor originally claimed in 2007 that the NBN would be completed by 2013. Hello! We are very close to that now. They are now saying that it will be 2021 but, of course, every deadline has been missed. Two years ago Labor promised that by June 2013 1.3 million households would have NBN fibre and that NBN Co. would have 560,000 paying customers. NBN Co. only has 24,000 households connected to fibre and just 6,400 paying customers, and NBN Co. has now downgraded its estimates for next June to only 54,000 premises connected to fibre, a far cry from 1.3 million.

In relation to doing things well, the Labor Party has clearly taken a monopoly approach to broadband, and while broadband prices have fallen by 69 per cent since 2005 NBN Co. now wants to triple its charges to consumers by 2020 as a very warm welcome to Mr Conroy's monopoly.

I do just want to talk quickly about the local effects in my patron seats of Ballarat, Bendigo, Corangamite and Corio. In Corangamite, the Liberal candidate, Sarah Henderson, has pointed out that the southern part of Geelong missed out on the NBN in the first rollout, and Goulburn Plains Shire Council reports on being bullied by NBN Co. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also want to comment on the 2011-12 report on the NBN Co. Ltd. Fortuitously, I am a member of the joint oversight committee. It met on Tuesday night of this week. Unfortunately, even though it was there for four hours there was still not enough time to fully hold the government to account for what will turn out to be the greatest white elephant ever to confront Australia.

I think the cost at the moment, on my calculations, is something like $60 billion and rising. I think that all senators, and perhaps those listening who did not hear question time, would have been interested if only Senator Birmingham had got some answers to the questions that he raised in question time today. He asked the minister three questions, but one of them was: was it true that 60 per cent of the senior officers of NBN had moved on since NBN started? I think he had some statistics about the number of board members that had changed over since this organisation started.

I can understand that people are very concerned about the way that this entity is operating. Senators will recall that Mr Mike Kaiser, a failed Labor member of parliament from Queensland who had to resign in disgrace over a vote-rigging matter, was actually the first publicity officer—or whatever they call him in polite corporate terms, but he was a publicity officer; I think he was their 'communications executive'. You will recall, Mr Deputy President, that it came out in evidence—this is all on the record—that Senator Conroy said to Mr Quigley, 'Oh, you're looking for a communications officer?' And Mr Quigley said, 'Yes I am'. Senator Conroy said, 'Why don't you have a look at Mike Kaiser?'

Senator Conroy said that he did not know Mr Kaiser, but he did confess to suggesting to Mr Quigley that he might look at Mr Kaiser. Of course, it ended up that Mr Quigley did not advertise the position or call for expressions of interest; he just simply appointed Mike Kaiser, a former disgraced Labor parliamentarian in Queensland, and paid him a very handsome sum. I forget exactly what it was—it is all on the record—but I think it was something like $350,000 to be the communications officer for NBN.

When another person was trundled in in that role a few months back we said, 'Well, what happened to Mr Kaiser? Has he left you?' At the time—I think this was going back three or four months—we were told. 'Oh, no, Mr Kaiser is still there; he's been promoted.' This was to something, as I recall—forgive me if I am wrong—between $400,000 and $500,000 a year, and he had taken on another role. We did not get the opportunity last Tuesday night to ask whether he was still on the payroll, but at that price one would think you would be crazy to give up that position. I know that most parliamentarians can only dream of that sort of financial return. I wanted to raise as well the issue of the rollout in the town of Townsville, where I have my electorate office. There is an area of Mundingburra between China Street, Ross River Road, Nathan Road and the Ross River which has had overhead wires put in. As I said to Mr Quigley the other day, my office phone has been in meltdown—we still have copper wire there—from people complaining about these ugly wires at the lowest level coming through this quite nice suburb of Townsville. The complaints to my office were not just about the visual pollution of these but also about concern for what will happen when a cyclone comes along. The question they were asking me was: 'Does that now mean that when the cyclone comes along and blows over an electricity pole, which now has the NBN wire on it, not only will we be without electricity, which we could overcome by a generator, but we will be without any form of telecommunications?' I am anxiously awaiting a response from Mr Quigley to that question.

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.