Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to speak on the Australian government's response to the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee report, Regional telecommunications review 2015.

My office, which is based in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, receives calls—as many senators' offices do—from not only New South Wales but around the country, complaining about problems with telecommunications and, specifically, the lack of a decent NBN system around the country. Many people are appalled. The promises that the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, made about how the mixed technology would suddenly deliver all these great things on telecommunications for people around the country have not materialised. None of that has materialised—none of it.

In my local area—the lower Blue Mountains—people are being told that a 1.5-megabit uptake is okay. That is almost dial-up. It is just a bit better than dial-up, and they are being told that that is acceptable. They are having to pay $40, $50, $60 a month to get a miserable 1.5 megabits. This is pathetic! Prior to the election, over three years ago, we were told by the Prime Minister that the NBN would be rolled out and everyone would have access to good telecommunications. Yet what has happened? Telecommunications is still an absolute disgrace. The government is going for a system that is based on old technology. It is going for a system that is based on corroding copper.

I had a problem with my own ADSL2 connection at home. They checked it over the phone, as they do. They tried to make adjustments over the phone, remotely. They said, 'No, there's a problem; we'll come out.' They opened the pit. The pit was absolutely full of water. The connections were being kept together by cling wrap and tape, to try and keep them from corroding even further. This is a system that is not fit for purpose for a modern country trying to deal with modern technology.

The current Prime Minister has conned the Australian public, because the system that he is proposing is a second-rate system that will not deliver. It is a system that he said would be in place by now at a reasonable cost to the public. Well, the cost has blown out. We still have a poor system. We still have a system that you cannot operate. We are talking about putting in a second city airport at Badgerys Creek and how it will create all these business opportunities. Well, it will not create home business opportunities in the Blue Mountains, because you cannot run a business with no decent internet connection.

This government has been an abject failure in a whole range of areas. Its first budget epitomised what this government is about. It is about austerity. It is about austerity policies that harm working-class people in this country. When working-class people want to try and get on a bit and run a small business from their own home, they cannot do it because the technology is so bad and the promises that the Prime Minister made have not been delivered.

This is another failure from this government. It is another failure from a Prime Minister who the public are seeing day after day as being totally incapable of running the country and making a decision. All he knew was that he wanted to get into the Lodge and he was going to do whatever he could to get into the Lodge. This is a government that cannot deliver for working- and middle-class families in this country. This is a government that promised much on telecommunications and has delivered nothing.

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—

The doormat, Senator O'Sullivan, from the National Party has piped up. You should be ashamed of yourself! The National Party have allowed this government to attack working-class people in the regions and in rural Australia, and you have been absolutely silent. You have been absolutely silent on it. This is a disgraceful government. It cannot deliver on telecommunications. It has lied to the Australian public. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I always love hearing Senator Cameron ranting and raving on, because I was one of the ones who sat here for six years and watched the most dysfunctional government that this country has ever seen—six years of Labor. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government was supported by the Greens political party in all those six years. Now we hear Senator Cameron lecturing us about good governance!

In taking note of this document, which is the Australian government's response to the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee's report, Regional telecommunications review 2015, can I say, again, that I can only be amused at Senator Cameron's defence of his colleague Senator Conroy. Senator Conroy wrote out the policy for the NBN on the back of a beer coaster in a VIP plane, travelling, I think, somewhere between Cairns and Sydney. This was the Labor Party's famous NBN proposal. If you looked at the proposal that Senator Conroy put forward—and I did: I sat on many a committee trying to help Senator Conroy make something out of it—you would realise that the policy had no thought, nothing for Australians, in particular, and certainly nothing for regional Australians.

By contrast, Mr Turnbull, when he was the communications minister, tried to fix Senator Conroy's NBN mess, and he did a great job in doing that. Senator Fifield, as the minister, is getting the NBN doing what is needed by Australia.

I draw the Senate's attention to the work we have done in rural and regional Australia in telecommunications. In particular, I am very, very pleased to highlight an announcement made by the government only a couple of weeks ago where money was provided to the Burke Shire Council way up there in the corner of north-west Queensland. The coalition government provided millions of dollars to build a fibre-optic cable between Doomadgee, an Aboriginal community up in the north-west, and the town of Burketown. That will make such a difference to everybody in that particular locality.

The new satellite is about to come on stream. The NBN is being rolled out in a sensible way and is achieving things for regional Australia. To have to sit here and listen to a lecture from Senator Conroy's colleague on the NBN is just ludicrous. I was not going to participate in this debate, but as soon as I see Senator Cameron get to his feet, I think: 'This will be good entertainment; it will be good humour.' There will not be a skerrick of truth in it, but it is always good to come along for a laugh. Occasionally, we need laughs in this joint. When Senator Cameron speaks, you are always sure to have a good laugh. What Labor did with the NBN in telecommunications in Sydney sort of stopped at parliament house—that is about as far as Labor was concerned.

The coalition government has made real advances in telecommunications, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia—parts of Australia that the Labor Party do not even know exist. I do not think they have a member anywhere in rural and remote Australia. They used to have a senator up in the north of Australia in Senator McLucas, but she has been done over by the factional bosses in the Labor Party and has been replaced by a male candidate, a union hack, from Brisbane. I cannot think of anyone from Labor in the north of Australia these days. It just shows the Labor Party's interest in the north and in regional, rural and remote Australia.

Congratulations to Malcolm Turnbull when he was the communications minister. Congratulations to Senator Fifield. Now it is double congratulations because not only are they making things work but they had to pick up the pieces from the Labor Party and turn it into something sensible. I am pleased to say they have done it, and they deserve the Senate's congratulations.

Question agreed to.