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

Tonight I would like to talk about the betrayal of the people of the west coast by local Liberal member for Braddon, Brett Whiteley. Under the former Labor government, the west coast was slated to receive the superior 21st-century fibre-to-the-premises NBN. This decision was made in recognition of the vital importance of the west coast and of the pressing need to create a strong diverse economy with a reduced reliance on mining. Labor understands that the superior full-fibre NBN is one of the best ways we can open up new market opportunities and attract investment and jobs to regional communities. Before the 2013 election, the Liberals were very clear in their commitment to honour Labor's existing fibre-to-the-premises contracts in Tasmania. Even Mr Turnbull came out to reassure Tasmanians that this is what would happen when he said:

…the alternative would be to breach them and that is a course we would not countenance.

True to form, the Liberals trashed their promise soon after the election, telling Tasmanians that instead of their vastly superior full-fibre NBN, great swathes of the state would now be saddled with the second-rate fibre-to-the-node NBN based on the decrepit copper network that was built so many decades ago.

But the situation was going to get even worse for the people of the west coast. In fact, in February, we found out through questions I asked at Senate estimates that the government had dumped its plans for west coast fibre-to-the-node NBN and the entire west coast would only be served by the very slowest internet technology satellite. There were no announcements, no explanations, just a sneaky backflip. Of course the community was outraged. They knew they had been betrayed and they knew their future economic prosperity was on the line so they mobilised to fight the plans and fight they did. But sadly, their local member, Brett Whiteley, did not go into bat for his community: instead, he treated them with absolute contempt by trying to pretend that there were never any plans for a fixed line rollout to the west coast in the first place despite the fact that it was written in black and white in the government's own publicly published rollout plan released only a few months earlier.

When he realised his blatant misrepresentation would not fly, Mr Whiteley went on the defensive and expended great energy to tell the people of the west coast why they did not deserve the full-fibre NBN they were promised before the election anyway. While Mr Whiteley was telling anyone who would listen that it would be much too expensive for the Liberals to honour their NBN promise, the Labor candidate for Braddon, Justine Keay, and I lobbied Labor's shadow minister for communications, Jason Clare, relentlessly. We wanted to ensure that, under Labor, the west coast of Tasmania would get exactly what they were promised in 2013. I am pleased to tell the Senate tonight that Mr Clare visited Tasmania last week to announce that this is exactly what will happen. Unfortunately, Mr Whiteley did not even bother to inform himself about the basic details of the policy before claiming that we had not outlined the technology that we would be delivering. So today, for Mr Whiteley's benefit, I will clarify.

Under a federal Labor government the key west coast towns of Queenstown, Rosebery and Zeehan will get the superior full fibre-to-the-premises NBN that they were promised by both parties before the last election. The day after Labor's announcement, Mr Whiteley cobbled together a story about a proposal he says he had made to the Prime Minister on west coast NBN technology. The problem is that, if Mr Whiteley's proposal is nothing but another broken promise, it will mean these key west coast towns will only get Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate fibre-to-the-premises NBN, which is based on the ageing copper network. Without the benefit of Labor's full-fibre NBN the west coast will struggle to attract the investment it needs to build a diverse economic base to create jobs and attract people to the region. That's right, a $370 million plus economy will be stuck for decades to come with last century's infrastructure. It simply will not be able to compete with other Australian regions that have the real NBN. This is nothing short of economic vandalism and the west coast deserves better. Today I call on Mr Whiteley to back in the people that he supposedly represents and commit to matching Labor's promise to deliver the vastly superior full-fibre NBN to Queenstown, Rosebery and Zeehan.