Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In respect of the government response to the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network's first report of the 45th Parliament, The rollout of the National Broadband Network, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

Over the break, the government tabled their response to the first report of the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN. In their response, the government did not support any of the recommendations of the majority committee and supported only 14 in principle, while outright rejecting the other nine. Indeed, they had the gall to say that they were disappointed that the committee still didn't understand what they regarded to be the fundamentals of the NBN. I'm not sure, but surely the government must be able to see the irony at the heart of this statement—a statement that after 191 submissions, the holding of 15 public hearings and the receiving of 179 witness testimonies, the committee still didn't 'get' the NBN. Well, the government is, surprisingly on this one, half right: there is a failure to understand. But it is the government's failure to understand what the people of Australia need and want from the National Broadband Network. There is certainly plenty of disappointment in that regard; disappointment that the government took the NBN, gutted it and replaced it with a mixed technology mongrel that is failing Australia on all fronts.

For the benefit of the chamber and those listening at home, I want to briefly review some of the recommendations that the government found so offensive and unnecessary in the NBN committee report, so much so that it could not support them. It didn't support the idea of planning for the future beyond the shoddy and broken network that it is currently deploying. It refused to plan for and cost the only futureproof solution to the NBN, that being fibre to the premises. The government also did not support the best practice installation of the NBN so that once a premise is connected, it is ready for service and unlikely to require repeat visits. The government also could not bring itself to support NBN Co identifying and disclosing the premises that were previously slated for fibre and which have been downgraded to the already overloaded satellite system, or bring itself to explain the decision why. But, you know, why have transparency? It's kind of overrated, particularly in the telecommunications space.

The government also does not support setting up a rural and regional reference group to consult on the Sky Muster services and provide oversight of the extreme issues and delays that rural and regional Australians have suffered in trying to connect to and use the NBN. It does surprise me that the passionate and often vocal members of the National Party in this chamber haven't had something to say about that.

Finally, the government does not support the idea that the NBN should identify its complaints processes for customers and that this information should be provided in a way that meets Australian government accessibility standards. So not only does the government seem not to care about whether customers have complaints with the NBN, but it also does not care about whether those systems can be accessed accessibly for people with a disability.

The committee understands the pitiful excuse of an NBN that the government has dumped on the Australian people. We understand it in great detail. That has been our job. We understand because we actually read the 191 submissions and listened to the 179 testimonies that were given, again, over 15 hearings. The government has now made it overwhelmingly clear that it does not care that its vision for the NBN is broken, and it has no intention of rolling out a NBN that is fast, affordable, reliable or futureproof. In short, the government simply does not care about delivering the service that Australians need.

If I could make one recommendation in the hope that it might resonate with the government, it would be to simply end this rolling nightmare. Call an election, lose the damned thing and step away from the NBN before you hurt yourselves. I thank the chamber for its time.