Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Senator Fifield. Can the minister update the Senate on the NBN's half-yearly results?

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome back Senator Colbeck. It's very good to see regular transmission resumed in Tasmania.

I'm very pleased that once again I can report that NBN has delivered on its operational and financial targets for the most recent half year, achieving a record number of connected services. In the six months to 31 December, NBN managed to connect an average of 7,000 premises every working day, making a total of 942,000 activations. To put that success in context, NBN connected almost as many premises in the previous six months as it did in the first six years of the project.

Around 50,000 premises a week were also added to NBN's service footprint. With so many more homes and businesses connected to the network, revenue grew to nearly $900 million for the half year alone. Average revenue per user was up from $43 to $44. Couple this with the great response from retailers to the recent pricing discounts for higher speed tiers, and we are now seeing the amount of capacity per user being purchased growing by close to 40 per cent. NBN is also predicting that close to one million subscribers will be migrated to the 50-megabit-per-second speed tier by mid year. This is between five and 10 times the speed experienced on the pre-NBN ADSL network.

These results clearly demonstrate that NBN has a business model that is working. It's delivering fast, affordable broadband for the Australian community.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Colbeck, a supplementary question.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's good to be transmitting again, although I must note that the background noise and white noise from the other side hasn't changed much since I left.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left and my right! We've now welcomed back Senator Colbeck. I'm sure it's all come back to him. I ask him to resume his question.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, how do these results align with consumers' experiences, especially in my home state of Tasmania?

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Senator Colbeck would well recall, in late 2013, when our predecessors left office, the rollout of the NBN in Tasmania was a mess. The contractor had downed tools and virtually no premises had been connected for many months. All up, only 7,000 fixed-line premises in Tasmania were ever connected under Labor, despite the fact that the rollout actually kicked off in that state. Compare that to the end of 2017, where close to 267,000 homes and businesses in Tasmania are ready to connect. More than 160,000 Tasmanian premises are now accessing the internet over the NBN in Tassie, and the entire rollout is planned to be finished by the end of this year, which will make Tasmania the first state to be finished. In terms of consumer experience in Tasmania, the research shows that Tasmania has had the biggest improvement of any state in intensity of internet use.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Colbeck, a final supplementary question.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, how do these results compare with alternative approaches?

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think NBN's results of today remind us of the failures of those opposite. By the time that we inherited the NBN, project contractors had abandoned work in four states. The project was mired in contracting disputes. More than $6 billion had been spent, yet only a grand total of 51,000 premises had been connected to the built network. Those opposite do continue to live in a fantasy land, but I've got to say the numbers do not lie.

The NBN under this government has reached an unprecedented pace. The rate of activations alone has grown fourfold in just the past two years. The approach of those opposite would have pushed up household broadband bills by $43 per month or over $500 a year due to the higher capital expenditure and vastly slower revenue streams that they intended.