Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019. This is legislation the government could have passed in late 2017, it is legislation they could have passed in late 2018 and it is legislation they could have passed in March 2020. We are glad that, after three years of strange delays, it is being brought to a vote in the Senate here today.

In reports in The Australian this morning, we read that NBN Co will take on up to a further $4 billion in debt to fund the network. This curiously timed announcement comes on the same day the government seeks to progress a broadband tax in the Senate. These twin events are symptoms of a $51 billion multitechnology mix that has reduced the cash flows available to the NBN by $500 million per year. The reduction in long-term cash flows arises from a reliance on older technologies that cost much more to operate, generate less revenue and incur billions in upgrade costs that would not have been incurred under the original NBN plan. The fact that NBN are already saying that they need to take on more debt is a vindication of the view that doing it once with fibre and doing it right was economically superior all along. I will return to this point later.

In the previous term of parliament, Labor introduced several amendments that sought to reduce the impact of the levy on greenfield networks built before 1 July 2020; cap the levy charge so it could not rise to $10 a month; and make rollout data publicly available on the nationalmap.gov.au website. Those amendments lapsed because the government did not bring its bill to a vote. I want to thank the Senate crossbench for their in-principle support for these amendments at the time and acknowledge those ALP amendments that have been incorporated by the government into this bill.

Labor supports the establishment of a statutory infrastructure provider regime as outlined in this bill. The proposed framework will provide additional certainty that, as we move beyond the initial rollout, newly constructed premises can access high-speed broadband. This is, of course, a natural extension of the arrangements Labor put in place nearly 10 years ago through a statement of expectations issued to the NBN board. The statement of expectations required the NBN company to make high-speed broadband available to all Australians regardless of where they live or work. That has happened and will continue to happen, and this bill provides certainty that it will continue.

After more than a decade in power through the 1990s and 2000s, the Liberal Party left Australia with broadband infrastructure that was incompatible with our aspirations as a nation. It was Labor who carved out the principle that all Australians should have access to modern telecommunications infrastructure. It was Labor who stood up for the regions, not with rhetoric but with a considered policy to deliver universal access to high-speed broadband, universal pricing and investment to make that a reality. The Liberals opposed the NBN. The Liberals opposed the NBN satellite. They did not promote meaningful competition in the regions. They did nothing to promote broadband investment in the regions. It was the Liberals who privatised Telstra as a vertically integrated monopoly. So let us be clear: after more than 10 years, the legacy of those opposite when it came to regional communications was technological stagnation and higher prices. The Labor Party put an end to that mediocrity with its plan for the National Broadband Network.

Here today, the government is claiming it is putting in place a framework for regional broadband funding. Let's run through some of the facts and put this into context. At inception, Labor designed the NBN to provide universal access in the cities and the regions. This plan provided for seven per cent of Australian premises to be served through a combination of fixed wireless and satellite technology. Because these networks run at a financial loss, an internal cross-subsidy was implemented to fund these regional networks. As of today, the internal cross-subsidy implemented under Labor is already generating $580 million per annum. By 2022, it will generate $800 million per annum. The broadband tax devised by this government raises barely one-twentieth of the revenue from the regional funding mechanism Labor put in place a decade ago.

As I noted earlier, the multitechnology mix has reduced the cash flows of NBN by $500 million per annum compared to the original fibre plan. This means the capacity of NBN to invest or return dividends has been reduced by $500 million per annum. This is a consequence of the older technologies—namely, copper and HFC—that are costing hundreds of millions a year more to operate, generating less revenue over the medium term and requiring hundreds of millions more per annum in maintenance capital. These are not Labor's figures. This is based on NBN Co's own figures. The proposed levy recovers less than one-tenth of the cash flow that has been lost due to the change in technologies. To give one last example: the cost of the NBN rollout increased by $2 billion in the corporate plan before last.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just a moment, Senator Kitching. Staff are not to come onto the floor of the chamber.

Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Government Accountability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The interest bill alone from that increase is nearly double what this levy raises.

Lastly, we recently learnt that, in the 2020 corporate plan, regional investment was quietly reduced by $200 million. This is despite the government incorporating revenues from this unlegislated levy into the NBN corporate plan. What this means is that, even after the government took into account the revenues this levy would raise, they went ahead and agreed to reduce funding for the regional fixed wireless network anyway. It raises a legitimate question: why are the government progressing a $7-per-month broadband tax in the name of regional funding while reducing regional NBN investment at the same time, and why did they try to conceal this funding reduction in the 2020 NBN corporate plan?

The tempered reality is the levy before this parliament will not have a material impact on the regional NBN funding profile. It adds $40 million to cross-subsidy revenues against an existing baseline of $800 million per annum. Further, it does not come close to offsetting the reduction in NBN cash flows resulting from the switch to an economically compromised multi technology mix. So you may be wondering: what is the primary purpose of the levy? Well, when you strip away all of the rhetoric, the minister wants to reduce competition with NBN by placing a tax on companies that compete with NBN. Reducing competition will in turn help protect the current revenues that NBN generates. Deterring unnecessary and counterproductive duplication of fixed-line infrastructure is important given the considerable investment taxpayers have made.

Labor has been upfront and consistent about its position on this. We do not want to see fixed-line networks over-building each other; however, the government doesn't have the decency to admit this is what this bill is actually about. On 28 November 2019, the Senate referred the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019 to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry.

Before I go to the bill, it's important to cover some of the history. Prior to the 2013 election, Mr Turnbull, the former Prime Minister, and others were running around encouraging private companies to compete directly with the government-owned entity. They didn't do this out of principle; they did this because they wanted to wreck the NBN. They wanted it to fail because it was a Labor concept. Then, 10 days after the 2013 election, TPG announced it wanted to expand a fibre-to-the-basement network in inner city areas to up to half a million homes. As you would expect, this created alarm both within NBN Co and within the government. They understood, as anyone with common sense would understand, if TPG began cherry-picking profitable parts of the fixed-line NBN footprint, then the economics of the project would become unstuck. This was not in the interests of taxpayers and it was not in the public interest given the NBN was at that point a reality.

The concept of what was to become the proposed broadband levy was considered as part of a government-initiated Vertigan review in 2014, which examined different options to offset NBN's losses in fixed-wireless and satellite networks. The minister has claimed that the government adopted this levy because it was a recommendation of the Vertigan review; that is not true. Allow me to quote what the Vertigan review report actually said:

By far the best option for funding any ongoing subsidy would be through consolidated revenue. Among other advantages, that would allow Parliament and the public to assess in an ongoing way the benefits of using taxpayer funds for this purpose rather than others. However, should that option not be adopted, the panel recommends that, if an ongoing subsidy is required and its minimum amount can be reliably determined, a single, annual, broad‐based industry levy, covering both voice and broadband services, be imposed to fund that subsidy. This would be similar to the current arrangements for the Universal Service Obligation (USO), which are outlined in Appendix 3.

Let us make two things clear. First, the Vertigan review did not recommend a levy on the industry and consumers as its first preference; its preference was funding from consolidated revenue. Second, the levy recommended by the review was a broad-based levy. The bill before us does not propose a broad-based levy. The government have designed a levy with a narrow base in order to produce a high charge. The reason they have done that is for the purpose of preventing competition.

The public then has to put up with the spectacle of the minister writing an op-ed pretending that the bill is about competition, and this brings me to an important point. The coalition have built an inferior NBN for $51 billion. This has cost taxpayers more than the original fibre network; it costs more to operate. The older technologies also require more future funding for upgrades that would not have been necessary under the original plan. At a speech to CEDA last year, the minister said:

We are going to need to rely on and boost competition to make sure that our fixed networks continue to upgrade and stay in tune with world developments.

Yet the legislation being proposed by the minister directly contradicts this statement. This bill is designed to achieve the exact opposite. With due respect, this is the sort of doublespeak you would expect to hear at a marketing seminar.

What this government is asking the telecommunications industry to believe is that a legislative package headlined by a broadband tax should be seen as a gift to improve competition. While it may be inconvenient to concede, the primary reason the government instigated the levy was to deter TPG from cherrypicking inner city basements given the negative impact this would have on the economics of the NBN. Most of the industry, including Labor, support that objective. Labor has always been up front about that; we do believe it is in the interests of taxpayers and in the public's interest yet, from the outset, the government has been too insecure to acknowledge this as an objective of their policy. Instead, to give the appearance of having a more neutral purpose, the levy was expanded into greenfield networks. The greenfield networks don't cause revenue leakage to NBN and if it wasn't for operators such as OptiComm, peak funding for the NBN build would be higher. Think about it: if private operators were not building fibre networks in these areas, NBN would have had to draw on more taxpayer funding to do so. How do a supposed pro-market, pro-investment Liberal Party reward these operators? They reward them with a tax on their operations and on their customers.

This levy was also extended to enterprise markets. Not only is there no revenue leakage to NBN Co, but we have a situation where NBN Co often causes revenue leakage to the incumbent. This was captured very well in a submission by Optus, which noted:

… the provision of services to enterprise and government customers over non-NBN networks does not displace any NBN Co revenue or preclude NBN Co from making sufficient revenue from its metro connections to internally cross-subsidy the fixed wireless and satellite networks.

Notwithstanding various concerns, Labor focused on introducing a legislative amendment to help grandfather existing greenfield networks built before 1 July 2019 until the policy could be revisited at a later time. We did not consider the retrospective application of the levy to be fair, as greenfield networks in newly developed estates did not pass the test of causing revenue leakage to the NBN Co.

I want to run through Labor's position on the bills. We are going to support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019. It's a sensible piece of legislation. We're going to introduce an amendment to require the levy modelling to be updated and a report to be produced within 150 days. (Time expired)

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on these two bills, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019. I just want to correct Senator Kitching in her claim that the coalition does not support the NBN. I totally reject that claim. In fact, when the coalition came into government in 2013 we inherited an absolute shambles. It was a shambles that any government should hang its head in shame over. We inherited an NBN that was full of promise but very light on action and implementation. It was first devised in 2007, but only 51,000 premises had been connected by the time we came into government in 2013. Since then, we have completely overhauled the NBN such that we are now on track to deliver the NBN on time to premises across Australia via a range of technologies which are not just one-size-fits-all but suited to the area and region, and certainly to regional Australia—the purpose for this bill—which is where I'm most focused and where my personal experience lies.

I support these bills for three key reasons. They make changes to the regulatory framework for telecommunications that will strengthen the provision of superfast broadband infrastructure across Australia, but particularly in our regions. They increase competition in both wholesale and retail markets and will lead to better outcomes for consumers, and they provide sustainable funding for essential broadband services in regional, rural and remote Australia.

I think we've all experienced, in the last few months, what it truly means to need to be connected. We're working from home and we have children who are doing school from home. It is really coming to the fore how important being connected is in this modern world and how important it will be, going forward, post-COVID-19, if we want to recognise and provide facilities for flexible working arrangements and provide more opportunity to Australians and to consumers.

I live in the bush. I've had my two children schooling from home, and I access the NBN through satellite. Without that service, there is no way that my children could be doing their schooling sufficiently or that I would be able to access and service my constituents and continue to work for my community in regional New South Wales. That is why it is so important we recognise that we need to be fair across all parts of Australia. We need to finish the NBN. We need to get it in place.

It is not just about ensuring that our children can go to school, however. Hopefully very soon, if we continue to flatten the curve, our children will be able to go back to school and we will be able to go back to work in whichever capacity is suitable for us. But regional, rural and remote Australia has its own challenges, and mental health is a significant issue right now. We have seen reports where, drastically, modelling shows that there is potential for increased suicides in the months and years going forward, post-COVID. Telehealth for mental health is so important and provides people with access to services that they may not otherwise be able to reach out for. That is why having good NBN with good internet services, supported by voice services—which these bills also require—is so important for our regional communities.

Our farms are becoming more and more technologically advanced and our regional communities are benefitting from being able to access information and market their commodities and products online. I now know of farmers who don't go to the saleyards anymore; they actually auction their cattle from the paddock and someone else buys it straight from the paddock. It's cutting down the stress for the animals, it's more efficient in marketing and it's bringing modern technology to the fore. That wouldn't be available without the NBN services that we have put in place since we came into government in 2013, and that supports and builds on our other investments in rural and regional communications, including the Mobile Black Spot Program, all of which our government is committed to to ensure our regions are not left behind.

How do these bills assist regional Australia? Firstly, they improve the regulatory framework for telecommunications companies, which will strengthen the provision of superfast broadband infrastructure in our regions. Schedule 3 of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 does this by setting out a new statutory infrastructure provider regime. Currently there is no existing requirement for NBN Co to connect premises to the National Broadband Network or to service them on an ongoing basis, into the future. This bill establishes an explicit statutory requirement for NBN Co—or another service provider, in certain circumstances—to connect premises to the National Broadband Network. NBN Co will be the default provider; however, there is now capacity for other service providers to become statutory infrastructure providers, or SIPs, where there is a contract that can provide for this. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, an independent authority, will enforce the SIP regime and will do so by maintaining a register of SIP areas and registered SIPs. So, regardless of whether it's NBN Co or another SIP that is the statutory infrastructure provider, they must, on reasonable request, connect a premise to either a fixed line network or a fixed wireless network or a satellite network.

Another requirement is that the wholesale services must allow retailers to provide broadband services at peak download transmission speeds of at least 25 megabits per second and a peak upload transmission speed of at least five megabits per second. That is higher than the ALP's 2007 election commitment of a peak download of 12 megabits per second. So we have delivered on the NBN. We are committed to completing the NBN, and we are committed to putting in place the structures needed to ensure the NBN will be delivered and maintained into the future.

In addition, SIPs must also supply wholesale services that allow voice services to end users. This addresses concerns, which we've had as a government, and feedback that when the copper network goes, when the copper wires go and when the landlines go there won't be voice services to people in the regions. That will no longer be the case, because this bill requires that those services must be provided to end users.

It gives a flexibility for the minister to make standards with regard to time frames for premises connection and rules for handling customer complaints and the ability to address issues, such as complaints between providers, that more often than not harm consumers. So we are addressing the concerns that have been brought to our government that were not addressed before, that were not addressed under the Labor model, and have now put in place a framework to help protect consumers. It gives industry and consumers confidence and certainty, and it deals with the significant issue of dealing with complaints in a structured way.

As a member of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network, I have seen many of these issues about service come to us, reported from a range of small businesses to local governments, private families and other consumers. This legislation gives the minister that ability to make the determinations that will give these consumers and customers better outcomes.

This legislation also increases competition in both wholesale and retail markets, and we all know competition benefits consumers. Schedule 1 repeals part 7 of the Telecommunications Act and associated provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act, which exempted certain large-scale networks from some access and non-discrimination obligations imposed by the ACCC. Furthermore, it created unnecessary complexity that made it difficult for the ACCC to intervene when required. Repealing part 7 gives the ACCC more flexibility to promote competition in the market. Schedule 2 of this package amends the carrier separation rules in part 8 of the Telecommunications Act, because part 8 requires networks to be wholesale only, but with a number of exemptions. The existing exemptions were for networks that existed prior to 2011 and have been extended by up to a kilometre, with the possibility of exemptions by ministerial instruments. It was confusing. It was introduced in 2011. However, since then, the range of exemptions that are available has meant competition in the marketplace has been distorted. Incumbents with larger networks that predated 2011 clearly benefited as investment by new entrants was restricted.

The amendments to part 8 seek to redress this lack of balance. There are six main changes to this part. Networks servicing small businesses will no longer be subject to the separation rules. This will promote the entry of new network providers into this market. Carriers can operate residential superfast networks on a functionally separated basis if approved by the ACCC, and this will promote investment in such networks. The ACCC will also be able to make class exemptions for small providers of up to 2,000 services. This will facilitate market entry and encourage the use of network technology most appropriate to the consumers' requirements. Services that are supplied on networks that are wholesale only or functionally separated will be subject to non-discrimination obligations to limit network providers' ability to favour their own retail operations. The enforcement regime will be made more effective by making the obligations civil penalties provisions rather than criminal penalties—which is currently the case—which gives the ACCC more enforcement options and allows for third party enforcement. And, finally, the one-kilometre exemption will be limited to networks that are being transferred to NBN Co under contract. This will remove carriers' ability to roll out large network extensions that are not subject to wholesale-only requirements and thereby form local access bottlenecks that reduce consumer choice. This measure will remove certain measures that limit market entry for smaller network providers, and it will thus bring more competition to benefit consumers.

As I said at the outset, the coalition is absolutely committed to the NBN. We will roll it out, we will complete its build, and then we will have a company, NBN Co, that is supported by the right legislation so that it can carry on into the future to maintain and service the network that we have built.

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the end of next month the rollout of the National Broadband Network will, in theory, be complete. It's the end of a very long road, one which supposedly began with a sketch on the back of a napkin in 2009, with a destination that looks now very different to what we first imagined. The long road was marked by a number of potholes, wrong turns and breakdowns, and you might expect policymakers to have learned from this experience. Unfortunately, looking at the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019, I suspect many of the lessons have gone unlearned.

The legislation makes a range of changes, and Centre Alliance is happy to support the majority of these. The superfast network rules, the statutory infrastructure provider regime and the transparency measures are sensible changes. My concerns are with the Regional Broadband Scheme. As with the NBN itself, I support the policy goal of the RBS. Too often, and with too many issues, Australians in regional areas are left behind. It is entirely appropriate that the government ensures all Australians can benefit from the superfast broadband, but I have concerns with how the government has decided to fund these services.

The scheme will be funded by a levy on broadband users amounting to $84 per year. This will add significantly and unnecessarily to the costs faced by low- and middle-income households. My first concern is with the amount. The amount comes from modelling undertaken in 2015, five years ago, which relied on cost estimates and market assumptions that were true at the time. A lot has changed in five years. The department assures us that nothing much has changed since then, but, if the original bill had passed in 2017, the charge would have been reviewed by the ACCC prior to implementation, and we would now be approaching its second review.

I understand the Labor Party intend to move an amendment which would require the ACCC to update the modelling. If they do indeed move such an amendment, Centre Alliance will certainly support it. I just do not understand why the government has not already done this or why it requires legislation to force it to do so.

My second concern is that the tax is targeted at users of fixed-line superfast broadband. NBN Co says the customers are already paying the tax, so this new tax will only affect the half-million households using other networks. But why does the government want to target these users?

My third concern is how technological change could undermine the funding base of the RBS. The modelling assumed few users would move from the fixed-line to wireless services because wireless couldn't offer the same data allowances. But, if you look at what's available now, it's clear wireless is already competitive with fixed-line services.

Once the tax is introduced, it will make fixed-line broadband more expensive, and some users will move to wireless services, there is absolutely no doubt. As customers go wireless, the RBS funding core will shrink, and eventually the government will have to recognise this funding method is not sustainable.

So I support the goal of the Regional Broadband Scheme but not the funding mechanism. I'm not alone in this. It is also the position of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Productivity Commission, Telstra, Optus, Vodafone and Vocus. But unfortunately it is not the position of this government.

When the RBS policy first appeared, and when it was revived last year, there were hopes the government would take the opportunity to reform the universal service obligation. The USO was last reformed in 2012 and now provides Telstra with almost $300 million a year with practically no strings attached. This money is paid to Telstra to maintain the copper network, which we know is becoming increasingly redundant, with no transparency or accountability.

A few years ago the Australian National Audit Office issued a scathing report about the USO agreement, and the Productivity Commission called for the scheme to be wound up. In an ideal world, the government would have listened to these concerns as well. They would have designed the RBS to replace the USO and reduced the burdens that weigh on the industry. Instead we have a scheme which makes broadband more complex and more expensive. At best, the Regional Broadband Scheme is a missed opportunity to ensure that Australians in regional areas have affordable access to telecommunication services. At worst, it is another last-minute patch job that will need to be fixed in due course.

Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Reliable, affordable communications are not a luxury or something that should just be afforded to people living in major population centres. The response to COVID-19 has demonstrated, like nothing else, our reliance on effective telecommunications networks and infrastructure. People have effectively worked from home, and I expect many will continue to do so for some time. This will be part of a different way of life as we adjust to a post-COVID world. To ensure all Australians are able to do this, we must overcome the digital divide between the cities and the bush. There is no guarantee that this legislation will do that.

I have these concerns because regional NBN investment was reduced by $200 million in the 2020 NBN corporate plan over the period from 2018 to 2022, despite the government's broadband tax being proposed in the name of regional funding. NBN Co sought to conceal this regional funding reduction, with the company subsequently offering contradictory explanations about what had occurred and why it had occurred. There is seemingly no mechanism that requires the surplus revenue from the government's $800 million annual broadband tax to be spent on regional networks. In practice, there remain legitimate concerns that, once the tax revenues flow into NBN Co, the company management can effectively direct surplus tax revenue towards anything they wish once it is washed through an offset account, regardless of whether the expenditure relates to a regional outcome or not.

The government is introducing a broadband tax in the name of regional funding while at the same time cutting regional NBN investment—a new tax that will not fix the problem this government created. Remember that the Liberal Party voted against universal broadband access in Australia; they voted against broadband in the regions. The Liberals stood by and did nothing as NBN Co overloaded its fixed wireless towers in regional areas, leading to slow speeds and congestion. This poor decision is costing more in the long run, and it is costing consumers in the regions most of all. For example, people who live in Alice Springs' rural area, less than 10 kilometres from Smith Street Mall in the main area, have to rely on satellite services for their digital access. These are people who run businesses. These are people who study, people who are students. They cannot access the same level of service as other residents of Alice Springs. Ironically, a new subdivision in the same area of town gets fibre to the premises to all homes, yet people who live across the road don't. Go figure.

And the digital divide is widening in the bush. Wi-fi use is increasing in remote communities, often exceeding data allowances, but the lack of access to good, basic digital infrastructure in the bush continues to be a roadblock to development. Community led innovative and creative projects and ideas are being developed and utilised by First Nations organisations, media and creatives. Community based content creation projects are strengthening language and culture and providing training and work opportunities. Programs that provide digital mentors to improve skills and awareness, such as inDigiMOB, are having really positive outcomes. Improved internet can lead to better opportunities for enterprise development and access to more affordable products and services. Better telecommunications services out bush can lead to jobs and economic development. Employment opportunities could open up in so many sectors, with improved access. I've heard telehealth spoken about here in the Senate. Well, let me tell you, we desperately need better services and access to that—and medicine, education and training, essential services, infrastructure support and media—out in our regional and remote areas.

First Nations Media Australia has long advocated for the urgent need to upgrade telecommunications services and infrastructure. First Nations media organisations are an essential service, underlined by the vital role they have been playing in crafting and broadcasting relevant and appropriate messages and content to their audiences during the response to COVID-19. We have used First Nations media to assist us in more than 100 Aboriginal languages to get the COVID-19 health messages out there. This is job creation. This is essential communication. I have no doubt that our First Nations media organisations across the country have played a major role in keeping our communities healthy and safe. I would like to extend to them my thanks for their hard work which often is not remunerated, certainly during this very challenging time across our country. If you haven't seen or heard some of the outstanding work that First Nations media workers have recently been doing, jump online and take a look. There are health related messages in a wealth of languages. There are songs in language to urge mobs to wash their hands. We had about 18 songs in language put together very quickly about the washing of hands—animations and short skits. The range of creativity and innovation is amazing and, in this instance, absolutely life saving.

The regional and remote First Nations broadcasters and media producers are being hampered by the lack of affordable and appropriate broadband. First Nations broadcasters need access to adequate and reliable broadband. Without it, the sector will not be able to realise its full potential in the new media landscapes. Digital technologies provide the opportunity for regional and remote broadcasters and media producers to significantly enhance their operations, creating jobs and supporting economic opportunities in regions where both are often limited. Contemporary broadcasting studios and transmission equipment are internet compatible, but broadband speeds in those communities are frustratingly slow—preventing access to even basic online services, let alone allowing for the sharing of large media files.

The main strength of our First Nations media organisations is that they are connected and local. We need to ensure that they keep this connectivity. Labor is committed to a sustainable funding arrangement to support and improve NBN services in regional Australia. There is no substitute for a first-class fibre NBN with sound, long-term economics to support a sustainable funding mechanism. Policymakers need to achieve a connected and inclusive digital future for remote regions. This includes improving affordability, digital literacy and cybersafety, as well as overcoming the infrastructure deficit. What is evident is the need for better mobile coverage and internet access. Labor considers that NBN should be able to compete on a level playing field. NBN has a unique obligation to service parts of the country that are unprofitable to serve. If it competes on an uneven playing field, it makes that task harder. We just need to be clear about what that playing field is. The amount of cross-subsidy available is to some extent dependent on how much revenue NBN generates in the fixed line footprint. When you switch from fibre, which can guarantee minimum speeds, to copper, which can't, you make that task more challenging, particularly over the medium to long term.

It was disappointing that, prior to the 2013 election, the Liberals encouraged other companies to deploy networks and compete directly against the NBN with full knowledge that this would undercut the NBN business model. They set out to make it incredibly difficult for the NBN and now want to introduce a tax to protect themselves against what they instigated. Universal broadband in Australia is an achievement of the Labor Party and the will of the Australian people. As we have done for over a decade, we will continue to put consumers and the regions front and centre in our policymaking.

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the two bills before the Senate, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 and the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019. I can indicate that the Australian Greens will support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2019 but that we do not support the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2019.

In general terms, the Australian Greens are absolutely committed to tech equity and also have a commitment to ensuring that all Australians have equal access to broadband, particularly those in regional and rural areas. We support the competition and consumer bill because we welcome the introduction of the statutory infrastructure provider obligations that will ensure minimum speed requirements of 25 megabits per second for Broadband users, irrespective of where they live. Of course, we also strongly support the funding of and rollout of the NBN to regional and rural Australia, but not as proposed by schedule 4 of the bill and the regional broadband scheme bill.

There's been a bit of politics played in the speeches that we've heard in here this evening. It's absolutely fair to say that, although there were some issues with the Labor rollout of the NBN, in terms of its vision and in terms of its capacity with significant redundancy to provide for the needs of Australians in relation to broadband well into the future, it was genuinely a nation-building project and one that the Labor Party should be congratulated for initiating—even though, as I indicated, there were some issues with the rollout, and things were going slower than many of us had hoped. In my home state of Tasmania, we've ended up—thanks to the foresight of former premier David Bartlett in bidding Tasmania in to be an early mover and an early adopter of the NBN rollout under a federal Labor government—in a better place than much of the rest of the country.

I also want to say that the current pandemic and the associated restrictions that have been put in place in Australia do show how broadband, and broadband at a reasonable speed, should be regarded as a critical and genuine public utility. I think many of us in this place have been working from home—of course, a large number of Australians have been working from home—and to do that without broadband that is reliable and has a reasonable speed is difficult. As we have moved towards a physical distancing regime in this country, it's actually broadband that has allowed many Australians to keep socially close to people even though they can't be physically close to them.

As I said, we do not support the regional broadband scheme bill because it's too narrowly targeted, it's too technology specific and it's not robust to changing telecommunications technologies. The scheme proposed in the regional broadband scheme charge bill unfairly targets people building new homes in outer suburban, greenfield housing areas, many of whom will be young families. It is technology specific, which may drive customers to alternative technologies, thereby further reducing the taxable pool of broadband consumers, and will, unfortunately for many, turn what should be a free or low-cost information superhighway into an information toll road.

Australia has the most expensive broadband of all OECD countries, and we should be seeking to improve affordability not reduce it—especially now, with more people unemployed, with more people seeking alternative work or study options and more people working from home as a result of the restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, it being 20 minutes past seven, I might ask you to take your seat. I understand that we have broad agreement that there is one motion to be moved before we adjourn.

Debate interrupted.