Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of NBN Co Limited's Report for 2019-20.

The reason I really want to focus on this particular report is that there's an amazing community of great business people, great community-minded people who live on the Central Coast at a place called Mangrove Mountain. Madam Acting Deputy President, you may not have ever visited, but—

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed you have! As a great New South Welsh woman, I'm glad to see you have been there. It became an orchard area after World War II and many returned veterans were given land there. The community is a tight-knit one. Even though they are only less than 100 kilometres away from the middle of the CBD in Sydney, they have terrible difficulty with getting NBN access.

I held a community meeting there towards the end of last year, and the response that they've received from NBN Co was appalling. It took a phone call to the CEO to get some action and attention on this community that really were promised by this government that they would have access to 21st century technology. There was one consultation with the community just before Christmas. But from the reports that I'm receiving, NBN Co is still not meeting the needs of that community. There are businesses that are connecting together in some sort of weird and wonderful way with mobile phones to try and get enough signal to be able to do the banking that they need.

This is just a disaster for this community. It's costing jobs, it's costing mental health in that community and it's a very, very big problem. That's why today's revelation that Mr Morrison and his government have actually allowed $78 million worth of taxpayers' money to be spent on what they call, in their response to a question on notice, 'short-term incentives'—not bonuses; they don't want to call them 'bonuses'. That is $78 million going to people for doing a good job at NBN Co. It's not a good job if you can't actually access technology and you can't run your business and you can't communicate with your neighbours when there's a fire roaring up a valley. It's not doing a good job when 238,000 premises—that we know of—still can't access the minimum guaranteed NBN speeds that are required by law. We could have a long debate about how inadequate that setting is that this government have accepted. They told us—they told all Australians—that all you'd need are 25 megabits per second and that would be fine.

Senator Pratt interjecting—

Senator Pratt is giving it the voice it deserves—cackling laughter! It is laughable what this government have set as the standard and they haven't even been about to meet that! I'm very, very concerned that all those people who are on what they call 'service class 0', which means you get nothing, are actually at a point where they are being served now by a board that's giving out bonuses to the tune of $78 million. Why it concerns me, why it is directly relevant to this government and why we should sheet it home to them is that every year—as reported in the annual report that's up for discussion today—the government is provided with a prepared corporate plan which they have to sight and accept. This is a government owned entity. The government has oversight over it. Very sadly, the relevant minister, Minister Fletcher, simply is out of his depth, allowing a company that's failing to that degree in terms of service delivery. That's to say nothing of the myth that was the funding allocation that the government said was going to be their pricing of the NBN. People cannot let the government get away with that. They said they'd deliver the NBN for $29 billion. Well, that went way out the window. They said it was going to cost $29 billion. The next thing we know is that no-one wants to invest in it. They brought in another $20 billion and we ended up with $41 billion. Now, after a lot of tooth-pulling, we've got to the truth of it: at the moment, it stands at $57 billion. The people of Mangrove have got nothing, but those bonuses and short-term incentives are flowing to the people at NBN Co. This is mismanagement by this government.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill, your time has expired.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the NBN Co annual report for 2019-20. I have to say that the myths perpetuated in this report do not match the reality of what NBN Co is delivering on the ground, but I'm pleased to see that they've disclosed their remuneration. I couldn't see if they had disclosed specifically the bonuses, but it does put in context the importance of the information that is provided to us in this place.

We have seen in debates over the course of this week that NBN Co has been at the centre of a failure of accountability by the government. We've discussed the corporate plan, and here we have an opportunity to reflect on the annual report, which again does not demonstrate a delivery of the Australian government's commitments to the Australian community in relation to a fast and affordable broadband service. In the questions that the opposition have been asking of the government, we've been seeking information that was regularly published prior to the backflip on the previous position on copper. But today we find that the same information that NBN Co were happy to publish in documents like this annual report, their strategic plan and answers to questions on notice they are now claiming as commercial-in-confidence.

This is a ridiculous position for NBN Co and the government to take. This information shouldn't be commercial-in-confidence. It's actually about this government and NBN Co refusing to be accountable for their commitments to the Australian community about how many connections they would have over time but also how much money they have spent in delivering those commitments. In this report, can we find information about matters such as peak funding, cash flow profile, debt profile, cost blowouts, costs associated with Fletcher's copper backflip and how much of Prime Minister Morrison's broadband tax is actually going to go to regional Australia?

We should be looking to documentation like this annual report for transparent information about the delivery of this program, but we find day after day that when the government don't like the data, when the data and information requested by this parliament is inconvenient to the government, they are happy to hide it, but when the data does not pose an inconvenience they're happy to let it out. It doesn't tell the truth to the Australian people and the Australian users of telecommunications services and the National Broadband Network. In the annual report there should be transparent information about the nature of cost blow-outs and how they've occurred, but instead we've got a government that wants to see such information reclassified as commercial-in-confidence, so you might see the actual figures but you can't see a good explanation of the reasons.

Why would this government be concealing data that has previously been published? The simple reason is it's a failure of this government, who don't want to be scrutinised, and it's a failure of Minister Fletcher, who refuses to be accountable for his ongoing cost blow-outs. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.