Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

What a measure of chutzpah. What a measure of sheer, brazen effrontery it takes for the Labor Party to stand up and criticise the coalition on the NBN. This is like somebody who has crashed his car who runs away and then comes back to the scene later to berate the tow truck driver about how he is doing the fix-up job. So passionate are Labor about this topic, so effective has the member for Blaxland been as a spokesman on this topic that he has asked only three questions of the Minister for Communications in two years of government! Only one of them was about the NBN and, fascinatingly, it was about a 1923 wooden boat co-owned by the minister and an NBN executive. This is extraordinary. The member for Blaxland seems to be keen on prompting discussion about conspicuous areas of Labor failure and coalition success, boats and NBN. We are doing what you failed to do. We are stopping the boats and we are delivering the NBN.

We inherited a hopeless mess. Labor took a plan to the 2007 election, promising 12 megabits per second, fibre to the node—a private sector government joint venture, $4.7 billion of government money only. But, of course, they hopelessly failed to execute on that plan. Their plans collapsed and, by April 2009, they were forced to go for the double-or-nothing strategy, shock and awe. So, as is now well-known, on a VIP flight between Melbourne and Brisbane, the only time that the then broadband minister, Senator Conroy—now supposedly the shadow minister for defence, but his main priority seems to be shadow minister for defending his broadband legacy—had a chance to catch the then Prime Minister, on the back of a beer coaster with no detailed analysis they came up with a plan for a 100 megabit per second network. This was a chaotic failure of public administration. The eminent public servant Bill Scales was commissioned to conduct an independent audit of the NBN public policy process, and he had this to say:

The public policy process for developing NBN Mark II was rushed, chaotic and inadequate, with only perfunctory consideration by the Cabinet. After just 11 weeks of consideration, the Government had decided to establish a completely new 'start-up' company … There was no business case or any cost benefit analysis, or independent studies of the policy undertaken …

It was one of the worst pieces of public policy execution we have ever seen in Australia. But, supposedly, according to then Prime Minister Rudd: 'Not to worry. There will still be private sector investment and the mums and dads should consider investing in the bonds that will be issued to fund it.' What a grossly irresponsible thing to say. Surprise, surprise! When the implementation report came out a year later, it turned out that the private sector experts, McKinsey and KPMG, said, 'Oh, forget about that bit where there's going to be private sector investment because this plan is so hopeless that the private sector would not touch it with a barge pole.'

Of course, they had nobody with any experience of telecommunications on the board. The chairman of the board was an investment banker. The chief executive was not somebody from a telecommunications operator background; he was, instead, somebody from a telecommunications vendor background—a critical difference, one absolutely lost on the then minister who has no private sector experience.

What did they actually deliver in government? They delivered a lot of glossy brochures, a lot of press releases, a lot of media events and a lot of promises but not much actual network. They consistently missed milestones. By the time we came to government in September 2013, after six years they had achieved a mere 348,000 premises of the 2.2 million premises that were supposed to be passed. So we saw a chaotic and incompetent approach on the part of the previous government, and they had the extraordinary chutzpah to criticise the diligent and successful delivery, which has characterised the approach of the former Minister for Communications and now Prime Minister, who has done an extraordinary job of turning it around.

Let us look at where we up to, a mere two years after coming to government—now 1.32 million premises are able to connect. That is more than triple what Labor achieved in six years. There has been a step-change in rollout speed. Some 13,000 premises per week are now being regularly passed, as this rollout scales up to an industrial-scale operation—systematic and businesslike. With the corporate plan just released, there is a credible and well-developed path forward to 75 per cent of premises being able to connect to this network by mid-2018. In achieving that extraordinary turnaround, which in years to come I am certain will be a business-school case study, we have seen very detailed analysis conducted with the strategic review to understand actually what the issues are.

The former Minister for Communications appointed competent, experienced people to the board. What a good idea! Let's have some people on the board who actually have some experience in the telecommunications industry—not particularly revolutionary, you would have thought, but not something that Labor bothered to do. We put onto the board Ziggy Switkowski, the former chief executive of both Telstra and Optus; Justin Milne, a very experienced internet executive at OzEmail and Telstra; Simon Hackett, the former chief executive of Internode.

Mr Clare interjecting—

Isn't the member for Blaxland surprised that we would have on the board somebody who would give a full and nuanced view? We want expertise and we want people to give their views and then we form a view. Under Labor, of course, already he would have been sent off to a re-education camp. He would be incurring thought re-education if Labor were in power. They just cannot understand our approach, which is to get the expertise we need to get the job done.

The minister carried out a spectacular success in renegotiating the deals with Telstra and Optus. I spent eight years of my professional life before coming into this parliament as a senior executive at Optus, on a near daily basis dealing with Telstra and negotiating with Telstra. It is tough job. Telstra has a very, very capable executive team. Under the previous government, then Minister Conroy got absolutely taken to the cleaners by Telstra. He had no idea what he was doing. It took the present Minister for Communications—the present Prime Minister—to turn it around. It is a spectacular achievement. Of course, the approach of openness and transparency that we have now seen—

Ms Rowland interjecting—

Mr Clare interjecting—

Mr Husic interjecting—

The rollout numbers are published every week! There is nothing to hide. It is all out there. There is a culture of transparency that NBN has been directed to achieve. This is an ambitious project with a lot to do and we have always been very clear about it. There has been an enormous amount achieved. Revenue has risen from $17 million in 2013, the last full year that Labor had control of NBN, to $164 million in the year just completed. So revenue is ramping up, connections are ramping up and the rollout is ramping up. We have 283,000 premises now passed by fixed wireless, up from 39,000 when we came to power. The first satellite is due to launch on 1 October, with services to commence by halfway through next year. So there is sustained progress and sustained delivery.

Let me make the point that the NBN is really a very telling insight into two different approaches on two different sides of the parliament. Labor think it is all about the announcement: they whip out the press release and that is all they need to do. Government is about delivery. Labor announced the fibre-to-the-premises plan in 2009. They had no idea how to deliver it. A few weeks ago, they announced that now their RET—their renewable energy target—is 50 per cent. The have no idea how to deliver it. They promised free trade agreements for years, without delivering them. They promised that they could stop the boats. They said, 'The Malaysian solution is going to fix it. The regional processing centre is going to fix it,' and they never delivered it.

On this side of the parliament, we are about a sensible plan and about execution and delivery: free trade agreements with Korea, Japan and China—delivered; stopping the boats—delivered; an NBN rollout with a relentless focus on delivery, and in two years we have tripled what Labor managed to achieve in six years of government. The Australian people expect their government to deliver. What they have seen, when it comes to the NBN, is the Minister for Communications—now the Prime Minister—leading a relentless focus on execution, with a credible strategy based on the detail and getting the job done so that the number of people who are able to connect and who are able to get the service is steadily rising. There is a credible path forward so that by mid-2018 75 per cent of premises around the country will be able to connect to the network. This is the systematic, business-like, fact based, rational approach of the Minister for Communications as he remains and, as the Prime Minister, as he now is. He has delivered a remarkable turnaround on the chaotic incompetence that we inherited from Labor when it came to the NBN. We will see the same approach across all of government as the Minister for Communications becomes the Prime Minister.

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