David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great opportunity to come and speak in the House today about the NBN and this MPI. I think the first thing you have got to remember is how the NBN came into being. You talk about cloud computing; well, this is really a plan right out of the clouds—literally. It started off as a plan from two government ministers—Minister Conroy and Prime Minister Rudd—on the VIP. They managed in 2010 to get a plan up to spend $4½ billion, and everyone was going to get a Rolls-Royce internet service. It was not their final cost of just under $30 billion; they sold it first in 2010 at $4½ billion, and you know what it is costing now.

Minister Conroy promised everyone a Rolls-Royce, but you were lucky to get a Hyundai. Look at the figures. Only two per cent of the Australian potential market was covered after three years and $6 billion. Many areas were serviced, but, when you scratched the surface, the service level was 'zero', which is an obscure way of saying 'nothing'. The Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia were not receiving any activity. The work in Western Australia and Tasmania had ground to a halt. The NBN then was only meeting 17 per cent of their targets. They promised one million users, and they delivered it—in another euphemism, 'passed by'—to 163,000 premises. That was not joined up.

Connections were estimated to cost between $2,200 each to maybe $2,500 each, but it was actually $3,600 before you added in the huge fee they paid to Telstra which meant each connection was costing $4,300. It was almost double what they estimated.

Rural demand was estimated at only 230,000 people. Blind Freddie would have known that that was a ridiculous estimate and it was at least 600,000, so no wonder the international satellite service was totally underwhelmed. Most people now get slower or just as good as dial-up speeds. It is pathetic. Thank goodness we have got a couple of satellites on the way. In fact, the first one is about to launch and, as of 1 October, there will be something circulating up there. Service will come on next year.

Another unique thing that has happened is it is actually making money. When the previous government was administering the system and the NBN had a different board, after all that $6 billion worth of spend they had the princely sum of $17 million income. That is a really amazing spend to get very little income. The latest figures reveal $164 million, and the trajectory as well as the service level are going up. We have got 1.2 million customers, including 283,000 fixed wireless customers.

Just a few words about NBN in the Lyne electorate: everyone knows that there are many areas in the Lyne electorate that are poorly served. That is why I have been beating a path to the now Prime Minister's door, and we have got some major wins on the board. The town of Taree, the beating heart of the Lyne electorate, on the banks of the Manning River with a bustling CBD area, in the previous plan was totally left out. They had a huge doughnut in the middle of their NBN fibre-to-the-premise plan. Thank God we were able to get that changed and now it is being rolled out as we speak. It is also going into Wingham and Cundletown, and there are over 4,000 business and homes already signed up, with another 4,800 homes and construction underway.

In fact, across the whole electorate there are 14,700 premises that can ring up now and ask to be connected to a service. In the rollout plan that has been announced for there will be another 22,000 premises. That is fantastic. I will mention a few of those areas. Just up the road from where I live in Wauchope there is Beechwood and King Creek. Then there is Black Head, Diamond Beach, Hallidays Point, Nabiac, Fernbank Creek, Riverside and Thrumster. And—hallelujah!—it is coming into Port Macquarie. We were not even on the radar of the previous plan for 10 years. This is the biggest commercial centre in the electorate, and it was not even covered. This is a great improvement. I commend the current Prime Minister's management of the NBN. It is a vast improvement.

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