Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is interesting listening to the contribution by the member for Solomon, the very strong Tony Abbott supporter who must be licking her wounds, feeling very sorry for herself and working out how she can possibly survive under the current regime.

The Turnbull government has failed to deliver its second-rate broadband on time and within budget. The rollout of the Turnbull government's fibre to the node and copper to the home is much slower than we were promised, and it has had a number of problems. There is not enough information going out to people in areas where the NBN will be rolled out, and there is very little understanding within the community in relation to the NBN.

I am one of the very fortunate members of parliament, in that the NBN is being rolled out within the Shortland electorate. One of the first places that fibre-to-the-node and copper from the node to the home was turned on was Belmont. My office is there and numerous workers on the rollout came over and told me about the problems that they were having with the copper wires. It was supposed to be turned on in July and it was finally turned on on 21 September. On 22 September, the shadow minister for communications visited the Shortland electorate and we had a number of forums. Overwhelmingly, within the area where it had been rolled out, there was lack of understanding and lack of knowledge. People did not know what it meant. I have to say that the government has done a very, very poor job of informing people, a very, very poor job of delivering on time and a very, very poor job of keeping within budget.

The cost has blown out. We were promised a second-rate NBN for a price of $29.5 billion and now the cost has escalated to $56 billion. What is the explanation? I do not believe there has been a satisfactory explanation delivered to the people of Australia on this enormous cost blow-out. All we have is rhetoric; all we have is a second-rate broadband that is not delivering what it was promised to do. We are having a broadband rolled out that is going to be obsolete by the time it is finished being rolled out across Australia, and that is not cost-effective.

In the Shortland electorate, the residents of Swansea have the worst access to broadband, where broadband is available, in Australia. I know members of the House will be very surprised to learn that the one area that is missing on all the rollout plans is Swansea. People cannot access ports on the ADSL, because there are none available, and the NBN is something that exists in the ether. It is not good enough. I mentioned it to the Prime Minister when he was shadow minister and his answer was, 'They'll get it eventually.'

One of my constituents sent me an email after he read an article in The Australian. He said:

The FTTN—

that is, fibre-to-the node—

trials had delivered ... speeds of 100Mbps & upload speeds of 40Mbps.

But that is if you are really close. He will be more than 700 metres away. He said:

For the remaining 10% download speeds could fall to 25Mbps.

So it is delivering a second-rate service to these people. The nbn co is conducting a promotion in the Shorthand electorate this week. They doing it at Charlestown in the electorate, which is an area where construction of the NBN starts at the end of 2016. That is not good enough. There is no understanding of the area and people are not being delivered what they were promised would be delivered by the Turnbull government. (Time expired)

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