Susan Lamb (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was only earlier this week that I spoke in this very chamber against this government describing hardworking men and women who are members of their unions as thugs. These 'thugs' are teachers; they are nurses; they are pharmacists; they are educators; they are hairdressers and they are baristas—they are the people the government are calling thugs. You would think the government would have a better understanding of thuggery, considering how NBN Co has treated vulnerable small businesses.

Earlier this month I held a small business roundtable to understand the impact of the government's mishandling of the NBN rollout and the impact it has had on our area. Of the countless stories disclosed to me by small businesses owners about the NBN process and how their businesses had suffered, one stood out. It was from a lady by the name of Joanne who manages the Golden Age Retirement Village. She said that the 'downgrade' to NBN had not only cut the reliability of her internet access but taken out her phone line. To her business the line was dead, but to a caller the line would just ring continuously. Because of this she was subjected to some really angry visits from people who thought she was simply ignoring their calls. Joanne was forced to take out some paid advertisements in the local paper to let locals know that the business was still open and had not closed down. She is now very concerned about how she is going to explain these charges that she has had to incur on behalf of the village and the countless hours and dollars that have been wasted to her business auditors when tax time rolls around. How do you explain wasted money even if you really had no choice at all?

But what has really scared the Golden Age staff is that most of the people that live there have some pretty significant health risks and there may be implications to their health from an unreliable communication system. It is absolutely inconceivable that somebody would do this. Joanne expressed these issues to NBN Co time and time again. NBN Co ignored her time and time again. They refused to accept responsibility. They refused to help. Finally, there was a glimmer of hope, though: they agreed to come out and meet Joanne at the facility. But then shortly after that those hopes were dashed because NBN did not show up to the meeting. What is quite remarkable is that after all of these months NBN Co finally went out and resolved this issue, and it was only just days after I had released a media release reporting these issues and the plight of Golden Age Retirement Village—and all of a sudden they came out! It is outrageous that they turn their backs on this vulnerable business that needed them, until they actually spoke out.

But to make matters worse, they did not just fix the issues and go on their way. Instead, the representative tried to intimidate this business into signing a disclaimer stating that the outages were caused by no fault of the NBN. How are we supposed to believe that the time lines for these outages, which began immediately following NBN Co's intervention and ceased when the team actually bothered to show up, are just a coincidence? How can we be expected to believe that? No reasonable person could be expected to accept that because this is what thuggery is—when NBN Co turn up and try to exploit vulnerable businesses and then bully and intimidate them when they try to speak up. This government should hang its head in shame on the rollout of the NBN. Instead of working for people, they have politicised what should have been the largest and most significant infrastructure project in our history but, instead, is slow, ineffective and an unreliable mess. We know costs have blown out significantly. Countless Australians, including many in my electorate, are still waiting for what they were promised would be delivered by 2016. And now, as Joanne has just experienced, NBN Co are resorting to bullying tactics to silence those who speak out against them. This government has failed small businesses. They have failed our hardworking families, and they are failing to build the infrastructure that our country needs for our future.

See this speech in context