Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the major problems with internet connections in my electorate of Corangamite. As we know, the NBN was meant to solve most of our communications problems—particularly those of rural and regional areas of Australia. But it was no less than an unmitigated disaster under Labor.

After three years, Labor's NBN was two years behind schedule. The cost, as we now know, was going to rocket to $79 billion—$29 billion more than Labor promised it would cost. So far, very disappointingly, after four years and $6.4 billion in funding, the NBN has reached just three per cent of Australian premises. Minister Turnbull famously described the NBN under Labor as an 'arthritic snail'.

Even more disappointingly, no basic cost-benefit analysis was done by Labor on the NBN. The NBN was not undertaken with even a basic understanding of the availability of broadband—where the good areas were and where the deficient areas were. As a member representing an important rural and regional part of Australia, I know that the availability of broadband is incredibly important.

In addition to all of these failures, in 2012, when Labor announced its rollout, the NBN excluded most of Corangamite, including the southern suburbs of Geelong—Grovedale, Waurn Ponds, Marshall, Highton and Belmont—and important centres such as Colac. When the rollout plan was updated in May 2013, these critical areas were still left out.

Labor's rollout of the NBN was completely political; the only map that Labor looked at for its NBN rollout was the electoral map. There is very strong evidence that most of Corangamite was left out of the NBN purely due to politics. The former member for Corangamite, Mr Darren Cheeseman, had attacked former Prime Minister Gillard on her leadership, and the very strong evidence is that the exclusion of Corangamite from the NBN was a political payback. Of course, the people who suffered were the people of my electorate.

I am very proud that last week we launched the MyBroadband website and a full broadband availability and quality report. For the first time, Australians have access to a map which shows how good or bad broadband is in their area. It is quite incredible that Labor did not do such basic work. An article in December last year in the Geelong Advertiser and written by Greg Dundas was titled 'second-rate internet', and that is exactly what my electorate has. That is why I am fighting very hard for the NBN to come to my electorate. The Geelong map of ADSL quality is reproduced in it, and you can download it too. It really tells the story—it shows that, in places such as Highton and Marshall in particular, broadband is abysmal.

We are getting on with the job of delivering the NBN in a methodical and systematic way. The next step we will take is the introduction of a speed test by which local people can go to the MyBroadband map of their electorate and check the speed of their internet connection. The data created will be sent straight to the Department of Communications. With this data, the department will be able to track the internet connection speed of everyone, including the local people in my electorate of Corangamite. It is a wonderful initiative which will be available in a month or so. Today I am calling on everyone in Corangamite who has poor or slow broadband to do the speed test so that we have the data and can assess what we need to do in various areas.

One of the most critical parts of our NBN—and we are very proud of this—is that areas where there is deficient broadband will be prioritised. Unfortunately, Labor did not think that putting such areas first.

What we are doing is calling out to all Australians and saying, 'Where are the poor areas? Where are you suffering? Frankly, you need attention more than anyone else.' That is what we are going to do. Our government under Minister Turnbull will be directing the NBN Co to prioritise those areas. In Geelong and other parts of my electorate—Inverleigh, Bannockburn, Torquay—we have many deficient areas. I am very proud of the wonderful work we are doing to progress the NBN.