Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today with good news for tens of thousands of people in my electorate of Macarthur. Thanks to the tremendous work of the Minister for Communications, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, and his lovely staff, 20,900 premises in Macarthur are due to start NBN construction in coming months. The suburbs included in the 2016 rollout are Airds, Bradbury, Rosemeadow, St Helens Park, Ambarvale, Campbelltown, Englorie Park, Glen Alpine, Blair Athol, Blairmount, Claymore, Eagle Vale, Woodbine, Kentlyn and Ruse.

Superfast broadband will help local businesses in these areas innovate and explore new and exciting online opportunities. It will create more flexibility for people to work from home, for students to do their homework or just watch high-definition movies without interference from slow speeds or patchy service.

In earlier deployments, NBN technology has delivered average speeds of 91 megabits per second and upload speeds of 36 megabits per second. Those speeds would allow someone to stream up to 18 high-definition Netflix movies simultaneously. Delivering these kinds of speeds to millions of premises across the country is truly a staggering achievement.

Labor spent $6.5 billion on the NBN but only managed to deliver broadband to two per cent of premises nationwide. When announcing the NBN, then Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Conroy promised the rollout would be complete by 2018 and would cost the government no more than $26 billion. The latest strategic review into the NBN found the project under Labor would not have been finished until 2025—10 years from now. Labor failed to meet every rollout target it set itself. A policy audit of Labor's NBN found its project relied on flawed advice and was created from scratch in only 11 chaotic weeks.

When the coalition inherited the project, we found that construction had stopped in Tasmania and had all but stopped in Western Australia and South Australia. By introducing a range of innovative strategies and hybrid technologies, the Abbott government has managed to avert disaster. Since coming to office, the coalition has worked with NBN Co to dramatically expand and accelerate the NBN rollout. Now the number of Australians with access to superfast broadband has increased ninefold. The NBN is now available to over one million premises nationwide. By September 2016, the NBN will have passed or construction will have started on more than three million homes and businesses or a total of one in four premises.

The NBN rollout in Macarthur is an important milestone for my electorate. It is something that people have been crying out for for years, but under Labor the experience was one of disappointment and frustration. We were told the NBN would revolutionise connectivity and offer a new range of online services and applications, yet its construction was painfully slow, if not virtually non-existent. I am delighted that thanks to the Abbott government 20,900 homes in Macarthur are now being connected sooner and at less cost to taxpayers than Labor would have achieved. I look forward to making further announcements for Macarthur as we get on with the job of rolling out the NBN.