Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to discuss the Abbott-Turnbull government's bungling of the National Broadband Network, particularly its multitechnology mix, MTM—or, as it is commonly referred to, Malcolm Turnbull's Mess. I think it is important that we revisit what has occurred with regard to the NBN under this government and, more importantly, the very real detrimental impact that it is having on residents and small businesses in my electorate. In April 2013 the now Prime Minister said he would build his version of the NBN for $29.5 billion. At the time he said his forecasts were conservative. In December 2013 he said his NBN would now cost $41 billion. At the time he said his forecasts were conservative and achievable. On 24 August 2015 he admitted that his NBN would now cost up to $56 billion, virtually double his original cost estimate.

But it is not only costs; look at delivery times. In April 2013 the now Prime Minister said that his NBN would reach every home in Australia by the end of 2016, but in December 2013 he admitted that this would not happen until the end of 2020. In his two years as the communications minister the now Prime Minister did not connect a single paying customer to his fibre-to-the-node network. According to Akamai Technologies, during the now Prime Minister's time as communications minister Australia slid in the global broadband rankings from 30th to 47th on peak connection speed. In April 2013 the now Prime Minister said that Australians with the worst broadband would get priority in the rollout, but in August 2015 he admitted that as of June 2018 about half a million premises he identified as having the worst broadband would still be waiting to get the NBN. In April 2013 the Prime Minister said that his version of the NBN would be more affordable, but at a time when housing affordability is at its worst this government introduced new charges to connect the NBN to new homes. The Urban Development Institute of Australia said about these charges:

… it is highly inequitable to expect new home buyers to pay potentially thousands of dollars in additional fees to connect to the NBN, when existing households will receive the network for free.

In opposition the Prime Minister indicated that his fibre-on-demand policy, where optic fibre would be provided to those who needed more bandwidth than copper could provide, would cost about $2,250. When the policy was released in 2014, it was revealed that the cost would be up to 'tens of thousands of dollars'—a most serious issue in areas such as mine with large greenfields developments.

You can see this is a Prime Minister who is big on talk, but absolutely hopeless on delivery when it comes to his National Broadband Network—an abject failure. And this is not just a theoretical argument; it has real world consequence and real world impacts on the individual and small businesses I represent who are crying out for high-quality broadband and who have been badly misled by this government. I will go through a few. Gary from Kings Langley said:

I'm not confident that the delivery of the NBN will benefit the people as this government hopes. For example: I have cable, which I believe is HFC. I also believe it's using DOCSIS 1. This technology can provide 48Mbps. Until recently I typically managed 8 to 20Mbps. However now I barely manage 1Mbps. So slow in the evening both FaceTime and Skype often exhibit poor performance or outage.

Joseph from Glenwood said:

I'm required to travel to Manila to attend workshops with my team every two months and not having a reliable internet connection is painful when I have trouble Skyping with my family.

Stephen from Kings Langley said:

As with a lot of Kings Langley residents we are limited even on ADSL2 lines as we are at the maximum length of the copper lines. With the ADSL technology, the further you are away from the exchange on a copper line, the slower the signal gets. The majority of Kings Langley is supplied from the Blacktown exchange, some 4kms away, so even with ADSL2 plans we can only achieve a bit better than standard speeds. With children in mid teens to late teens a faster service for home would be beneficial with further education past school.

This has been the lived experience of my constituents and many others around the country under this Malcolm Turnbull mess. This is what all those policy mistakes and broken promises translate to on the ground.

I am pleased to see Mike Quigley, the former CEO of nbn co, has finally decided to personally contradict the rubbish that was thrown at him by the Prime Minister, who has demonstrated a nasty habit of slandering people he does not agree with when it comes to this issue. Mike Quigley did not miss. He was absolutely spot on in surgically taking apart every single false argument that this Prime Minister has put on his NBN and exposing how hopeless it.