Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Monday I held an NBN forum in my electorate of Franklin, along with the member for Lyons, Brian Mitchell, and Senator Catryna Bilyk. We had over 120 people come to talk to us about the issues they are having with the NBN. The shadow minister for communications, Michelle Rowland, spoke at the forum and talked to people about the issues that we are having in my electorate.

Two-thirds of people in my electorate have fibre to the premise but unfortunately some of them have fibre to the node, and we are getting a litany of complaints about fibre to the node. We are getting people saying they have been sold certain speeds but they could have got better on ADSL2+. We have people saying they were told their suburb was going live last October but they are still not able to connect. They have been told there is additional work but nobody can tell them what the work is or when it will occur. Indeed, one of my constituents said: 'Is this the 21st century service we were promised? We are behind Kazakhstan and Timbuktu—it's ridiculous!'

It is one big mess. Small businesses are going bankrupt and there is suffering and misery as people wait around for a proper NBN and the 21st century service that we were promised. There is great concern in my electorate. I have been overwhelmed with emails from constituents, both prior to and since the forum. Indeed, it even got a run—almost a full page—in the local Murdoch press. There is such concern in the community that the newspaper recognised that so many people in Tasmania are suffering with this second-rate fibre to the node.