Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last week, NBN Co announced it was halting the HFC rollout of the Prime Minister's second-rate NBN. Can the Prime Minister advise just how many hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayers' money is being wasted by his latest failure?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can tell the honourable member that there are billions and billions of dollars being saved by not doing the NBN in the way the Labor Party had proposed to do—that is, $30 billion in savings and six to eight years in terms of time to complete it. The reality is that the NBN is one of the fastest rollouts of a telecom network ever. It is extraordinary—40,000 premises being activated just about every week. As of the last published data, 6½ million premises are available to be connected right now—that is, people can sign up and get hooked up now—and there are 3¼ million paying customers right now. It is an extraordinarily rapid rollout.

Of course, like any big rollout like that, it has its challenges in some areas. What NBN Co is doing with respect to hybrid fibre-coax, which is about 350,000 premises at present, is making sure the technology works well. It is a complex business rolling out this network. They are doing an outstanding job and they are making sure they put the customers' experience first. Honourable members opposite, and the media, will focus on a number of cases where people have not had a great experience. The NBN Co is focused on fixing those, addressing those, and ensuring that everybody gets an outstanding service. The company is doing a phenomenal job, but it will do an even better job. It will keep working to improve its service, to improve customer experience, in this the most rapid telecom rollout in our country's history. We inherited a train wreck from the Labor Party. We've rescued it. It was a complete train wreck. Honourable members opposite can scoff. In six years they activated 50,000 premises. The NBN Co right now is doing 80,000 every fortnight. That tells you how incompetent they were. We are getting on with the job and cleaning up their mess. Where service levels have been disappointing—and they have been in some areas—they are going to be addressed. We'll put the customers first to make sure they get the best service.

On that note, I will ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.