Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister said when he came in that his ministers were going to get Christmas Day off but they were going to have to work all over the Christmas and New Year holidays. Of course, they all had a holiday and went to other places. But the reality is that they are going to have to work very hard over Christmas this year because they have 36 days to start digging the trenches, to start putting up the towers and to start doing the work. But, of course, that is a nonsense, because the tenders have not even closed.

Labor’s $4.7 billion national broadband network was their single biggest election pledge in infrastructure—$4.7 billion. It was going to be a communications revolution. And we all know about the associated policies that hang off that promise, such as a computer for every student and Australia being some kind of global financial headquarters. They promised fibre to the node to 98 per cent of the Australian population. Let us not hear any further backslipping on these promises, revising of what was actually said. It is all clearly on the record; it is all clearly in Labor’s election manifesto—98 per cent of Australians were to have fibre to the node.

Pre-election, Labor much depended upon this network being seen by voters as a building block to Australia’s future. Post-election, the nation much depends upon Labor getting this right. But, sadly, Labor’s plan was flawed from the start. It was only a stunt, an attempt to trump what was already happening and what was being provided by the coalition. They did not realise that, instead of a mix of technologies, they were going to provide just a single technology: fibre to the node. They thought that it worked for everyone. That of course is fine, and I am sure everybody would love to have fibre to the node. If Labor honour their election promise of 98 per cent of Australians getting fibre to the node and getting it on time, I will be the first to congratulate them—and I will be particularly keen to congratulate them if they can do it for $4.7 billion.

Korea, I am told, spent $40 billion to deliver fibre to the node, and that is a little country. But this miraculous government is going to do it for the whole of Australia for just $4.7 billion. Nowhere in Labor’s plan before the election was there anything about dealing with those areas out of the reach of fibre. There was no mention of satellite services at all. Wireless seemed an afterthought rather than a genuine part of their solution. That $4.7 billion is of course nowhere near enough money to fund the promise that they have made. The speed of Labor’s network was going to be just 12 megabytes per second and it was going to cost more than $100 a month. So Labor’s plan was slower and much more expensive than what the coalition was already delivering. Labor offered slower speeds, more expensive connections and delivery of their broadband years later.

Labor was in fact duplicating today’s technology in the cities, where our plan would provide new generation technology across the nation and, in particular, to areas that do not have access at the present time. We all know that Labor said that tenders were going to be concluded within six months of the election, construction would be underway by the end of 2008 and the entire network would be operational by 2013. No part of Labor’s plan did anything about the future-proofing of the network. There was nothing there to look after delivery of new technologies—maybe technologies that have not even yet been invented—or to future-proof telecommunications in those areas where the services might otherwise be uneconomic.

Indeed, Labor’s plan was to steal the money from the Communications Fund, to try and move it across to Building Australia to be spent to prop up flagging state budgets for their infrastructure projects. The money that was promised to people in rural and regional Australia as a part of the proceeds of the sale of Telstra—that was put aside in perpetuity so that the interest would be available every year for technology—has been stolen by this government and moved across to be spent on antiquated technology or on propping up state budgets that cannot be balanced. They have no long-term plan and had no forethought. They were offering Australians yesterday’s or today’s technology with no thought about what was going to be done in the future.

Where are we now with Labor’s plan? Tenders are supposed to close tomorrow. Tomorrow we will know whether there are any tenderers at all. We will know what consortia are willing to be involved. But the hopelessly confused manner in which this process has been conducted does not give anyone much faith. It is six months behind schedule and it is a shambles. No-one tendering has any idea what the rules are, what arrangements are going to be in place. How can you possibly tender for a project that will cost $10 billion, $12 billion or $20 billion if you do not know what the rules are? Yet Labor are asking people to go in blindfolded, put their money on the table and then be opened up to some kind of scrutiny as to how it might work. As the shadow minister for communications, Senator Nick Minchin, said just recently, we have:

… the ridiculous situation where proponents are expected to lodge their bids, in a difficult and uncertain economic environment, without the Government providing any detail or clarity in relation to regulatory arrangements, including access and pricing.

Senator Minchin also said:

Self-imposed project deadlines have been broken, the Government’s Request for Proposals farce has been widely condemned and there are genuine concerns this process will end in a train wreck.

It is unbelievable that … Senator Conroy expects proponents to fly blind into the starters’ gate.

Today, like many others, I guess, I received a package of information from Telstra which follows on from earlier public statements made by Telstra, the largest telecommunications carrier in our nation. They say that they will not bid if the government leaves open the possibility of functional or structural separation of the successful bidder. I can only take Telstra at their word. They have said it often enough. The government has not responded to their concerns.

Whatever you think about structural separation or its merits, why would a potential bidder such as Telstra be prepared to put their money on the line if they did not know what the rules would be? Why should Australia’s second largest company have to enter into a bidding process when they do not even know what the ground rules are? Why would TERRiA bid, when they do not have a clue what access other carriers will have to the system or what their role or capacity to participate in the arrangement will be? Why would Axia NetMedia bid? Why would any of those companies be involved when it is quite clear that the government do not know what they doing? They could have no confidence in their competence to actually address this sort of issue.

Kevin Day, a former adviser to the ALP on communications, told the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network that this process was ‘fatally flawed’. He said we might have a winner but the business case would rest on regulatory conditions that are not yet determined and that ultimately may be the responsibility of parliament to frame.

The better part of next year will be gone before we have any idea who is going to be the successful tenderer. There will have to be negotiations on critical issues like access and pricing. There will be dispute settlement mechanisms to deal with. There will be drafting, debating and passing of legislation. There will be partnership arrangements. Labor has taken over a year to bring its industrial relations legislation into the parliament—it arrived only today. This is the heart and core of the very existence of the Labor Party and it took them a year to do that. How many years is it going to take them to complete their tender negotiations for the broadband network—if they get any tenders at all?

Both sides of politics went into the last election campaign offering a national broadband network. I think it is fair to say that everyone in the House recognises how important fast and reliable communications are for the majority of Australian consumers and businesses. The internet is a place of information, a place to catch up with family and friends and of invaluable assistance to businesses in the 21st century. For people living in more remote areas of Australia in particular it is a lifeline; for others who are shut in it is their connection with the rest of the world.

The coalition in government had an impressive record as we worked with industry to provide the best possible service to the largest number of Australians. According to the Bureau of Statistics there are now more than 7.2 million internet connections in Australia, 78 per cent of which are broadband. But as always there is much more that needs to be done and time does not stand still for anyone. That is why we acted before the election to deliver a fast broadband plan to all Australians. Now all of that has come to a halt.

I urge Labor to rethink its plan to scrap the $2 billion Communications Fund. That is essential to keep faith with regional Australians. I urge Labor ministers to think beyond their tiny city electorates, to think of those people who have no broadband now and to get on with the job of delivering to all Australians this basic form of communication. Australia cannot afford another bungle of the scale that is looming on a national broadband network. What we want down the track is a broadband system that works. It should be there now; Labor must get on with it.

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