Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My colleague the member for Bass is here, and it commenced at Scottsdale, I believe. It also commenced in my electorate, in the beautiful township of Smithton, where they are doing some extraordinary telecommunications work on wireless technologies as well. It is going to benefit the rest of regional Australia when all of this fantastic stuff comes out. It also commenced at Midway Point, Sorell, in the electorate of Franklin in Tassie. So the NBN is on a roll. I have had the privilege of seeing the NBN in operation. It is awesome, not only just for speed but for the clarity of the images. It was just wonderful stuff, and I really look forward to its application to a whole raft of things and for people and organisations.

The bill limits the NBN Co. to wholesale only telecommunications activities, as we promised, including in relation to the supply of services and goods and also investments. It establishes powers to enable functional separation and the transfer or divestment of assets. It enables the minister to make licence conditions, including prohibiting NBN Co. from providing specified services. It requires the Commonwealth to retain full ownership until the NBN is built and fully operational. So there will be no dilution of it. We will see it through to the end. It requires a Productivity Commission and parliamentary committee review prior to any sales process—so no little deals being made; it will be open, transparent and accountable.

The legislation establishes the framework for the eventual sale of NBN Co. It enables regulations to be made to set limits on the private control of NBN Co. post privatisation and establishes reporting obligations on NBN Co. once no longer wholly Commonwealth owned. It exempts, finally, the NBN Co. from the Public Works Committee Act 1969.

It is important to note that there is no longer a requirement that the NBN Co. must be sold within five years of its being declared built and fully operational. Rather, this will be left to the judgment of the government and parliament of the day, enabling both to have due regard to the role the NBN is then playing, market conditions, and any other relevant factors.

As regards the NBN access bill, firstly, it makes all services provided by NBN Co. declared and thereby subject to supply and equivalence requirements and ACCC oversight, so there is accountability and transparency. It establishes the mechanisms to ensure that the terms and conditions relating to the supply of services by NBN Co. are transparent. It requires NBN Co. to offer services on an equivalent basis, with discrimination only allowed where it aids efficiency and other limited circumstances, which, again, are subject to ACCC scrutiny.

It requires the publication of access agreements with different terms from the standard ones already published to provide a high level of transparency. It provides a more level regulatory playing field for all new, extended and upgraded superfast broadband networks by extending obligations that apply to NBN Co. to owners of superfast networks upgraded, altered or deployed after the introduction of these bills to parliament.

I again would like to put on the record my support for this government and particularly the relevant minister, Minister Conroy, for developing the NBN from what was essentially a vision and then beginning to see it roll out. I look forward to the future with Telstra coming on board so that we can extend the network efficiently and effectively and of course get it to as many premises as possible—businesses, households and persons—as we can throughout Australia.

So I recommend the legislation and I suggest to those opposite that they try for once to be positive. If they are not, let me remind them that the Australian people are and, contrary to all the template answers that they pop out on that side, the NBN is being embraced by the Australian population. It is supported by the Australian population. So I ask those opposite to get on board and support this legislation, because we can have the NBN rolling out. It is as important as extending the highway system throughout Australia into the next century. That is how important it is as a piece of infrastructure in this country. And to have the other mob saying that the NBN should be postponed or deferred in the wake of the floods in Queensland and those other unfortunate natural disasters is really throwing in a red herring. It is as important that we get on with the NBN Co. now as it ever was, particularly to those areas that have been affected by the unfortunate natural disasters. So come on, the other side, get on board. I really look forward to hearing the other members talking about the legislation before them and the provisions of the bill. Let’s hear you go through the provisions of the bill one by one so that we know specifically what you are talking about. If you need to, then you be negative on each provision and explain to me exactly why you are negative. But you cannot; you have got your little template answers up there ready to rip, so don’t let me stop Hansard from recording you.

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