Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the NBN bill, the Telecom­munications Legislation Amend–ment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2011, which is before the House and which we are debating. I make the point at the beginning that the coalition, as we always have been, is supportive of fast broadband. It is a worthy and important goal. The development of fast broadband, especially the development of accessible fast broadband at cost-effective prices, is a great economic boon for our country. But we continue to make the point that it is not a case of picking winners in this debate but rather one of looking at a mixture of technologies, which is the important way to go into the future. Countries like the United States of America, with its President Obama, have realised that. We see here in Australia a government born out of central planning days, and we have just heard the member for Page walk us through her distrust of the private sector while talking about how the private sector will not build it because there is not enough return in it, although I note that, as I understand it, the standing policy of the Australian Labor Party is still to sell NBN Co. as soon as it is established. So somehow there has been a mistransmission over the talking points given to the member for Page, because her contribution was questioning the ability of the private sector to invest in networks such as this. She says the private sector would not build something like this. Well, they do build these sorts of networks all the time. In fact, they have built a mobile network.

Ms Saffin interjecting—

Member for Page, as you walk around with your mobile phone in your electorate, which is a regional electorate, you get to use your mobile phone and your wireless devices because the private sector built those towers. So it is interesting that the member for Page thinks that the government is all good and everything that is required needs to be built by the government. That is the view of those opposite, but, of course, we have trust in the private sector and we think the private sector provides services at a far more efficient and cost-effective rate than what government ever does.

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