Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question and note his very keen interest in broadband and in ensuring that his constituents get very fast broadband sooner, cheaper and more affordably. I can announce today that the NBN Co. has finalised commercial negotiations with Telstra for a considerably expanded program to plan, design and construct fibre-to-the-node high-speed broadband which will connect about 200,000 homes and businesses. This is an adrenaline shot for the NBN, and it will show the way to accelerating the rollout that had completely stalled under Labor.

The member for Blaxland is rarely seen in this chamber. As I said yesterday, he has only asked me one question, and it was about a boat. But he had this to say in an interview with a journalist from ZDNet: 'My main criticism of the NBN project is we haven't rolled it out fast enough. We did it too slow in government.' Gee, you are game enough to take on Senator Conroy, but you are not game enough to ask me a question. He then said, 'This government is still rolling it out too slow.' What we have done with the NBN is we have tripled the number of premises that are connected to the fibre network.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

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