Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

All I can say about the NBN, one of my favourite topics, is that, under this coalition government, it is nothing but a national travesty. It is completely a national travesty. You should come to Tasmania and see what has happened in that state. Would you buy something that was of an inferior quality but would cost more and probably take longer to be delivered? I mean, seriously! This is what you are proposing, or what you have been putting in place, under your fibre-to-the-node plan.

As a Tasmanian, I was very proud when, in about 2009, Tasmania was to be the first state to roll out full fibre-to-the-premises NBN. Stage 1 was completed a year after its construction, and that was the backbone. That was a huge undertaking for Tasmania, to construct a backbone and connect to people. And they were connected a year after that construction commenced. We now are in stage 3, and we have cities in my electorate, Burnie and Devonport, that have not been connected to fibre to the node—other than a tiny little section of my city that has just got a couple of nodes built. That is absolutely ridiculous; that is all I can say. Businesses and industry in those cities tell me all the time that they are absolutely gutted by this government—that, when you are talking about jobs and growth, there is not the infrastructure there to support them. They have been dudded by the then minister, who decided, 'We'll change this to fibre to the node,' a technology that is not future-proof and will not meet the needs of Australians.

But, apart from that, there is the inequity of this rollout in my electorate. You have got some sections that, under Labor's plan, have been connected with full fibre to the premises, which is fantastic, and in the major population centres they will get fibre to the node. So you have just got to look at the inequity. You talk about a government that supports regions. Sorry—you are not supporting regional Tasmania at all.

But the most ridiculous thing is that the coalition went to the 2013 election with the document that talked about the coalition's economic growth plan for Tasmania; this was in August 2013. It said that the rollout of the NBN under the coalition would be complete in Tasmania by the end of 2015! Now we are not looking for Tasmania to be connected to the NBN until about 2018—perhaps; question mark. Is that when it is going to be completed? Who would know!

And then you have got to look at the west coast of Tasmania. Under Labor, they were going to get full fibre to the premises, and Strahan was going to get fixed wireless. Then the then-minister came in. First of all he said, 'We'll honour all contracts,' before the election, and then he said, 'No; now you're getting fibre to the node.' But then, alas, they changed it and put the west coast of Tasmania on a satellite. The satellite is great for little hamlets. But you have got 4,000 homes on the west coast of Tasmania, which has high rainfall and mountainous terrain. The community there knew it was not going to work.

They then went to the local Liberal member for Braddon at the time, absolutely disgusted with what was going to happen for them, and he said, 'This represents a great opportunity, and you should instead stop pining for a fibre-to-the-premises.' He is gone. He is saying, 'Sign up. Find out what it's like, and if it's still a problem let's talk about it.' I went to a forum with all the community with the then shadow minister, the member for Blaxland and, I tell you what, I am surprised that that federal member got out of there alive. Then they did another backflip and said, 'Now we're going to put you on fibre-to-the-node,' which is great for them as it is an improvement from the satellite. One of the state members of parliament for the Braddon area says, 'You're now getting what you deserve.'

It is a second-rate system for a population that is experiencing some really difficult and challenging economic hardships with mine closure and an economy that is depressed. They need this type of technology now and into the future to diversify and grow jobs so that they can grow their local economy. All that this government has done is let the people of regional Tasmania down, and it should be condemned for that.

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