Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

It takes a certain kind of doctrinaire, political commissar-like insistence to roll out this tedious line that we hear from Labor communications spokespersons in the face of the quantitative evidence that the rollout is continuing and the rollout is going well.

We had an MPI on 17 September 2015 brought by the Labor opposition. There were 1,291,000 premises able to connect at that time. They came back and had another go on 21 October 2015—1,374,000 premises able to connect; 10 February 2016, 1,719,000 premises able to connect. But wilfully turning their minds from the evidence, they came back and had another go on 3 May 2016, when there were 2,428,000 premises able to connect. Then, of course, the member for Blaxland was pleased to be relieved of the terrible job of being Labor's shadow communications spokesman, trying to find gloom as the broadband light increasingly shone over the nation. That job fell to the member for Greenway. On 11 October 2016, she rolled out her first matter of public importance debate on the NBN. By that time, the number of premises able to pass had continued to relentlessly increase to 3,207,700. She had another go on 22 November 2016—again, wilfully turning her mind from the clear evidence that the rollout was continuing relentlessly and that more and more premises around the country were able to connect. By that point: 3,231,397 premises. Evidently feeling a bit depressed by the evidence that the NBN rollout is continuing remorselessly, she hasn't been back to the well until today. It's almost a year since the last time she had a go, but the numbers have continued to inexorably increase. The number of premises now able to connect is 6,188,166. In fact, some 35,000 premises a week are being connected to the NBN.

This is a very large-scale rollout. It is a project which is complex, which covers the nation and which is being delivered notwithstanding the hopeless, chaotic mess that we inherited from the Labor Party when we came to government in 2013. If you are a Labor shadow minister for communications, it seems that you come up with your own version of the prayer of St Francis of Assisi—where there is light, let me find darkness; where there is hope, let me counsel despair; where there is sustained and impressive progress on a very large-scale rollout, let me assert chaos continually and in the absence of evidence.

Let's have a look, in detail, at some of the extraordinarily misleading statements consistently made by the Labor Party and the shadow minister. We saw a shining example yesterday. The shadow minister asked a question about a survey by the reputable internet survey company Akamai which she asserted shows that Australia is behind Kenya. What was her dazzling piece of logic for making this argument? She said that the almost two per cent of people in Kenya who are able to connect to a broadband network should be compared to the result in Australia of a network which is designed to ubiquitously serve the entire population. What an entirely misleading characterisation of that survey but, sadly, entirely consistent with the rhetorical approach we see from the Labor Party, because what they know is that their record on this project is an embarrassing catalogue of ineptitude.

They had six years on the NBN, and they wasted nearly two years on a plan which they couldn't deliver. They had to ignominiously and embarrassingly walk away from it. They came up with a new plan in April 2009, which supposedly was going to be done in conjunction with the private sector. But that didn't happen. A year later we discovered that the private sector wasn't interested in participating. What was the hopeless, pathetic, incompetent record that they left when they scuttled out of government? Barely 50,000 premises around the country were able to connect—barely 50,000 premises after six years of government and spending $6 billion. I remind the House, as I have just pointed out, that we are connecting 35,000 a week. That's 35,000 a week against 50,000 in six years. I'd call one record pretty good. I'd call another a catalogue of rank incompetence and ineptitude. Yet, bizarrely, the shadow minister keeps turning up and wanting to debate this issue yet again, for reasons that are mystifying.

Let's look at the facts about Dobell. We had some questions from the member for Dobell yesterday. She asked about the Rudolf Steiner school in Fountaindale. I can inform the House that the facts are that there needs to be a fixed-line lead-in so that that school can be connected. NBN has scheduled a crew to complete that work next month. Let me respond to the question she asked about constituents in Wyreema Road in Warnervale. The infrastructure has been installed in that street, the work is underway to integrate into the NBN core network, and NBN is aiming to make services available to all premises in Wyreema Road by December of this year. These are the facts.

But let me point out another fact about the electorate of Dobell. Do you know how many premises were connected to the fibre network, the fixed network, in Dobell when this incompetent rabble left office? Zero. After four years, your electorate had zero premises connected to the fixed network. Do you know how many premises are able to connect in the electorate of Dobell today? That number is 86,500. Of those who are able to connect, there are 57,898 premises connected. I say to the member for Dobell: yes, you have identified a couple of instances where people are not connected, and I have just been able to demonstrate when they are going to be connected, but I also say to you that there are 57,898 connected. Let's do a little comparison. One government delivers zero. One government delivers 57,898. I'd suggest that those from the party that formed the first government are really on a hiding to nothing when they pursue this issue.

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