David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, the most recent analysis, conducted in 2015, said that the cost of the full rollout of Labor's plan would actually be $74 billion to $84 billion. So $73 billion is actually the low end of Labor's cost of doing this project. It's just an extraordinary thing to say, 'We are going to build an NBN and it's going to cost $4.7 billion,' when it's actually going to cost at least $73 billion. Think about what that means for the absolute economic vandalism of those opposite.

They also lack operational skills, as the minister stated before. They are people without experience of running operations or of actually doing things and, as a consequence, when they left government in 2013, 97 per cent of households didn't have access to the NBN, and three per cent did. That's a very small percentage: 97 per cent didn't and three per cent did. They'd spent about $6 billion by that stage—and bear in mind that the whole investment initially was going to be $4.7 billion, because the private sector was supposed to come along and make this huge investment in this wonderful investment opportunity. Those opposite didn't do the maths. They didn't do the numbers. They don't understand these sorts of calculations. And they said: '$4.7 billion. That'll be it. The private sector will come along and look after the rest.' That didn't happen. And the actual cost of this project, as they concede, was well over $70 billion. So this is a really important point that must never be lost.

We saw so many examples, as they set out to build under the Labor NBN model. A Tasmanian bowls club cost more than $86,000 to connect to the NBN—one bowls club, not a whole fleet of them. And four homes and businesses in Ballarat—four; not 400; not 4,000—cost $150,000. That works out at about $37½ thousand each, which is kind of a lot. So they have a complete lack of understanding of how to do things operationally.

Australia is a better country than that. We need governments that actually plan things properly and do the homework, do the hard yards and invest for the country. That is what we are doing, with 6.8 million premises already crossed by the NBN and 3.2 million active. The project will be completed within a few more years, but at a much lower cost to taxpayers. And those opposite just kind of wave that away, as if it doesn't matter. Well, it actually does matter that, if you are going to spend tens of billions of dollars, you (a) say, 'Is it necessary?' or (b) say that you are not going to spend when in fact you know and the Australian people know that that is absolutely the case. It's not something that can ever be forgotten.

But the failure on infrastructure by Labor is something that we see a lot of. We're seeing a lot of it in Sydney. I'm from Sydney. There's a lot of failure in infrastructure from the Labor government in that great state. The Parramatta to Chatswood rail link—so important to the voters in Bennelong—was promised by Labor in 1998. It was going to be delivered by 2006; it wasn't. The North West Rail Link was promised in 1998. It was supposed to be delivered by 2010; it wasn't. The west metro was promised in 2009; it was supposed to be delivered, and it wasn't. The North West Rail Link was supposed to be completed by 2017; it didn't, of course, happen as envisaged. So there is failure by those opposite in the NBN and in infrastructure more generally. (Time expired)

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