Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

When a 24-hour period in politics is seen to be a long time, you can understand how five years has fogged the memories of the Labor Party. The NBN was a cardboard-drinks-coaster plan developed in transit between two cities to establish a digital communication initiative for our nation. Talk about a tale of two cities! The NBN was begun without a proper business plan, without proper planning for infrastructure locations and without a rollout schedule.

It was begun in pilot locations. Let me explain: one of these was Kiama. In the grandiose vision, the idea was to have underground fibre cable connected to every premise. What a joke! Labor today talks about slight delays to make sure the HFC is properly connected. The initial connection issues in Kiama—and these were legacy issues from the outgoing Labor Party—included the following: a change from underground connection because too much cost was incurred, due to location complications. Whoops! Kiama is built on basalt, one of the hardest rocks to drill. Secondly, there was no planning to negotiate the use of existing power poles, so a second pole was put in place. Whoops—lack of planning! Thirdly, finally—although not the total end—the fibre reached the premises, but if there was more than one phone in a house there was no connection device, let alone if it were a duplex. Then there was complete confusion in connecting aged-care facilities, where hundreds of connections were needed.

Let me remind those who sit in opposition: technology glitches are not new. It seems to me that if you have 40,000 premises able to connect per week, there is likely to be a level of hassle that is a great deal more than when you're only connecting 50,000 premises per year. Labor promised the world to Australians connecting to the NBN, insisting that 100 megabits per second was the need for every household. But did they tell you about the cost? Did that ever get mentioned? No; as usual, Labor told us only part of the story. To me, that is dishonesty by deceit.

In Gilmore it is proposed that 92 per cent of homes will be able to connect to the NBN by the end of next year. My region, due to its complex geography, has a complete mix of technology: fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, fixed wireless towers and satellite connections. The NBN has had to develop another form for regional areas where homes in small clusters are too far from the node and there is an insufficient number of homes to economically build another node. So we'll have fibre to the curb, as well.

Recently, the minister said that the multi-mix technology is going to be the absolute best one, and I agree. As a result of taking that approach, the NBN will be completed by 2020, six to eight years sooner than would have been the case under the predecessors—that means the Labor Party—and it will also be completed for $30 billion less. I think that's a major asset.

Labor promised 250,000 Australians they'd be eligible for interim satellite service, but only purchased enough capacity to service 48,000. Woops—bit of a problem there. They criticised the rollout but they can't get their numbers right. The result was a debacle. Consumers experienced severe congestion at peak times, with speeds similar to or worse than dial-up. It was typical Labor overpromising and underdelivering. We also had to fix this situation. Now, more than 81,000 customers across regional and remote Australia receive faster, more affordable and more reliable broadband. Labor claims the NBN would and should have been delivered. The rate of connection delivery under Labor was dismal with only 20 per cent of their estimated connections for their target by June 2013. We've taken a tortoise-shell speed of rollout up to the speed of the rabbit, with more than 6.5 million homes now able to connect. Cheaper, fairer and affordable is the aim, and we're delivering.

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