Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I also rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer) Bill 2017 in conjunction with the Telecommunications (Regional Broadband Scheme) Charge Bill 2017. I do support the amendments moved by the member for Greenway.

My focus is very much upon regional Australia. It was very disappointing that last night in the budget there was no provision to improve NBN services for those thousands of people in regional Australia who are stuck on this government's second-rate NBN. As I often say in this place, National Party choices hurt, and the one thing that really does hurt them is the absolute debacle that is the NBN.

I'll have a bit of a look at the history of the NBN first. In 2009, we announced our vision for a national broadband network to provide all Australians with access to high-speed internet. This great revolution, digital infrastructure, would lay the groundwork for universal economic and social opportunity into the future. Of course, it would be achieved by building an ultra-fast fibre-to-the-premises network reaching 93 per cent of Australians, with the remainder to be covered through a mix of fixed wireless and satellite. The NBN was envisaged as a wholesale-only entity, tasked with establishing this network whilst remaining structurally separate from the retail providers. This would ensure more choices and lower prices by allowing competition to thrive whilst also guaranteeing that rural and regional areas were not left behind. This is not what the government has followed through with at all. In fact, it is a quite a debacle, and I'll detail some of that later on.

We do support the statutory infrastructure provider regime contained in this bill, as it represents a step towards the policy vision that we established almost a decade ago. This regime will codify universal broadband access into legislation and provide long-term certainty to regional consumers and stakeholders about obligations for the supply of broadband into the future. For similar reasons, Labor supports the amendments to the level-playing-field rule introduced by this bill. This rule was also part of our original policy vision, being introduced by us in 2011. It is aimed at ensuring that there's a level playing field with respect to competition in the fixed-line telecommunications market. Australian taxpayers have made a significant investment in the NBN, and it's important that regulatory settings ensure that there is a level playing field so that the value of this investment is not unfairly undermined.

The NBN was designed to implement uniform wholesale pricing between regional areas and cities to ensure wholesale access prices remain consistent across Australia. This is achieved through an internal cross-subsidy which uses profits from services in the city to fund those of the regions. This unique obligation to provide services in areas that may not be commercially viable distinguishes the NBN from the fixed-line broadband competitors. As a result, to ensure competitive neutrality, it is only fair that other companies seeking to provide high-speed broadband are subject to the same regulatory requirements as NBN Co.

The level-playing-field rules in parts 7 and 8 of the act were introduced by Labor and apply to superfast fixed-line networks servicing residential and small business customers. Part 7 requires operators of such networks to make their network available to access seekers—retail providers. Part 8 requires networks to be wholesale—that is, structurally separate. This bill introduces amendments to provide greater certainty about these arrangements and the scope for flexibility where the ACCC decides that that is appropriate. So Labor support the measures in this bill, as they represent a realisation of our policy vision for the NBN.

Sadly, these measures are really only a drop in the bucket when compared to the shambles that the Turnbull government has made of the NBN rollout—shambles that the government now wants consumers to pay for with its internet tax. Make no mistake: this is a Prime Minister's internet tax. He owns it, and it has come about due to his cost blowouts and incompetence. This new internet tax appears in schedule 4 of the bill. It proposes to apply a tax of $7.10 per month to services on the non-NBN network. This will increase to $7.80 by 2021. This new tax will add around $84 to the total of annual bills for up to 400,000 residential and business services on non-NBN networks.

So what do we have after five years of the Abbott-Turnbull government when it comes to the NBN? We have a project blowout of $20 billion and a second-rate NBN that is very slow, and now we've got a nice new big tax on top of that. What we have is a government that's totally out of touch, a government that gives an $80 billion tax cut to big business and banks and now wants to tax the use of the internet.

But that's not where the shambles end. Under Labor's plan, all new homes and greenfield estates in the fixed-line footprint would have been connected with modern optical fibre. In contrast, the current government's multi-technology mess will see Australia stuck in the past, with slow outdated copper wires being installed in new homes. This means that around 8,000 newly built premises per year will be compromised by old and outdated internet speeds instead of optic fibre. Unfortunately, the bill does nothing to address this issue. Copper wire will continue to be rolled out in new suburbs. It isn't good enough and people are extremely angry.

I hear about this all the time from locals. For example, Garry Richmond from Terranora agreed to me sharing his story—a story which is, sadly, too common. He was promised the NBN would solve the issues he was experiencing with his old ADSL2 connection; however, when the NBN was in introduced in his area in 2017, he was contacted and told that he, unlike his neighbours, would miss out. The NBN informed him that this was because copper was unable to carry the signal the required distance. However, to Garry's dismay, his neighbour's premises, over 100 metres further from the node, received an NBN connection without any trouble. He reported that this internet lottery continued throughout his local area, with many missing out, seemingly at random.

This inequity can be seen all over the North Coast. In fact, in Ballina, in my electorate, plans released by NBN Co have revealed that half the residents will be getting the superior fibre-to-the-curb technology while the rest will be stuck with the slower fibre to the node. When confronted by outraged local residents and councillors, NBN Co just threw up their hands and said that it was all just too hard and they simply couldn't modify their plans, because it just didn't suit and they couldn't do that within Ballina. However, they helpfully suggested that residents just pay for it themselves if they weren't happy with having slower speeds than their neighbours. How outrageous! It is unfair. Why should some people have to pay for what others are getting for free? We are seeing this arbitrary internet rollout right across the North Coast. It simply isn't good enough and the people of Ballina are quite rightly enraged by this situation. It is indeed a far cry from Labor's vision of the NBN delivering fast and reliable internet to every Australian, with a universal and future-proof fibre-to-the-premises standard. It is clear that this bill does nothing to address issues such as the one in areas like Ballina that I highlighted. This bill does nothing to address that issue. It does nothing to address this major concern.

There is indeed a lack of transparency and accountability for consumers and businesses who have been left behind by the NBN and potentially declared service class zero. This situation occurs when an operational decision is made by NBN Co that it would be too time consuming or resource intensive to connect a particular home to the NBN. This leaves the premises behind, without certainty, as the rollout just moves on to the next area. The consumers are not proactively informed, nor are they given a time frame in which they can expect to be connected. This is no minor issue. In fact, the number of service class zero premises has ballooned to nearly 300,000. It's estimated that one in 10 premises will go through this frustrating experience, and the total number could rise to half a million, which is outrageous.

We have also heard of many instances where schools and businesses have been impacted. If special circumstances warrant NBN prioritising the connection of a service class zero premises such as a school or hospital, the government should have the ability to direct NBN Co to treat that connection with priority. Where there is a shortcoming in identifying a priority connection, Labor has introduced an amendment to provide scope for the government to direct NBN Co to connect a particular premises when the company refuses to do so. That's vitally important to ensure that connection is happening in those areas. This is because we recognise that some issues just cannot be left unaddressed, and consumers do need to be treated better. That's currently not happening. The amendment would also require NBN Co to proactively inform households if their NBN connection is likely to be delayed for long periods. This would make sure people like Garry from Terranora, in the story I spoke about recently, at least informed when the NBN is unable to connect their premises, rather than forcing them to waste their time and energy chasing information they should already have. It is so frustrating for consumers when this happens.

Whilst this bill does represent some steps forward for the NBN, and we do acknowledge that, it does little to fix the broader issues that the coalition government have created—the absolute mess they've created. First of all, we've had major cost blowouts. We need to focus on that. The Prime Minister had promised that his NBN would be delivered for $29.5 billion. Instead, the NBN's cost has blown out to $49 billion—$6 billion more than Labor's original fibre-to-the-node plan that we put forward. What do we get for this massive budget blowout? What have we got for this government's blowout? We see fibre delivered to a mere 17 per cent of Australians as opposed to 93 per cent of the population dictated under Labor's original plan—a huge difference. We see consumer complaints going through the roof, with the 2015-16 report by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman reporting a 150 per cent increase in complaints about NBN faults. That is a huge increase. We see 62 per cent of consumers reporting slow speeds and unreliable services. Essentially, we have a system that is costing more and doing less.

It's not just consumers that aren't happy. The internet service providers are also up in arms about this nonsensical multitechnology mix. Nicholas Demos, the Managing Director of MyRepublic, contends, 'It's criminal what Australians have been offered in terms of speed.' And indeed it is. He does have a point. The Turnbull government's multitechnology mess means you have a technology that offers speeds of 50 megabits per second while your neighbour has a fibre connection that clocks in 100 megabits per second. The difference is outrageous. Just down the road in Terranora you have a consumer like Garry, who the NBN Co hasn't been able to deliver a basic connection to. How is it fair to have all those different standards there? It's an even greater slap in the face when you consider that providers like Google Fiber are already beginning to roll out gigabit speed internet in the US. Currently, for US$70 you can receive a thousand megabit internet speeds in select US cities. By comparison, in Australia, our average internet is 25.88 megabits per second—55th in the world behind Kenya and Kazakhstan. What if you wanted gigabit speeds in Australia? In Launceston, Australia's first gigabit city, the same service will set you back approximately a thousand dollars a month, courtesy of the NBN Co's wholesale pricing—just outrageous.

We have a government that's created a complete NBN mess right across the board. It is particularly obvious when you look to regional Australia. It is in regional Australia where we do, I quite proudly say, desperately need to have high-speed, effective internet services, for a whole range of reasons. We have our small businesses that need it to be able to connect to the world, we need it for our students, we need it in our schools and we need it in our universities. In areas like mine on the far north coast of New South Wales, we have a lot of creative industries flourishing, and of course they need a reliable and fast internet to be able to provide their services nationwide and to the world.

So, throughout Australia we need to have fast and effective NBN services, but the regions desperately need them. We especially need them for our students. They have a right to access those fast speeds and services. I think it's been one of the great failings of this government that they've failed to provide for the regions. And, as I said, National Party choices hurt. They hurt across the regions for a lot of reasons. They certainly hurt when the National Party prioritises the $80 billion in tax cuts for multinationals, big business and banks, yet they do nothing to improve the NBN services in the country. And that's something I hear about every day.

We, in Labor, will continue to fight for our vision of NBN and what it should be. We have suggested and put forward our amendments in relation to this. We know how good it should be, because we designed and built the initial NBN. We know what we want, and we won't settle for the second-rate NBN services that this government has been putting forward. Indeed, their costs are blowing out, their service is getting worse—it just seems to lurch from one debacle to another. As I said, in places like Ballina, it has caused a huge amount of distress. There they are, being provided with totally different circumstances, creating a massive degree of uncertainty and anger within the community. This is wholly and solely the government's doing, and there's no capacity at all to resolve it. We want to see that change. We want to see the services improve. We want to see greater transparency. People are not being told exactly what the services are that they can access. It is unfair, and it is particularly unfair for those of us in the regions.

I appeal to the government to look closely at regional Australia and the requirements that we have. It's disappointing—well, there were many disappointing things in the budget that we could run through, but, when talking about the NBN, one of those is the lack of any sort of investment in last night's budget that would improve those services for regional Australia. It is very desperate, and it is only that Labor had the true vision for it, and under this government we've just seen a blowout and a lack of services. So I certainly support Labor's amendments. I think they will go some way to getting some improvements, but we would like to see the government approach this and actually start fixing the NBN so that people can access these services.

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