James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion of the member for Lyons and against the proposition within it. I start by making the comment that there are some things we will never know and, luckily, one of them is what a financial disaster NBN would have become if the Labor Party did not lose the 2013 federal election. At that point in time, we know the grim statistics: there were only 51,000 properties connected to the NBN six years after Labor were elected in 2007 and started the rollout of their plan. At that rate, come 10 years later, where we are right now, we would have about half a million properties connected to the NBN instead of the situation we are in now thanks to the coalition winning the 2013 election, with more than 12 million properties having access to the NBN.

One of the speakers—I think it was the member for Groom—mentioned earlier how the NBN was put through a very significant test COVID in 2020, when a dramatic increase of capability and requirement was put onto that network and of course it passed with flying colours. There was evidence of its ability to handle that dramatic increase in demand as so many people suddenly needed to work from home. It was resilient. It was able to handle that dramatic increase in demand as so many people suddenly wished to—or needed to—work from home and do a whole range of things with their technology. This wasn't the usual load on the system, and it included, let's be honest, accessing entertainment and streaming services et cetera to get through the struggles of isolation.

We are actually very proud of the NBN that has been built. One of the points that the now government have made in criticism of our NBN is the cost of it. Well, they've equally said that ours was one designed to save money, so if our NBN budget blew out then God knows what the cost would have been for the platinum scheme that Labor were planning on pursuing had the government not changed in 2013.

The most important thing is that we've always been aware of a mix of technology being the solution to many problems, and one of them is providing appropriate connectivity services to the people of Australia and the businesses of Australia. The Labor Party had a one-size-fits-all approach to that. They wanted fibre to the premises going to all properties everywhere, whether or not those properties wanted it, and they were treating every single consumer as having the exact same financial capacity to access the system and the exact same financial capacity to pay for it—and that is clearly not the case.

We know, in the 15 years since the NBN was conceived, where technology is right now. We know what Elon Musk is doing with the Starlink system, just as one example, and what's that doing in Ukraine right now to help with remote connectivity. We don't know where that type of direct satellite technology could be in the years ahead. It's the same with the 5G spectrum, which has now been rolled out, and the 6G spectrum is around the corner. Also, what might wi-fi might do with the Internet of Things.

The point is you can choose one single solution at one point in time to meet the technology needs of the future and you could spend tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars on that system. Or you can invest in a sensible way that uses a mix of technologies. You can recognise that technology will change into the future and that all kinds of things could come along to open up more and different opportunities that you could not conceive at the time. That was always the great fault and flaw of Kevin Rudd's NBN.

Unfortunately, we saw how horribly that could go wrong with the pink batts and school halls. Luckily, they were so terrible at rolling out the NBN they only got 51,000 homes done by the time the 2013 election came along. We were able to put some sensible changes in place to that system. So instead of an enormous financial burden falling upon the Commonwealth, we were able to make a change that now means 99 per cent of homes—more than 12 million premises—have access to the NBN. They have it through a suite of technologies and they can choose what service they need, suitable to their needs and suitable to their capacity to pay, and the taxpayer is not burdened by what would have been a blow-out of tens of billions of dollars if we had proceeded with the Kevin Rudd one-size-fits-all system back then. The coalition are very proud of our record on the NBN and how it will deliver for Australia into the future.

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