Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in continuation on this very, very important bill, the National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024. I am pleased to be speaking in continuation further on this particular bill, as the Albanese government is committed to keeping the NBN in public ownership. We've made that very clear. We want to keep it in public ownership, because we believe the NBN needs to stay in full government ownership to support the ongoing upgrade of the network, which is absolutely vital, and to ensure ongoing regulatory oversight of NBN wholesale pricing, keeping broadband affordable for Australians, particularly as those upgrades continue in regional and rural areas I spoke about in my initial contribution.

The need to have constant upgrades of the NBN and connectivity is absolutely vital for our regional communities. In a community like mine, there are so many reasons why it's absolutely vital. We have a huge number of small businesses in my area of northern New South Wales. They're the backbone of our local economy. Those businesses need to be connected. People need to have access to NBN and connectivity for many work purposes. Of course, it needs to be in place for a whole range of educational purposes, and people need to have that access and connectivity there for many personal needs too.

Even more so, in areas like mine and other areas that are prone to natural disasters, we need to have access to communication services, and we need to know that we're able to access those services. Certainly, in our devastating floods of 2022, which I've spoken about here many times, one of the big issues was the lack of connectivity and communication. We need to ensure that we have as many services as possible in place to assist our communities—for all of those everyday reasons that people need in communities and, even more so, in regional areas.

The government has been making an ongoing investment in the NBN to bring the benefits of high-speed broadband to many more Australians. This government support includes a commitment of $2.4 billion to replace the deteriorating copper network with fibre, which will provide 90 per cent of Australians—around 10 million premises—in the NBN fixed line footprint with access to faster and more reliable broadband. We have been rolling that out in so many communities. This investment is already delivering benefits, with increased reliability, fewer faults and access to higher speeds. In addition, the government and NBN Co are delivering a $750 million investment to upgrade services in the NBN fixed wireless network, which has flow-on benefits to NBN satellite services, which are, of course, very vital as well in many regional and rural areas.

I mentioned before the need to have these services in times of natural disasters—in my area, particularly with those devastating floods. We have a whole series of measures that help communities like mine. One of those is the STAND program, the Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters program. We've had installations right across the country. In my area we've had installations at the Tweed Shire Council civic centre auditorium and also at the Mullumbimby Rural Fire Service brigade. It's important to have those STAND programs in place so that there can be a backup of NBN Sky Muster satellite services under that program and under other programs that we're rolling out. As I said, when we had our flood in 2022 there were absolutely no communications available at all, so the increase in that emergency backup satellite access is so important for our area and any other areas that are, unfortunately, subject to those natural disasters. There are many throughout the nation, so increasing our investment in STAND and other programs helps those communities become more resilient, which is all part of the resilience programs and the mitigation measures that we need to have in place to assist our communities.

The increase in towers that we see, particularly in regional areas, is vital too. We've had many in the north coast of New South Wales recently, and I have supported each and every one of those for all the reasons I outlined, as well as the need for emergency services and for residents to have access not only in natural disasters but in their everyday lives. For example, thankfully, there is a tower underway at Newrybar, which will be providing a whole lot of increased connectivity to many areas, particularly Bangalow, which has had horrific access to the NBN. Having that tower is the only way to ensure that those people can get, and stay, connected. I have 100 per cent supported that.

Many years ago, in my area, unfortunately, there was some very criminal activity which damaged one of the towers. I spoke out at the time and absolutely condemned that. We need to have these towers in place in our regional areas, and I've supported all of those that are coming online in my community. Some of those, of course, do receive government funding, particularly through our Peri-Urban Mobile Program. We announced one just a couple of weeks ago, with funding for new mobile phone infrastructure for the Optus network in the Kingscliff area, another area that has had many issues in terms of connectivity. I've only mentioned two of the towers, but there are others—and we need to have them in place because it is obviously a lot more difficult in those regional areas in terms of being able to access all sorts of communications services. So I will continue to encourage all forms of communication that assist regional communities.

Through this bill the National Broadband Network Companies Act will be amended to remove conditions enabling a future government to privatise NBN Co. These changes reinforce in legislation our government's commitment. It is absolutely resolute. The bill provides certainty to everyone—to stakeholders—including so many broadband consumers, the wider telecommunications industry, broadband retailers and NBN Co, that the Commonwealth will continue to retain ownership of NBN Co. Very importantly, it provides certainty to all consumers, particularly those consumers in regional and rural Australia who are so dependent on their communications access. This certainty supports the government's commitment for NBN Co to provide high-speed and reliable broadband connectivity for all Australians. That is our commitment and that is why NBN Co must remain in public ownership.

I commend the bill to the House.

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