House debates Questions without Notice

Broadband

Monday, 25 October 2010 House of Representatives

Malcolm Turnbull

Malcolm Turnbull Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband

3:03 pm

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. If the government’s aim is to provide Australians with faster broadband, why is it requiring the NBN Co. to do a deal that will bar Telstra from providing 100 megabit per second broadband over its pay TV HFC cable network, which passes 2.7 million Australian homes?

Anthony Albanese

Anthony Albanese Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House

As the shadow minister should know, what we are about is replacing the copper network, yesterday’s network, with tomorrow’s network, which is a fibre network to the home. That is why we are addressing those issues. The competition issues involved are being addressed by the ACCC, as is appropriate.