Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to discuss a number of aspects of the government's program with respect to NBN Co. and what it actually means for Gold Coasters and, more broadly, for the people of Australia. Last week I had the opportunity to travel to China with Huawei to examine firsthand what is taking place in China and the extent to which one of the world's leading internet and telecommunications infrastructure providers—that is, Huawei—is supplying globally. I contrast its efforts with, for example, the likes of Ericsson, Alcatel and others. What is clear is that, when it comes to value for money, my worst concern about NBN Co. is that the current Labor government's pathological desire to ensure that it rolls out fibre to the home to every single Australian, at a cost of approximately $38 billion to Australian taxpayers, continues unabated, despite some of the best evidence that I had the opportunity to witness over the past week.

I did this in the context of having recently received from a constituent of mine an email in which he expressed and outlined his concern about not having access to broadband and what that meant to him in Broadbeach, one of the suburbs in my electorate. Those on the opposite side might say, 'Hang on; this just reinforces the point, Member for Moncrieff, that we rapidly need broadband.' But bear with me, Madam Speaker, and I will outline why it could not possibly be further from the truth and that Labor's solution is in fact not a solution. This particular constituent—I will not mention his name, in compliance with the standing orders—wrote:

Hi Steven,

You probably have already a lot of emails on this matter. I would like to ask you to advance the matter of the lack of high speed/high data internet for Nerang. Where my wife & I live across from Nerang High we only have access to wireless broadband. this means that data is limited and very expensive. Telstra refuse to roll out ADSL+ to Nerang ahead of the NBN. But now the GC—

that is, the Gold Coast—

is not expected to be connected until as late as 2015. So access to TV or other streaming or high data programs to any real extent is not possible for us until then. I may also write to the telcomunications minister and shadow minister but Nerang I believe is being poorly serviced by Telstra in this matter.

Similarly, I received an email from a constituent who is based in Broadbeach and who expressed his deep concern about the lack of access there. So I have those two emails from constituents in which they asked me why they cannot access high-speed broadband in Australia's sixth-largest city—a city of some 500,000 people.

The reason is that the current Labor government say they are going to advance NBN Co. We already know how many revisions of NBN Co. there have been. When the original NBN Co. plan was put out in December 2010 the government expected that, at its peak, the NBN would pass 5,900 houses per day and connect 4,000 houses per day. When the plan was revised in August 2012 they had ramped up the numbers, saying that they expected in the peak period to pass 6,850 houses per day and connect 6,000 houses per day. It was a big increase of 16 per cent and 50 per cent respectively. Yet, if you look at the premises passed by fibre, you see that the original plan had 1.268 million households being passed while the revised figure, in August 2012, was 341,000—a downwards revision of 73 per cent.

These figures tell the story of Labor's abysmal failure on NBN Co. It is costing $38 billion which is not on the budget sheet at a time when the government is projected to be $200 billion in net debt already. In addition, the UK analysis results by Huawei, which recently rolled out fibre to the node across the UK, show that fibre to the home is five times more expensive than fibre to the curb. The question is: what speed do they get from fibre to the curb in the UK? The answer is that they get up to 1,000 megabits per second by utilising a combination of fibre and copper. Labor's record on the NBN stands condemned.