Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The latest figures on the NBN rollout confirm that it continues to be a disaster. The National Broadband Network was announced by broadband minister Conroy and then Prime Minister Rudd on 7 April 2009. In December 2010 NBN Co. released its first corporate plan, which promised that the company would pass 1.269 million homes with the fibre network by 30 June 2013. By 30 June 2012, the company had passed fewer than 40,000 homes with the fibre network, and the target in the plan was looking very shaky.

In August 2012 NBN Co. decided it was time to change the goalposts. It released a new corporate plan, promising that by 30 June 2013 it would pass 341,000 premises with the fibre network—that is about one-quarter of the original target. By 31 December 2012 that target, too, was looking extremely shaky, as at that point the network passed 72,400 premises with fibre. This meant that in the second six months of calendar year 2012, NBN Co. had managed to pass around 32,000 homes, leaving another 268,600 homes to be passed in the first six months of calendar year 2013. It is very clear that NBN Co. is going to woefully undershoot its new 30 June 2013 target—that is to say, the new target released only seven months ago, a target which was approximately 75 per cent lower than the original target. Yesterday, the Australian Financial Review reported that 'sources close to the rollout' have confirmed that NBN Co. is reassessing its target of 341,000 homes. A few days ago Victorian retail service provider DeVoteD posted on its website information sourced from NBN Co. showing that, as at 12 March, there were 70,783 premises passed by fibre—curiously, a number which is lower than the 72,000 premises NBN Co. reported as at 31 December 2012.

If we decode the statements by an NBN Co. spokesperson which were quoted in the industry newsletter Communications Day on Monday of this week, it seems the explanation is that the 72,400 reported by NBN Co. as at 31 December 2012 included lots passed in greenfields estates where a home had not yet been built, whereas the number now known to be the position as at 12 March, namely 70,783, does not include such lots in greenfields premises. If that is the explanation, it would appear to be the modern equivalent of the fake villages built to Empress Catherine II of Tsarist Russia as she toured her territories. The modern equivalent would appear to be by including in 'premises passed' building lots where there are no homes in existence. If we look just at the brownfields rollout, NBN Co. reported 46,100 premises passed by fibre as at 31 December 2012. The DeVoteD numbers showed 47,511 some 10 weeks later—so they have added around 140 premises per week. This would mean that, to reach the brownfields target of 286,000 in the remaining 16 weeks, NBN Co. would need to add almost 15,000 premises per week.

The facts are clear: NBN Co. has hopelessly missed all of its rollout targets to date and it is going to hopelessly miss its June 2013 rollout target. This is a company which is comprehensively failing to do what it is charged to do, even though by 30 June 2012 it had received over $2.8 billion in taxpayers' money and is scheduled to receive a further $20 billion over the four years beginning in 2012-13. If this were a private sector organisation the CEO, Mike Quigley, would have been fired some time ago. If the Rudd-Gillard government is serious about the NBN rollout, it must take action to dismiss Mr Quigley and put in a chief executive with experience and capacity in large-scale rollouts. The numbers are stark, the performance is dismal—action must be taken if this government is to retain any credibility at all when it comes to the broadband rollout.