Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tasmanians were misled prior to the last federal election by the Liberal Party with regard to the National Broadband Network rollout. Indeed, they led Tasmanians to believe that they would get fibre to the home. Of course, prior to the last election they knew that, under Labor, 210,000 premises would be connected with fibre to the premise. The Liberal Party said then that it would honour existing contracts, and I want to quote a letter to the editor from Liberal senator David Bushby where he says:

If, as indicated, contracts are in place for the full fibre roll out in Tasmania, then there will be absolutely no difference in who gets fibre to their home in Tasmania under Labor or Liberal.

We now know that that is not true.

Just a few weeks ago we had Ziggy Switkowski, the new head of NBN Co, in Tasmania, where he said that fibre would not be rolled out to all premises as indicated and promised and that many homes would get a mix of technologies. Basically, he said to Tasmanians, 'If you haven't got fibre by the end of this year, you're not getting it.'

In recent weeks we have seen Tasmanian Liberal leader Will Hodgman. He is concerned about the national broadband rollout in Tasmania—so concerned he came begging to the federal Minister for Communications to reconsider the NBN rollout plans in Tasmania. Indeed, he was caught with his microphone on at a community event telling another Liberal candidate that the national broadband issue might cost them the upcoming state election.

Tasmanians are very rightly concerned about this broken promise. (Time expired)