Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, and it certainly will not be in code. Will the minister outline to the House the progress made on the rollout of the NBN and what the government is doing to improve the economics of the project?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I recall our very recent visit to his electorate—many visits to his electorate—talking about the NBN and inspecting the progress of the NBN. I can announce today that the NBN's quarterly results which the company released show that we have put the—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business had better have a good point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is simply that he just referred to making an announcement and I simply draw your attention to the same standing order.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has the call.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is another thing I wish to announce, or reveal, and it has nothing to do with our policy. There has been a bit of coding going on in the ranks of the opposition—a bit of programming. There is a program. It is called 'Zinger' and it has been written by the member for Grayndler. I would say to the honourable Leader of the Opposition that he should be very careful about whose programs he uses to write his sound effects. When the Labor Party was in government, they left us with an NBN project that was in—

An opposition member interjecting—

This is a red tie. This is not, as Kevin Rudd would have said, a 'maroon' tie; nor is it a 'marone' tie!

Honourable members interjecting—

There you go. It was funny. The Leader of the Opposition does not mind me having a dig at Kevin. Mind you, wait for next week when Kevin gets his bone back on you. What we have done with the NBN is put it back onto a businesslike footing. In the first three quarters of this financial year, it earned $106 million in revenue, which is more than the $76 million in revenue it earned in its entire life prior to that time. So it is taking off. It took Labor four years to pass 200,000 premises with fibre to the premises. In this financial year, the NBN has already undergone construction of fibre to the node covering 200,000 premises, and the new additions to the fibre-to-the-node rollout will see construction start on another 200,000 in the three months from July alone. Western Australia was a particular basket case under Labor. The NBN had completely failed. As at the election, it had only passed 5,479 premises in that state. We have now passed 42,000 premises and have another 52,000 under construction and will have an additional 61,000 under construction in the FTTN rollout in the next three months. We are getting on with rolling out the NBN project a lot sooner and at a lot less cost to taxpayers and, thus, much more affordably to consumers. The honourable member for Swan is seeing the benefits of that firsthand in his community.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Speaker, after that splendid answer, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.