Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. This bill's moniker or informal title is 'Vertigan 1'. It is the first of two bills that we understand the government has said it will introduce to implement the recommendations of the Vertigan panel, which conducted a series of reviews of the NBN in 2014.

Before I get into the detail of this bill, I will give bit of background on this Vertigan panel. Before the last election Malcolm Turnbull, the now Prime Minister, made a lot of promises—and he has broken most of them. He promised that he would build his second-rate NBN for $29.5 billion. We now know that it will cost almost double that, up to $56 billion. He also promised that all Australians would get access to this second-rate NBN by 2016. That has blown out now to the end of this decade, more than double the original time frame.

He also promised that, if elected, he would get Infrastructure Australia to do a cost-benefit analysis of the NBN. In August 2013 Mr Turnbull said:

We are going to do a rigorous analysis, we will get Infrastructure Australia to do an independent cost benefit analysis.

He broke that promise as well.

Instead of getting Infrastructure Australia to conduct this cost-benefit analysis—an organisation that the Prime Minister only a few weeks ago described as 'an independent statutory body with a board of recognised industry experts'—Malcolm Turnbull instead appointed some old mates, some former advisers and some of the biggest and most outspoken critics of the NBN. It was not what he promised. It was not an independent review. It was a review by people who he knew have the same view about this project as him.

This legislation that we are now debating is based on their work, work that has since been found to be hopelessly wrong and has been largely discredited. The Competitive Carriers' Coalition—which represents much of the telecommunications industry, including Macquarie Telecom, Nextgen and Vocus—said this when the Vertigan report was released, in a press release headed 'Vertigan Recommendations should be Binned':

After deliberating all year, the Vertigan panel has recommended that Australia look to emulate 1970s US telephone industry policy to promote investment in 21st century broadband networks.

…   …   …

Most of the Vertigan recommendations represent nothing more than rehashed, discredited theoretical arguments promoted by opponents of regulatory reform and the NBN.

The inquiry has been an expensive distraction that has done little more than create uncertainty and disquiet across the industry during a crucial period of the transition to a new broadband network.

The Senate Select Committee on the NBN subjected the Vertigan panel's 'independent' cost-benefit analysis to rigorous scrutiny in early 2015. They identified a number of fatal shortcomings in the cost-benefit analysis. One of the best was the absurdly pessimistic forecast that, by 2023, the median bandwidth required by Australian households would be 15 megabits per second. It was an absurd conclusion. According to nbn co's latest results, 67 per cent of homes connected to the NBN are already ordering higher speeds than that. This forecast was so absurd that even nbn co Chief Executive Officer Bill Morrow criticised it when it came out. The Senate select committee concluded:

The Cost-Benefit Analysis is a deeply flawed and overtly political document. It is not credible and is not a reliable basis upon which to make decisions about the NBN.

Since that report came out, in March last year, there has been even more evidence to prove that the Vertigan panel got it wrong.

The Vertigan panel based its cost-benefit analysis on cost assumptions from another dodgy report written by the Prime Minister's mates, the 2013 Strategic review. In August last year the cost assumptions in the Strategic review were also proven to be hopelessly wrong. That is when we found out that the cost of building this second-rate version of the NBN was not going to be $41 billion as assumed in the Strategic review but had blown out to up to $56 billion. That is not the only cost assumption that the Strategic review got wrong. Virtually all of its forecasts were wrong. It forecast that fibre to the node could be built for $600 a home. This cost has now nearly tripled, to $1,600 a home. It also forecast that it would cost $55 million to patch up Telstra's old copper network to make the fibre-to-the-node network operate. That cost has blown out by more than 1,000 per cent. It also forecast that 2.61 million homes would be connected to the NBN via HFC, via pay TV cables, by December of this year. Nbn co now forecasts that only 10,000 homes will be connected by June of this year and only 875,000 homes by June of next year. So we have got a bunch of different reports here, written by the Prime Minister's mates and former advisers, that are full of mistakes and wrong assumptions. And the bill that we are debating implements their recommendations.

Many of those recommendations attempt to roll back the competition and consumer benefits delivered by the former Labor government in this sector. We do not support this, and nor does most of the telco industry. Let's start with part 3 of the bill, which proposes to relax the non-discrimination obligations on nbn co in relation to pilots or trials. The non-discrimination provisions prohibit NBN corporations from discriminating between access seekers in the supply of services. They are an important part of the level playing field introduced by Labor's NBN reforms. And industry agrees.

Optus, in its submission to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee review of this bill, called the principle of non-discrimination 'an important foundation principle'. Macquarie Telecom, in its submission, called these obligations 'absolutely fundamental' and 'non-negotiable'. The Competitive Carriers' Coalition called them a 'core element' in restraining market power which 'should not be changed'. It is unclear why the government wants to relax these provisions. Worse, the risks posed by relaxing non-discrimination provisions far outweigh any imagined benefits. As the Competitive Carriers' Coalition puts it in their submission:

The proposal to dilute the non-discrimination requirements in order to allow NBN to do exclusive deals for “pilots and trials” is highly risky, unnecessary and supported by no persuasive evidence that there is a problem in existing rules.

If you want to understand just how unfriendly the government's proposed changes are to consumers, look no further than the submission by ACCAN. It says that these proposed amendments 'do not appear to add any benefit to consumers' and 'may result in anti-competitive behaviour in the industry'. So this is a solution in search of a problem.

The government has not done its homework here. They have not spoken to the telco industry—or, if they have, they have not listened to them. They have not spoken to ACCAN and consumer groups here—because it is obvious from the submissions that the Senate committee has received that there is enormous opposition to them. That is just one example in the bill—that is part 3.

Parts 4 and 5 of the bill add to the matters the ACCC is required to consider when making access determinations and restrict the ACCC's decision-making powers in relation to special access undertakings. The effect of these measures will be to add complexity and delay to the ACCC's decision-making processes, to the detriment of consumers. Once again, we are faced with proposed changes which are intended to roll back Labor's consumer friendly reforms and replace them with unnecessary red tape that will benefit incumbents at the expense of competition.

Not surprisingly, a lot of telecommunications providers are opposed to these provisions. In relation to the part 4 changes, Optus notes that 'it is possible to envisage circumstances in which these provisions interfere with or constrain the decision making of the ACCC to the detriment of consumers'. ACCAN is also concerned about this. In its submission it says that parts 4 and 5 'appear to restrict the ACCC's ability to make markets work for consumers'. ACCAN also noted that it was:

… not convinced that the problems triggering these proposed amendments currently, or will in the future, exist. The amendments are likely to add further complexity to the telecommunications regime and increase the amount of time it takes for the regulator to arrive at, and implement, decisions.

Once again, this looks like a solution in search of a problem. Once again, the government has not done its homework and has not satisfactorily consulted with industry or consumer groups to address their concerns.

Part 7 of the bill is one of those rare creatures that is completely friendless. Everyone is opposed to this, and it is not difficult to see why. Telstra nailed the government's motive for these provisions when it said in its submission:

Nbn co's latest corporate plan suggests that there will be a larger than anticipated funding gap between the build costs and the capped funding commitment by the Government.

I could not agree more.

Remember that when Malcolm Turnbull, our Prime Minister, first announced his second rate NBN he said that it would cost $29.5 billion in required funding and would be funded entirely out of public equity. In December 2013, when he revealed his first $11 billion blow-out—from $29.5 billion to $41 billion—he said that that extra $11 billion would be funded out of private debt. In August 2015, when he admitted to the latest blow-out—a $26.5 billion blow-out—he said that $26.5 billion would potentially be sourced from private debt markets. Telstra is right to point out this massive cost blow-out and to be concerned about whether the government is trying to use this bill to stem this haemorrhaging by giving nbn co the power to enter into other markets.

Part 7 of the bill proposes an open-ended power which allows the government to bypass the line of business restrictions set out in the National Broadband Network Companies Act. The opposition will not support this open-ended power. The NBN is signature Labor policy that was designed to upgrade Australia's communications network for the 21st century and fix decades of failure in the wholesale monopoly that is Australia's fixed-line access network. The government has not made a case to extend nbn co's remit beyond the access network. It is unclear what the government is proposing to achieve with these proposed reforms,. But one thing is clear: the entire telco industry does not support this, and neither do we.

Part 7 also attempts to reflect in legislation the government's policy of axing universal national wholesale pricing and replacing it with wholesale price caps. Universal national wholesale pricing is a reform we introduced that we are particularly proud of. It means that Australians living in regional and rural Australia pay the same wholesale price for equivalent services as people in our big cities. The Vertigan panel recommended getting rid of universal national wholesale pricing, and it is now clear that the Liberal Party is moving to axe these important reforms. Once again, the perennially impotent National Party is doing nothing to stand up for Australians living in the bush. But Labor will not stand for it and we will not support those changes either.

All of what I have just said is set out in the opposition's dissenting report of the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee investigation of this bill. We said in that report that we do not support Parts 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8 of this bill, because these measures are:

… unnecessary, retrograde and/or add complexity to regulatory decision-making processes. Worse, many of the proposed measures compromise fundamental elements of the level playing field underpinning the NBN, and may have a detrimental impact on competition and consumer outcomes.

We also said in that dissenting report that Parts 1, 2 and 6 of the bill are non-contentious and the government has the option of splitting these measures out of the bill and introducing them separately, if it wants them passed.

Interestingly, at 5.30 pm on Friday night, my office got an email from the Minister for Communications office advising that they had drafted a number of amendments to the bill and were removing Parts 3, 4, 5, 7 and 8. What a humiliating backdown. After 2½ years of report after report that have cost millions and millions of dollars, the government is now saying they not going to go ahead with these recommendations. What a mess, but at least they are doing this now: better late than never. I look forward to the government moving these amendments in consideration detail. I look forward to watching the government gut this bill like a fish when we get there. I also flag that we will move our own amendments to this bill in the Senate.

This project under Malcolm Turnbull's watch has become an absolute mess. The story in today's SMH is just the latest example of that. Today it has been revealed in leaked documents from nbn co that Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate copper NBN is hopelessly delayed and over budget. These documents reveal that nbn co has met less than a third of its internal rollout target for Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate copper NBN. The delays are due mostly to problems with connecting mains power to the Prime Minister's street-side copper cabinets, and these problems are all of this Prime Minister's making.

Fibre to the premises is a passive network that does not require mains power. These leaked documents also reveal that Malcolm Turnbull's copper NBN is coming in over budget, despite nbn co's recent assurances that the cost was tracking as expected in nbn co's Corporate Plan 2016.

Malcolm Turnbull's chickens are final coming home to roost. He promised in 2013 that his second-rate copper NBN would be rolling out 'at scale' by mid-2014, that fibre to the node would be rolling out at scale by the middle of 2014. It is now 2016, and they are still not being rolled out at scale. As these leaked documents today reveal, nbn co has only completed 29,000 homes under its own steam—that is, 65,000 homes short of their internal target.

The cost of Malcolm Turnbull's second-rate NBN has doubled. The time it is going to take to build this second-rate NBN has more than doubled. The cost of this second-rate fibre-to-the-node technology has tripled. The cost of fixing up Telstra's old copper network to make this work has blown out by 1,000 per cent. In places across the country where they are switching it on, it is not working properly. Some people are getting slower speeds with the copper NBN than they were getting under ADSL and now this. What a mess. It is a complete failure, and the front page of the Sydney Morning Heraldcould not have said it better: 'Turnbull's NBN plan in crisis.'

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear from the member for Blaxland who gets a bit touchy on these sorts of subjects when there is nobody in the chamber. I just do not know why he does not ask questions—he certainly did not ask too many questions of Malcolm Turnbull, the member for Wentworth, when he was the communications minister—that is, Malcolm, not Jason; let's hope that does not happen too soon.

He certainly did not ask too many questions about NBN, telecommunications or indeed mobile black spots when he had the opportunity. He still does not ask too many questions when the chamber is full, so I put it to him to ask a few questions about NBN in the chamber during question time. Be big, be brave, be bold and ask a few questions in question time of the Prime Minister, of the communications minister—or the respresentative of the communications minister, appreciating the fact that Senator Mitch Fifield is in the other chamber, the other place.

It is all too easy to come in here when the chamber is mostly empty and make big and loud statements about the NBN and our policy. I have to say that much of what he said is inaccurate at any rate. He talked about a solution in search of a problem.

We know, on this side of the House, that technology and connectivity are at the heart of what we want to encourage as a government. That is important, because it is all about what we are doing as a government. The Turnbull government has an agenda of innovation, agility and productivity and we, on this side, understand the importance of communications infrastructure when it comes to providing just that. In making this plan a reality, we want to encourage more people to live, work and invest in rural and regional communities. We understand that a reliable and affordable communications system is crucial to ensuring our rural and remote regional communities are part of our ideas boom.

As local members move throughout the many towns and communities of our electorates, people often raise with us the issues they face and that they want the federal government to help them with. My large rural electorate of Riverina is roughly the same size as the state of Tasmania. Many of my colleagues are in similar communities, as, indeed, are some of those opposite—the member for Lingiari and the member for Throsby, for instance—and I appreciate that they represent regional communities.

A few issues are raised with me more frequently than others when it comes to communications. Mobile black spots are the bane of many country communities—and, Second Deputy Speaker, member for McEwen, I have heard you raise this in this chamber. They are a significant impediment to safety, to productivity and to connectivity for people who choose to live and do business in the communities we serve. The Nationals get it. We do. We live in these communities too. We understand, as do our constituents, the frustration and the concern when the telephone simply will not connect or when a phone call is scratchy, and the potential that this reality has for instances of natural or medical emergency, and indeed other times when you simply need a phone just for convenience. I am proud to be part of a government which not only acknowledge what a problem this is but are actually doing something to fix it.

Under Labor, not a dollar was spent on mobile black spots. But we are getting on with the job of fixing that problem. Our promise to establish the Mobile Black Spot Program was, for me, a real highlight of the last election. Thanks to the hard work of the member for Cowper, as shadow minister, we were able to say to the people who live with challenging mobile service that we were going to do something about it. It is all about connectivity.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you going to talk about the NBN?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

NBN is one thing—and the member for Throsby asks whether I am going to talk about the legislation. I understand the importance of the NBN, but I also understand the importance of total connectivity. In the six years that those opposite were in government, we heard a lot about communications. We saw much of ministers in high-vis, talking about how the Labor Party backed better communications, how Kevin Rudd's rushed NBN plan was going to bring rivers of gold to communities without any regard for its cost or the time the network would actually take to build.

In my home city of Wagga Wagga, we saw lots of holes being dug and tape around some iron posts at little spots where the NBN was apparently coming to. But it was just a photo op in a hard hat. That was Labor's plan. There was never actually any fibre rolled out. There was never actually any fibre pulled through those holes that were being dug.

More importantly, in the whole time those opposite were in government there was not a word breathed about mobile black spots and, moreover, not a cent spent on them. There was nothing about the safety concerns, nothing about how a farmer or a primary producer should be able to do business from their farm, nothing about how school students in remote locations should be able to do their homework and connect with their friends online; just photo ops. Not just in communications but in so many other aspects of government, it was government by press release, government by media opportunity.

I am proud that the Riverina has received significant investment from this coalition government as part of the first round of the Mobile Black Spot Program. Thanks to the hard work of the member for Bradfield, the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications and, now, Senator Fiona Nash, the National Party senator for New South Wales, as the dedicated Minister for Regional Communications, we are actually investing in communities. We are actually building towers.

I drove down the Sturt Highway yesterday on my way to Darlington Point to open new exhibits at the Altina Wildlife Park—I just thought I would throw in that plug because it is a great tourist drawcard—and I drove past Collingullie and there it was, that wonderful communications tower, brought to you by this government. We are actually connecting communities to the mobile services that they deserve, yet not a peep from those opposite when they were in government.

Last year I was able to announce that, thanks to the first round of the Mobile Black Spot Program and co-investment from both Telstra and Vodafone, seven base stations would be built in the Riverina electorate. Telstra is investing in building base stations at Ladysmith, Mannus and Merriwagga, whilst Vodafone's construction will take place along the Mid-Western Highway as well as at Tabbita, where there is an important feedlot; Ungarie, who have a great football club, celebrating its centenary this year; and Weethalle, where they have had problems for years.

In all, this is a $4.75 million investment. I wish it was more, Second Deputy Speaker, I will admit. But $1.59 million of this investment is coming from this coalition government and that will provide a service to more than 40 unique communities and locations, including critical road and highway intersections. I have always said that the $100 million could be spent in the Riverina electorate alone—and I am sure my rural colleagues would agree with me on that point, the fact that $100 million probably still would not get full mobile coverage of Riverina.

My electorate stretches from Mt Kosciuszko—as former minister Simon Crean used to talk about, the high point of Australian politics, and I will agree with him, even though it is going to be in Eden-Monaro after the latest Australian Electoral Commission redistribution of boundaries—right out to the red soil plains of Hillston and beyond. There is very different geography, from Snowy Mountains to plains. The $100 million could be spent in the Riverina and you probably still would not get total coverage, but it is a good start. And it is $100 million more than what those opposite were going to provide. The Nationals were very much heart and soul behind getting this money. The Nationals get it. We understand. We care. We want to play a role in getting communities the connection they deserve to reliable mobile services as well as to a better and more affordable NBN.

I am also pleased that there is an additional round of the Mobile Black Spot Program. It is important. And we will help those communities who were not funded in the first round to put their case as part of a competitive tender selection process once more. I am proud of what this government have achieved thus far. I know that those in communities which need better mobile services appreciate what we are doing, because they tell me so. But there is still more work to do. I went to a number of functions on the weekend and people were talking about the good job that our government are doing as far as creating jobs and prosperity, and they want us to continue. They do not want to go down the Labor experiment again. There are still communities which need better services and I will continue to work with the new minister, Senator Nash, who knows the Riverina electorate well and with the telecommunications companies to keep this issue front and centre of the government's agenda.

We are a government that understands the importance of using taxpayers' money as efficiently as possible. We understand that Australian taxpayers work hard and expect governments of all persuasions—whether they are Labor or whether they are coalition—to use the money that they pay in tax in a measured and responsible way—to be fiscally responsible. That is what taxpayers want. For this reason, upon coming to government in September 2013, the then communications minister, now Prime Minister, wanted to ensure that the rollout of the National Broadband Network was one which was fast, efficient and as cost-effective as humanly possible. The review found that a multi-technology mix was the best way to future proof the NBN for delivering universal access to fast broadband.

I know that the Australian Labor Party member from the Griffith branch, Peter Knox, always writes letters to the editor and always says, 'Oh, McCormack was out there and he said that, for Griffith, the NBN wasn't that important.' But I did not say that. What I actually said—and I want to correct the record—was that I do receive far more complaints about mobile service than I do about broadband. That said, the NBN is important. That said, the coalition government needs to ensure that we get the NBN rolled out as soon as we can—and we are doing that. The nbn co is on track to meet its targets for the year within the budget set out in the company's corporate plan. Any suggestion to the contrary is just plain wrong. The company has met its targets for the past six quarters—and that is good. This is in stark contrast to the management under the ALP, when the company met only 15 per cent of its forecast rollout.

The government has taken a businesslike approach. Do you know why we have taken a businesslike approach? It is because we on this side actually understand business. Unfortunately, those opposite are led by the nose by the unions and not too many of them actually understand business. After two terms of government, Labor had upgraded the broadband of one in 50 premises. By this financial year, nbn co will have upgraded one in four premises. So we are talking about one in 50 compared to one in four. You do the maths. It is pretty obvious. By June 2018, nbn co will have upgraded three in four premises. Our changes to the rollout will see the project finished six to eight years sooner and at around $30 billion less cost—nothing to sneeze at there.

A multi-technology mix is a central tenet of our promise to deliver faster broadband to Australians sooner and at less cost to the taxpayer. This legislation seeks, in part, to implement the government's response to the independent cost-benefit analysis delivered to government in December 2014. For those opposite, a cost-benefit analysis is something where you have to weigh up how much something is going to deliver as far as productivity is concerned, how much it is going to benefit and what it is going to do for the taxpayers as far as value for money. I just say that because there were not too many things under Labor's watch that were ever cost-benefit analysis efficient. This coalition government wants to ensure the NBN is delivered in a way which has a competitive regulatory framework, provides greater certainty for industry and provides innovative, efficient and effective service delivery for consumers.

This bill is a measured approach to the government's rollout agenda. Upon coming to government we wanted to take stock of where Labor's network was up to—I can that it was a mess—and ensure the consumer is getting the best benefit for their dollar.    We know that those opposite used the NBN rollout as a political pawn, as a plaything for glossy brochures and promises which were, quite frankly, undeliverable in the time frame the ALP set out. We are taking a different approach. We are taking a measured, businesslike approach to the NBN rollout and, as I mentioned earlier, we want to make sure it is faster and available sooner and at less cost to the Australian taxpayer. This bill is a critical component of this agenda. It will better coordinate interactions between the facilities access regime in the first schedule of the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the access regime in part XIC of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, making it clear that the latter regime ought to take precedence in the regulation of access to facilities. This is part of the coalition's endeavour to provide greater certainty and clarity in the communications industry.

In the Riverina, the NBN rollout is well underway. In Wagga Wagga, my electorate's biggest city, around 17,600 homes and businesses are expected to receive an NBN service either through a fibre-to-the-node or a fibre-to-the-premises model under the NBN's three-year construction cycle. That is good for productivity for one of Australia's best electorates as far as productivity is concerned. I commend the bill to the House.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. This is a bill about the NBN and, unlike the member for the Riverina, I will speak about the National Broadband Network—because it matters to us who live in regional Australia. If you do not live in one of the major metropolitan centres, you rely on fast, reliable and affordable broadband. It has to be ubiquitous and it has to touch regional Australia. In regional Australia you are more likely to have people operating home-based business who are relying on broadband. You are more likely to have businesses which are relying on the internet to market their goods and to purchase their raw materials or their inputs. You are also more likely to have kids who are relying on broadband services to deliver education and, of course, entertainment. Also, the importance of having broadband to stay connected with kids who may have moved to town to go to university or to go to school or may have moved to another city around the world cannot be discounted. So it matters a lot to people in regional Australia.

That is why it is so disappointing for Labor MPs to see this bill make its sorry pass from the Senate down to the House of Representatives—because it really is another sorry step in the saga of the government's mishandling of the National Broadband Network. When the member for Wentworth mishandled the whole Godwin Grech affair, all he did was trash his own reputation. But, in mishandling the rollout of the National Broadband Network, what he is doing is trashing the communications future of the entire country—and, for that, he must be held to account.

The original plan for this bill, as the member for Blaxland has just pointed out, was based on the Vertigan committee's report. It was amended in the other place after it was introduced only at the last minute. Its original plan was to remove wholesale price requirements which were put there by a Labor government at the lobbying of the former member for New England, Tony Windsor. He was very hot on this point because, being a member from a regional electorate, he could understand the importance of ensuring that we have uniform wholesale pricing so that people who are living in regional Australia are not paying exponentially more for their broadband services than people living in big cities. Axing this reform will mean that Australians living in the bush will pay more for essential communication services than their brothers and sisters in the big cities.

I can understand how a proposition such as this would get through the Liberal Party caucus—because they have little interest and not much knowledge about the needs of people in regional Australia. I can understand how the member for Wentworth, with some of the finest broadband in the country, would think that this was a good idea—because he does not know what it is like to live in regional or rural Australia. I can even understand how it got through some of the members of the Senate. But what I cannot understand is this: how did it get through a cabinet which now has a National Party deputy leader who has specific portfolio responsibility for regional broadband? I cannot understand that, unless she was asleep at the wheel—and not for the first time.

This is the same minister who is responsible for regional health and let proposals through the cabinet, through the ministry and through their caucus—and potentially through the parliament—that would have introduced co-payments, a GP tax, which would have had a devastating impact on members living in rural and regional Australia. So I can understand how it got through the Liberal Party party room, but what I cannot understand is how it got through the joint party room made up of National Party members and why the National Party members in the other place all stuck their hands up for it. That I cannot understand!

I cannot understand why the member for Riverina, who stood talking for 15 minutes about how committed he was to broadband in rural and regional Australia. stuck his hand up in the ministry meeting and voted for the abolition of universal wholesale pricing. And his colleagues in the other place stuck their hands up and voted for the abolition of a provision protecting constituents in rural and regional Australia. For the life of me, I cannot understand it except to say that, once again, they are obviously asleep at the wheel.

The member for Blaxland has drawn the House's attention to an article that appeared in today's Sydney Morning Herald. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, you are from Victoria, and I am from New South Wales, so I probably read The Sydney Morning Herald more than you do. It is no secret to anyone in this place that The Sydney Morning Herald has been a champion of the member for Wentworth, who, in his rise to the top job, knocked off the member for Warringah to become Prime Minister of this country. But that article is particularly critical of Mr Turnbull's mishandling of the communications portfolio. It talks about Turnbull's NBN plan being in 'absolute crisis'. And it is in absolute crisis. Those on the other side will oppose the amendments that are going to be moved by the member for Blaxland to provide more transparency to the operations of the NBN. They are opposed to the provision of information such as that leaked to Sydney Morning Herald journalists yesterday.

When the Prime Minister was directly responsible for the NBN we saw nothing but bungling and political statements masquerading as policy—and it is all starting to unravel now. We were told that, under Mr Turnbull's direction, their second-rate National Broadband Network could be delivered for just under $30 billion. This is swiftly changing. We were told in December 2013 that there would be an $11 billion blow-out—and it gets worse from there. In August last year, just before he bailed out as communications minister, we were told it was going to blow-out by over $26 million. Labor has seen these massive cost blow-outs being announced again and again and again, but what we have not seen is the government sticking to the rollout deadlines that they promised. What we are seeing from the Prime Minister, the minister who was formerly responsible for communications, is cost blow-outs and further delays.

We have seen, through the internal progress report, that they have fallen even further behind in the rollout of the National Broadband Network. They were promising it was going to be done quicker, better and cheaper—but slower, worse and more expensive is what we are getting. By the company's own assessment, the giant infrastructure project has fallen two-thirds short of its benchmark construction timetable. Connection costs to each house or business are also blowing out. The final design process for connections, needed before construction can start, is running further and further and further behind. At the date of the report, 1.4 million households were to have been approved. But the figure is sitting at less than half of that, with less than 660,000 households connected. The report, which was never intended for public consumption, has disclosed that the project is drifting, the cost blow-outs are increasing and the rollout schedule is in further delay. We know that this is entirely the fault of the Prime Minister and the coalition parties. Their supposed fibre to the node was going to be the quick fix—not as good as Labor's program, but quick and dirty: 'We'll get it to you; it won't be as good, but it will be just what you need.' But we are finding that the technology mix that is required for this second-rate NBN is one of the factors that are causing delay. As the member for Blaxland has said, when you run a broadband program based on a fibre-to-the-node program, as opposed to the passive wiring system that takes the fibre optic cable, delivering superfast broadband all the way to the household—when you stop it at the node and try to connect the copper to the node—you need a power source, a battery source, at each and every one of those nodes.

This is indeed a part of the delay that is being visited on households right around the country, including in my own electorate. What frustrates people in my electorate is that parts of the electorate are getting fibre to the household and parts of the electorate are getting fibre to the node. In some of the suburbs—quite densely populated suburbs—they can literally throw a tennis ball across the backyard onto the roof of a person who is getting fibre to the household and is very happy with it whilst they are still struggling, unable to get a port for an ADSL connection. These are the circumstances faced by people in rural and regional Australia today. The member for Wentworth, an electorate with some of the finest broadband connectivity in the country, is blind to this, because he just does not get regional Australia. I would expect the Nationals to be jumping up and down about it, but they are not. They seem to be choking under the bridle of their Liberal Party masters, but we know that in electorates like mine it really does matter.

I conducted an extensive survey of over 1,025 households and businesses in my electorate, and the response I got from them was absolutely shocking. People who are running small businesses or home based businesses were saying that they had to move house, from where they were currently living to another region, because they could not get fast, reliable broadband. And when your business is relying on broadband, this is not an optional extra; it is absolutely critical. There were people like Sara, from Oak Flats, who wrote to me and said:

We run two home businesses and it interferes greatly with our income. We also experience frequent drop outs.

There is no National Broadband Network here.

Paul, from Albion Park Rail told me:

I run a small business from home … I'm considering a move to where the NBN is connected just so I can work at a decent speed.

There may be parts of Australia where people would look at this and say, 'No worries.' But when you live in a region where unemployment is stubbornly two per cent above the national average, every small business that moves from your region, every job that is lost from your region, matters critically, and that is what the member for Wentworth, the Nationals and this Liberal Party government just do not understand.

Shannon, from Mittagong, has told me that the internet is affecting his productivity, meaning that he spends more time commuting to and from work instead of working from home when he can. He says:

We cannot obtain a fast internet connection. I work from home and commute to Sydney, and require fast speeds to work.

Over 12,000 people are in the same position as Shannon from Mittagong, and 12,000 people weekly make the trip from my electorate to Sydney to find employment or to work because the jobs just are not there in regional Australia. The broadband network is going to make an enormous difference to their lives, but it is being delayed, it is costing more and it is going to be half as good, under this Liberal government, because they just do not get the needs of regional Australia.

So, as I said earlier, this is not an academic issue. This is not an issue of politics posturing as policy. This is an issue that is making a difference to people in my electorate on a daily basis. As I said at the outset, when the Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, mishandled the Godwin Grech affair, all he did was trash his own reputation. But in mishandling the rollout of the National Broadband Network he is trashing the future of the communications systems in this country, and that is simply not good enough.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am moved by the comments from the member for Throsby regarding the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Access Regime and NBN Companies) Bill 2015. One would think he is living in a parallel universe where he has somehow reached the conclusion that if Labor had survived the last election then all the problems with the NBN in Australia would be solved—that everybody in Australia would be wired up with fibre to the premises. In fact, we know that it would have been another 10 years at least before the NBN reached that far. The member nitpicks around the edges when in fact I can report that in South Australia at the time of the last election the company that was engaged to conduct the rollout had collapsed, as had the same provider in Western Australia. There was no action happening on the ground, because it had collapsed. That was the story of the whole NBN under Labor, and I cannot just stand here and not respond to those misleading comments from the member for Throsby.

Of course, telecommunications is one of the fastest-moving technologies in the world, and that is why any platform that is designed needs to be flexible, to be fast moving and to allow businesses in Australia to be the same. That is why the government asked for a report from the Vertigan panel to suggest changes to legislation that will enable sensible and flexible use of the NBN platform as it is unrolled around Australia. This legislation addresses some of the issues that the Vertigan panel reported on. For instance, it allows users of the broadband network to use in-building cabling that already exists. That makes sense—we do not want to rebuild the universe; we want to use the infrastructure that is there—and that will be provided for. It also allows for flexibility in conducting pilots and trials. It allows companies to have some protection for their IP as they try to investigate new ways of using the NBN platform. In essence, this is good legislation that allows for the proper use of the new NBN platform.

It is also an opportunity to talk about exactly what is happening in the electorate of Grey and how this rollout is being received. I am very pleased to report that it really is picking up a lot of speed. We are getting a lot of interest and people are getting very excited when they sign on to the new network. Grey is one of the electorates in Australia that is least-well served by the old system. Quite a number of my electors—in fact, we are down to about 900 now, but there were many more at one stage—were on the satellite systems, which became overloaded. I will not go into the detail of why that was but, once again, that was mishandling by the previous minister, Senator Conroy. Too many places were allocated under the available space for the satellites.

In fact, I was one of those users. It got to the point of being pretty much unusable. I managed, for my own usage, to put a 40-foot antenna on top of my house to receive a mobile phone signal, which has been used as a platform, through a smart aerial within my premises, for running my internet access. It is not perfect, but it should get me through to the opening up of the NBN satellite. I often say of the satellite that, perhaps, this was one area—or maybe even the only area—that the previous minister, Senator Conroy, got right in the rollout of the NBN platform. He commissioned two new, state-of-the-art satellites. They are the best in the world; they are the newest and one is in orbit now and being tested for use in Melbourne, I understand. We expect that to start taking on customers around the end of April.

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt out there from pseudo-experts talking about how inadequate the satellite service will be. This is exactly the same satellite service that the Labor government, and the Labor NBN, was going to introduce—and on, basically, the same time frame. There is not a cigarette paper width of difference between those two policies. There has been a lot of badmouthing around the satellite service, because of the ineptitude of the overloading of the old satellite service, the Interim Satellite Service. People believe that satellites are no good. In fact, it will be a very good service, with a 25-megabits-per-second download speed. That will be a very substantial service for rural Australia.

Even now, in my electorate, I am dealing with, once again, these pseudo-experts who say that not everyone will be able to get the NBN. But that is what the satellite is there for: to reach into the parts of Australia that are unable to be serviced by other technologies. If you live in a black spot, if you live in a place that, for some reason, cannot pick up the fixed wireless, or if you live in a place that does not have the fibre-to-the-premises or fibre-to-the-node networks, you will be able to log onto the satellite. There will be plenty of capacity and it will be a very good service.

Importantly, it will allow some sectors of my community that have been struggling for some time to be serviced in a very good way. The families of School of the Air students across outback South Australia are so over the current service. Their main platform of delivery is a computer that drops out on a regular basis, so they have to go through the whole process of logging on again and loading up the computer. Sometimes they spend more time trying to get connectivity than they do receiving the lessons over this network. It is pretty hard to get kids in the classroom anyhow, but it is very hard for parents and those who have responsibility for keeping the kids in the classroom through that process. They are beside themselves waiting for those times, in April, when the satellite will begin to switch on. I have urged nbn co and the minister to make sure that hooking up these people is a priority.

Another community that I feel I must speak about is the township of Elliston, which is on what we call the west coast of South Australia or the western coast of Eyre Peninsula. Currently, the town is served by a radio link, which delivers all of the technology into the community—apart from those still on the Interim Satellite Service. The radio link provides the fixed line service, the mobile phone service and, for many, the internet service. We have the local council to a point where their technology is totally superseded by the world that surrounds them, and yet they cannot install new technology because the platform is, simply, not strong enough. Once again, I have urged the minister and nbn co to look favourably upon accelerating a township like Ellison, once the satellite technology is available, so they can join the rest of the 21st century and get on with the job.

In the last eight months or so, we have commissioned 28 fixed wireless services across Grey. I will read them out because it is a bit interesting, as it is a very good spread: Arno Bay; Balgowan, down on York Penninsula; Blyth; Booleroo; Brinkworth; Bungama; Bute; Cleve; Coobowie; Corny Point; Crystal Brook; Curramulka; Gladstone; Hardwicke Bay; Kadina; Laura; Louth Bay; Melrose; Moonta; Napperby; Port Neill; Port Rickaby; Point Turton; Port Victoria; Redhill; Warooka; Winter Hill and Yorketown. That is a good list. It is impressive.

We have fixed wireless tower sites under construction at Ceduna, Coffin Bay, Cummins, Edithburgh, Haslam, Marion Bay, North Shields, Orroroo, Peralah, Peterborough North, Port Clinton, Port Germein, Port Lincoln South, Pine Point, Price, Smoky Bay, Streaky Bay, Wangary, Wanilla, Wirrabara and Wool Bay. I am probably the only person in this House to pronounce all those names correctly. There you go—it is always one of those amusing things, when you hear the radio commentator try and list local names. I can tell you that all of those people who have fixed wireless now are giving me fabulous reports. They are very impressed with the technology. They are very happy. We just have to get it to the rest of them.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour and the member will have leave to continue his remarks at that time.