Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Almost a year ago in this House, the former Liberal member for Cowan spoke about poor internet coverage in the Cowan electorate. Speaking about the suburb of Greenwood, the former member said:

A lot of people just cannot get a service of any kind.

What has the Prime Minister done in the past year to provide broadband access to the suburb of Greenwood?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. I will consult with the minister and come back to her with a specific answer with respect to the suburb to which she refers. The NBN is a gigantic project, and obviously I do not have the details of every rollout in every particular location, but I will give the honourable member the benefit of the history. When the Labor Party lost office in 2013, construction had barely started and was stopped in Western Australia. There was a complete failure, and the contractor effectively imploded. The NBN Co had to start again, so the construction of the NBN is more advanced in some other states, but it is catching up. Right now there are 323,000 premises in Western Australia that can access the service and 125,717 that are signed up and are paying customers.

The honourable member has made an inquiry about a particular suburb. We will take that up with the minister and get her the precise details. She could, of course, have obtained that information very readily from the NBN Co, which does a very good job liaising with all members of parliament. But I thank her for her question, and I thank her for her interest. She has succeeded a very capable member for Cowen—a member who was very assiduous in standing up for his constituents and ensuring they had the services they need.

Mr Hammond interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Perth will cease interjecting. He was interjecting right through that answer.