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

For the last four weeks while parliament has been in recess, the Leader of the Opposition has been working hard to shine a light on the incompetence and inadequacies of this Prime Minister—but that's enough about the member for Warringah! The Leader of the Opposition has also been working very hard to show how the government is failing on the things that matter for the people of Australia.

I've been working with and I've been focusing on the NBN. Right around regional Australia, from Yass to Townsville, from Rockhampton to Nowra and all the way across to Bunbury, people are saying the same thing—we shouldn't spend $50 billion on a phone system only to see services go backwards and prices go up. It is not good enough. The story is the same—bungled installations, slow speeds and endless games of NBN ping-pong where you try to get your phone issues resolved and nobody takes responsibility. Hours and hours and hours are spent by small businesses on the phone trying to get their problems fixed only to get no resolution. Thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars in revenue is being lost by small businesses. I was up in Rockhampton last week, where I heard of a florist who had their phones go down on Valentine's Day, and motorcycle companies are losing thousands and thousands of dollars every week because their phones won't work. It is not good enough. Stop fighting amongst yourself and deal with the problems of Australia.