Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Can the Prime Minister confirm that because of his mismanagement of the NBN Australia has now slipped to 50th place in the world for internet speeds, behind even Kenya, Russia and New Zealand? How are Australians expected to compete in a global digital economy with second-rate broadband? Isn't it clear that Australians are suffering with the second-rate NBN because this Prime Minister is so out of touch?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to this particular misleading question, because we are told by the Labor Party that apparently there is some problem—according to the fact that under an internet speed survey conducted by the company Akamai, Australia is doing worse than Kenya. Our speed is slightly less in average speeds, in megabits per second, than Kenya.

There is one small fact that the Labor Party has neglected to mention in pointing out this report! Approximately two per cent of the population in Kenya can connect to broadband—two per cent. We've got one country where a small number of private sector providers provide a high-speed broadband service. We have a network which is now available to six million premises and will be available to 10 million by 2020. We are providing a high-speed network that is broadly available to the entire population, and the speed which is available on NBN is materially faster than on other networks and, as the percentage of people on NBN increase, the average speed is going to increase. This is a very good example of the highly misleading kind of commentary we have from the Labor Party choosing and deliberately distorting a report and failing to point out the most obvious point—ours is a network which is designed to serve the entire population and they compare it to another country.

I want also to look at what is happening in the electorate of Dobell, because we had a couple of questions from the member for Dobell earlier today. How many premises were connected to the NBN in Dobell when the Labor Party left government? Was it 10,000?

Government members: No.

Was it 1,000?

Government members: No.

Do you know how many it was? It was 191! I'll tell you something else. After these geniuses had been in charge of the fibre rollout for four years, zero were on fibre. All of them were on satellite. You people are a hopeless incompetent rabble. You know nothing about broadband. You should keep your heads under the desk.

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

The member for Greenway is seeking to table a document.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table the extracts from the State of internetQ1 2017report, which shows global rankings for Kenya at 43, New Zealand—

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

Is leave granted? Leave is not granted.