Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on a matter that is putting many of our communities at risk, isolating individuals and weakening our small businesses—the government's flawed copper NBN. I've received many complaints from residents in my electorate of Hindmarsh who are absolutely sick and tired of the unreliable communication services that they're receiving. They are residents from Lockleys and other suburbs in my electorate—West Lakes, Flinders Park and Mile End. Most recently I've had complaints from a group of residents in the Netley area. Our residents are experiencing installation problems, high drop-out rates and slow speeds. It's no surprise that complaints are flooding in from consumers who are dissatisfied with this government's patchy copper based fibre to the node plan.

Most recently I've been contacted by a local group in my electorate, the Netley Residents Association. They're a great group who have been around for well over 10 years and are very active on local issues. I understand that members of this group are concerned. They're concerned constituents who have experienced a data rate that swings between 25 megabits per second and five megabits per second, with complete outages ranging from a few minutes to over 19 hours in some cases.

Only this afternoon I was speaking to Fred, one of the constituents from Netley, who was telling me all about it. This is not acceptable. If you're running a business or you're a university student and you have to download assignments through the net, it is not acceptable. Fred was telling me that their access to the NBN relies on a copper Foxtel cable that runs past their home and has done so for over 20 years—copper cables two decades old. When the cable was installed the internet was just getting started. As more people from the street connect through this outdated technology, the swing in data rates and drop-outs is getting worse. How many more complaints need to be raised before we see action on this matter?

Yesterday it was reported that in the past financial year we have seen complaints rise by nearly 160 per cent. What have the coalition government done to address this? I see nothing. I receive concerns from residents on this matter on a daily basis, as do a lot of MPs. The range of ways that residents have been impacted is utterly concerning. I'll go through some of them and what I've heard. For example, there are parents whose children are unable to study from home and risk falling behind, because a lot of the assignments are done on the net. They have to do their research on the net et cetera. Local organisations aren't able to strengthen their ties with the community through advancing technology. One of the most shocking things is that there are local businesses that are losing clientele because they're not accessible through communications. Their EFTPOS machines are down. This has a very detrimental effect on small business. You can just imagine people coming in to buy a product that you're selling and wanting to pay on EFTPOS, and you say, 'Sorry, I can't do it, do you have cash?' They’ll leave and go somewhere else. There are residents who have serious medical conditions. There's a real concern that they have no means of reaching out for assistance should an emergency arise. These people have the anxiety of not knowing whether someone will come to their aid when a medical alert button is pressed. And, as I mentioned earlier, there are tertiary students who can't submit their assignments on time. The list could go on and on, but they're just a few of the complaints that I've heard. To top all of that off, we're paying top dollar for this inferior network.

So I ask the coalition government again: when will it start listening to the concerns raised by consumers about this flawed scheme? What could have been a nation-building moment for the country, as envisaged by the former Labor government, through a fibre-to-the-premises model, a future-proof nation-building moment, has been missed. We've got technology that's copper, that's running in a 20-year-old Foxtel cable. While the Turnbull government sits on its hands, Labor is here and proactive and committed to promoting innovation and technology. Only a Labor government will support our constituents by supporting a world-class, reliable internet infrastructure for all Australians. It's not too much to ask to receive services that were promised and consumers are signing up for. We all remember the Prime Minister's pre-election promises in 2013 about how fantastic this model for the NBN, which was different to Labor's, was going to be. We warned him then and told him it wouldn't work and that there would be problems with it. (Time expired)