Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Belinda runs a sand and soil small business in Tumbi Umbi. Is the Prime Minister aware that to switch to the NBN Belinda had to make 10 separate orders, had six appointments when a technician didn't show up, had 17 case managers and three complaint managers, and was left without a landline and EFTPOS for almost a month? Given we are now in the fifth year of this Prime Minister's mismanagement of the NBN, isn't it clear that Australians are suffering with a second-rate NBN and that the Prime Minister is entirely to blame?

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

I thank the member for Dobell for her question. She represents an electorate that when the Labor Party left power had zero premises connected to the fibre network. In the electorate of Dobell today 57,898 premises are connected to the fixed network, connected to the NBN. The Labor Party, when they shuffled out of office with an ignominious a track record of rank incompetence when it comes to the NBN, had barely 50,000 premises connected to the fixed network. They had spent $6 billion. They had consistently missed their targets for the rollout. And we are now at a point where over six million premises are able to connect—35,000 premises connecting each week, and we are on track to have this rollout completed by 2020—

Ms Butler interjecting—

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

The member for Griffith.

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

after Labor in 2009 proposed they would get it done in eight years. And guess what? They didn't. They came nowhere near getting it done in eight years, and with every year they were in government they fell further and further behind. Of course the member can always bring forward instances in which a constituent had an unsatisfactory experience, and of course we will engage with that. The Minister for Communications has already responded to the member about two instances she raised this week with a commitment that work will be underway on one next month—the Rudolf Steiner School—and work will be underway on the other with the aim to have the premises connected by December of this year.

But when you look at the totality of this rollout, we inherited a chaotic mess from the Labor government—barely 50,000 premises able to connect. There are now over six million premises around the country that are able to connect, and we are on track to get this done because we are the party of delivery—unlike Labor, the party of empty promises that they never deliver on.