Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've heard a lot about aspiration this week. Well, Vince Cooney has an aspiration. Vince runs a bed and breakfast in the Derwent Valley in my electorate. Vince's aspiration is to run a successful business to provide his guests with a quality experience, but his aspiration is being blocked by this government and its complete and utter failure to deliver quality broadband to regional Tasmania. Vince is connected to the NBN by fixed wireless. For the past 18 months, Vince has been tearing his hair out because of the dreadful NBN at his B&B. He's been told that, while his tower is not technically congested, it experiences heavy use in the busy period, in the evenings. Well, fancy that!

Who would've thought that a tower would be busiest at the time when most people want to use it! It's a bit like a traffic planner being surprised that roads are busiest when people are going to and from work.

Reports of congestion on the fixed wireless network are growing across regional Australia. NBN Co claims that only six per cent of towers are affected. Frankly, I find that hard to believe.

Vince has done everything that has been asked of him. He has contacted Telstra, NBN Co, the ACCC and the telecommunications ombudsman, all to no avail. All he wants—his aspiration—is to run his successful business, and he is being held up by this failure of a Prime Minister and this failure of an NBN.