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

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020, and I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes:

(a) that despite the Coalition's promise to deliver a second-rate NBN for $29.5 billion, the cost is now forecast to be $57 billion;

(b) despite the Coalition promising every Australian would have access to a minimum NBN speed of 25 megabits per second by 2016, up to 238,000 premises in 2021 still cannot get this minimum speed;

(c) the shambles that is the deployment of HFC technology; and

(d) that after spending seven years and $51 billion on the NBN, the Coalition Government has begun an embarrassing backflip from copper to fibre; and

(2) calls on the Coalition Government to reign in its technological incompetence across every aspect of the NBN."

The context of this bill, as set out in the explanatory memorandum, is that incorporated developers are currently prohibited from selling or leasing a new building lot or building unit if fibre-ready facilities have not been installed in proximity to the dwelling. This prohibition does not apply to unincorporated developers, as there had been legal uncertainty about what heads of power were available to the Commonwealth to regulate these entities.

The purpose of this bill is to address the lack of enforcement tools and penalties when unincorporated developers fail to install fibre-ready duct and pipe infrastructure in new housing developments, unlike incorporated developers, who are subject to enforceable regulation. Without the necessary telecommunications pit and duct infrastructure, new houses cannot be connected to the National Broadband Network or other fibre telecommunications networks, and clearly this is not an acceptable outcome.

Moving into a new home or estate is both an exciting and a stressful process. There is the excitement of starting afresh and, of course, the stress of sorting out any problems that arise. Very rarely, if ever, do Australians move into a new home and find that no-one has bothered to install the requisite electricity infrastructure. That scenario would strike us as somewhat ridiculous and effectively render the home unusable. Appropriately there are obligations on developers and planners to ensure such circumstances cannot occur.

In the year 2021 we should find offensive the notion that some estates and developments are still being built without the most basic telecommunications pit-and-pipe infrastructure being installed. Regardless of whether this is intentional cost cutting by providers gaming the system or an unintentional lack of coordination around the provision of infrastructure, this is not a scenario federal or state governments should tolerate, given broadband is an essential service and our regulations have to treat it as such.

It is important to note that the sizeable majority of developers do install pit-and-pipe infrastructure. However, complaints received from the occupants of some new developments indicate that some developers do not install pit and pipe. These are typically small and frequently unincorporated developers. It has been estimated that between 3,000 and 6,000 homes are built in Australia every year without pit and pipe, leading to delays and additional costs for the occupants of these newly-built premises. This amounts to an estimated one to 1.5 per cent of new houses every year.

Fibre-ready facilities are key enabling facilities for the installation of fixed-line telecommunications networks. Such networks are increasingly important in allowing people in Australia to engage in the modern economy, with their importance underlined by the need for many people to stay, work and study at home because of the impact of COVID-19. People taking possession of new homes or businesses expect ready access to modern telecommunication services, but if fibre-ready facilities have not been installed there may be delays before such services are available and significant retrofitting costs.

As a general rule of thumb, it is estimated to cost a developer between $600 to $800 to install pit and pipe during the construction phase of a new development project, and the developer can recover this cost when a property is sold or leased. These developments typically occur in broadacre estates and in the outer suburbs when new land is available. In some instances, it occurs when multiple dwellings are built on land that has been subdivided. However, if a developer fails to initially install this infrastructure, it typically costs an estimated $2,100 to remedy, depending on the amount of civil works required to retrofit pit and pipe, and delays can take months. This leads to waste, inefficiency and immense frustration for homeowners, home occupants and consumers, who rely on fast and reliable connectivity. In addition, the homeowner often faces the burden of fixing the problem and having no access to fixed-line broadband whilst this is done.

In 2010, the Telecommunications Act 1997 was amended so that incorporated developers were required to install pit and pipe before selling a building or face a penalty. However, I understand provisions were not extended to unincorporated developers at that time due to the uncertainty within government agencies and the department about whether a Commonwealth head of power existed for unincorporated entities, which typically fall under the jurisdiction of the states and territories. Labor understands the department sought and received updated legal advice and no longer holds the same concern.

What is clear is there must be incentives and penalties such that all developers take this obligation very seriously. Since 2011, the states have had an opportunity to provide these safeguards, but some states and territories have not taken adequate steps to address the non-supply of pit and pipe in new developments and consequently the issue remains persistent, albeit on a small scale.

The bill before us proposes to amend part 20A of the Telecommunications Act to strengthen requirements for the installation of fibre-ready ducts in new property developments by extending to unincorporated developers the existing arrangements and penalties that currently apply to incorporated developers. The practical application of the act is that developers will have to install the necessary pit and pipe or risk a sizeable fine. It is largely up to the Australian Communications and Media Authority how it chooses to enforce the act. When the regulator is made aware pit and pipe hasn't been installed it has the ability to tell the developer to install or retrofit the required infrastructure; otherwise, the ACMA can take them to court under the act, where the developer faces a fine of up to $50,000. We have been advised this framework allows flexibility to be exercised for a graduated form of enforcement, where the developer is given an opportunity to remedy their non-compliance by retrofitting the required infrastructure.

While states and the territories may not prefer the approach of federal regulation, some jurisdictions of these have failed to adequately address this issue themselves. And if the Commonwealth has a head of power to make a solution available, it is the view of Labor that this should be exercised. For these reasons, Labor will support passage of this bill. The proposals are sensible, and I hope and expect the introduction of these obligations will have a positive impact for the segment of households and families who are forced to deal with the frustration of basic infrastructure not being installed to their new residents. Over the years, my electorate office has assisted several constituents caught in this issue and, let me say, the process is quite messy in the absence of a clearly defined safeguard. I do genuinely hope the passage of this bill brings us very close to eliminating the number of instances where this problem arises altogether.

While Labor is prepared to support the passage of this bill, let me be clear about what we will not give this government a leave pass on—that is, spending $57 billion on a second-rate copper NBN. If you want the Oxford definitions of 'incompetence' and 'waste', look no further than the Liberals, this hapless Minister for Communications and their technological omelette known as the NBN multitechnology mix. Let's do a quick go of the litany of failures. It is over budget. The Liberals, with great fanfare standing alongside a hologram of Sonny Bill Williams, promised they would deliver the NBN for $29.5 billion. It now costs $57 billion, nearly $30 billion over budget.

We then have copper failing to deliver minimum speeds. The Liberals promised every Australian would have access to minimum speeds of 25 megabytes per second by 2016. We are now in the year 2021, five years on, and these minimum speeds are still not being delivered over the copper NBN network. According to reports, up to 238,000 households still cannot access minimum speeds, which are actually a requirement of both Australian law and the NBN Statement of Expectations.

Then we have the fact that they have purchased enough copper to wrap around the planet Earth. This Liberal Party, the same Liberal Party who are on track to amass a trillion dollars in debt, have used taxpayers' money to purchase over 49,000 kilometres of new copper for the NBN. That is enough copper to wrap around planet Earth and then some. I have even heard they maxed out the copper supply in Australia, and they had to start importing copper from Turkey and Brazil. If you are a global copper trader, the Morrison government is your best friend.

Then we have the HFC mess. Who can forget when Malcolm Turnbull and now Minister Fletcher said that the HFC technology would be the great game changer? It most certainly did change the game, but for all the wrong reasons. Never has the rollout of network technology in Australia been such an utter shambles. The NBN HFC rollout is the most uneconomical and, arguably, the most unreliable in the entire world. There is a good reason why the former NBN Co CEO Bill Morrow wanted to toss the entire HFC footprint in the bin, and there is a good reason Mike Quigley and his management team also rejected the use of HFC when Labor was in government. After talking it up as the best thing since sliced bread, the Liberals had to scrap the Optus HFC network because it was not fit for purpose—a total humiliation.

Then they had to pause the rollout of the remaining HFC network some years later because the technology was so unreliable. Turning on your vacuum cleaner was enough to cause the internet to drop out. Just this week, we found out that NBN Co will pause activations on the HFC network because they've run out of chips for their modems. What a mess. No wonder Launtel, a Tasmanian ISP, wrote a blog last week referring to the HFC as a 'dog's breakfast' and singling it out as the most unreliable technology on the NBN network.

This brings me to the performance of NBN during lightning storms. We've been getting reports from the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury regions and parts of greater Sydney and outer Melbourne that fibre-to-the-kerb modems on the NBN have literally been getting fried during lightning storms, with some households requiring up to six modem replacements and technicians having to visit their premises each time. There has been an unacceptable lack of transparency on this issue, but, from what we understand, lightning is causing a voltage surge down the copper line and into the modem. The Liberals had one job: to not stuff up fibre to the kerb like they stuffed up everything else. This entailed ensuring the electronics and vendor equipment used to deliver the service were fit for purpose and had adequate surge protections. If storms are capable of blowing up six consecutive NBN modems, then something is not right.

To sum all this up, we have a copper network that is so defunct it still can't deliver the minimum speeds required by law. We have an HFC network that is arguably one of the biggest and most expensive telecommunications debacles in the entire history of the world. We have modems blowing up because of lightning surges down copper lead-in cables. Do it once, do it right and do it with fibre. Had the Liberals simply followed this path, Australians would have a faster and more reliable network at far less cost to the taxpayer. It's little wonder we have a dud NBN today, whose cost is forecast now to reach $57 billion—that's $30 billion over budget—and whose rollout is running more than four years behind schedule. It is no wonder that the Liberals now find themselves backflipping on copper towards the original fibre-to-the-premises plan. It only took them seven years, $50 billion and a worldwide health pandemic to realise that fast and reliable internet might actually be a good thing.

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

Is the amendment seconded?

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After listening to the shadow minister, I must say that was a very glass-half-empty summation of the National Broadband Network. We have actually come a very long way here in Australia. I don't want to spend the whole of my allotted time going back through a potted history of this, but when we arrived in government the contractor that had been engaged to roll out the National Broadband Network in my home state of South Australia had actually gone through the hoop, as they had also done in Western Australia. The place was in shambles. It was the incoming Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who originally said he would roll out a National Broadband Network for $4 billion. In that period, $2 billion was actually collected that had been set aside in the Telecommunications Future Fund for future telecommunications purposes in regional Australia. There have been a lot of cost blowouts along the pathway. It's been left to this government to pick up the pieces and plough on and get this job done. The NBN is largely complete now. Certainly it is complete in my electorate of Grey, where around 50 per cent of premises have access to the National Broadband Network. Other premises, for all kinds of reasons, have not made that move yet. Some were happy with the arrangements that were in place before, and some are happy with receiving their network connection via their mobile phone services. There are a plethora of things in that space.

Of course, as this rollout has gone along, the technologies have been moving very quickly. We are all watching very carefully what is happening with the rollout of the 5G network, which is, of course, another private network which will be competing at the top end. There's a lot of interest in my part of the world in the launch of a new satellite system. New low, polar-orbiting satellites are likely to provide yet another platform for the distribution of telecommunications across the world. Perhaps in the next six, eight or 10 years that technology may even fill in all the spots where we have mobile phone difficulties now. It is a fast moving space. There's a lot of investment that is at risk here and, as always, there is the risk of technologies being overtaken in time.

There are no simple answers when it comes to rolling out the NBN network, but I'd have say that in my electorate it's been pretty successful. I think you can probably monitor the way government policies and achievements are interacting with the community by the feedback that comes into our local members' offices. I can certainly tell you that in the early days of the NBN rollout we were getting a lot of people contacting my office, particularly from the areas where satellite is the platform that provides the connection to my constituents. But, as the satellite has improved its performance and as the size of the packages have been ramped up and prices have come down, I get less and less contact, almost on a daily basis. We are just not hearing the general public complaining about the NBN. So when I hear the shadow minister stand up and list her grievances I wonder how hard she had to work to find them, quite frankly, because it isn't the kind of feedback I'm getting at ground level. I think part of the skill of being a member of parliament is being able to assess public opinion by the feedback you're getting in your offices. Neither am I hearing it being raised around party room backbench committees as one of the key problems that we're facing with telecommunications in Australia. More often than not, we are still discussing black spots when it comes to mobile phone networks. That seems to be of more interest to my constituents than their ability to connect to the internet.

The Isolated Children's Parents' Association, an organisation that I've had quite a bit to do with on an ongoing basis, have reported that people's lives have been changed by the satellite connections that are now available for School of the Air students. That's a great development. Even when I was in opposition I said that the purchase of the two new satellites specifically for the purpose of rolling out the NBN to remote Australia was one of the real pluses of what the previous administration, the Labor Party, had done. I thought that was the part of the NBN network they actually did get right. It was delivered pretty much on budget and on time and, after those teething problems, has really been put to work.

Coming to the essence of the legislation before us today, the amendment, I have had contact over time with people who have purchased land in new developments only to find that it's their job to get the NBN connected. Why on earth wasn't the hardware already in the ground so they didn't have to go through the expensive process of bringing it a long distance to their block? Of course, the existing legislation allows for incorporated bodies—these are the larger developers—to be caught up in the compulsion to do so. But there is the smaller end of the game—the unincorporated, somebody who might have a block. It might be a builder who has a block of land and decides to subdivide it into five or 10 different allotments and then starts selling them off and perhaps putting spec homes on them. This has been a hole in the system, so it makes sense that we should move at this time to fix up that anomaly. Anybody buying a house in a greenfield site would expect, almost without asking the question—in fact, certainly without asking the question—that they would have reasonable access to the NBN network. So buying their land only to find out that they might be challenged with laying a kilometre of pipe work to get it to their block comes as an enormous shock. It's something that needs to be fixed, and I congratulate the minister for getting on with the job. Really, it's the nuts and bolt of government.

Now, the opposition have moved an amendment to this, but, when push comes to shove, I expect that they will support this because it makes sense. Their amendment is couched more in terms of scoring a political point. I guess that happens on a regular basis in this place, but actually we should focus on what it is we're trying to achieve here. I'm pleased with the changes. I think it will do what it needs it do. I'm pleased with the NBN rollout. I'm pleased that it's largely complete across Australia. I'm certainly pleased that it's complete across my patch, and there have been announcements made for the upgrading of both Whyalla and Port Lincoln to a fibre network in the parts of those cities that are requiring higher speeds. That was always a likely development of the rollout of the NBN. Rather than poke fibre down every road, as had been the initial plan, the plan is actually to upgrade the sections when the need is identified. On any level, overbuilding for something that may never be used because it may be superseded by a later technology has some risk in it, and we've managed to avoid those risks.

I think that, given the state of the rollout that we faced when we came to government, our government has made a very fair fist of getting the NBN network rolled out across Australia. I'm pleased with it. I'm pleased with this legislation. I'm very happy to support it.

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There was some advice or an observation given by the member for Grey to the effect that we would support this resolution because it just made common sense. I want to pick up on that commonsense element. Instead of the coalition deciding, for political purposes, to up-end the whole model of the NBN rollout as it was put out back in 2010, it would have made common sense to fibre up all premises. It would have made sense not to buy enough copper to wrap around the globe just in an effort to differentiate themselves politically on the issue of the NBN. It would have made common sense if, all for the sake of political expediency, the coalition had decided not to treat as second-class citizens—which many in Western Sydney have felt themselves to be—all those residents who have been lashed onto an HFC network that doesn't deliver. And it would have made sense if they'd done this right the first time and not spent billions and billions on top of what they'd already committed, in the end flying the white flag and admitting they had stuffed this up and, in the process, slowed down the rollout, cost us more and delivered a worse product to us.

It would have made utter common sense if the coalition had done it right the first time, and they didn't. As has been highlighted by the shadow minister in the amendment to this bill, we are absolutely making the point that this should have been done right the first time. They promised to deliver this second-rate NBN for $29½ billion; now it's forecast to be nearly double that, at $57 billion. What happened with the rollout is an unbelievable waste of money. As the amendment indicates, they promised that every Australian would have access to a minimum NBN speed of 25 megabits per second by 2016. Up to 238,000 premises in 2021 still can't get that minimum speed, despite what was promised. As the amendment indicates, we had the shambles of the deployment of the HFC network, and, after spending seven years and $51 billion on the NBN, the government has now had to do this embarrassing backflip from copper to fibre. This has been the problem with the way that the coalition has approached politics for the last 10 years.

There was such a massive reaction to this issue. I think even the coalition were caught by surprise at how many people reacted to their decision. It wasn't met with relief by the broader public; it was met with astonishment, and rightly so. In 2010, the coalition knew they'd stuffed up the rollout of broadband in this country. Under the Howard government, nearly 20 plans failed. When Labor announced in opposition and then in government that we would roll out fibre, the coalition saw how popular that was. They went out of their way not to absolutely oppose the NBN but to kill it by stealth; they basically bear-hugged it and choked it to death. This was the way they undertook their opposing view of the NBN. They tried to use HFC to buy in more copper; they tried to do anything other than what Labor did—it was just for the sake of politics. Too many public policy issues in this country have been driven by the coalition's desire to make itself look different, not to support stuff that's common sense, as the member for Grey said—which the government now tells us is common sense and which we should support. At the time, we said it made perfect sense. We didn't just rush this in. We knew that people expected a modern network that would support the growth of the economy, that would deal with the growth of data use and that would deliver what people wanted. We said all of that back at that time, and they said, 'No, we've got a better way.' But it wasn't a better way, and they knew in their heart that it wasn't a better way. They believed that all these things would happen, and they didn't.

All we've seen from the fibre-to-the-node prospect that the government put forward is it inching closer and closer to households to deliver exactly what we said: fibre would go up a street and right into a home and would deliver a modern communications network that families and businesses could rely upon. And they refused to do it. On this issue, on climate change, on fiscal policy, and on debts and deficits—all the stuff that you hear conservatives go on about and say, hand on heart, that they believe in and think they've got an alternative—they never have an alternative. They always mislead the public with the positions that they take. They think they can do things differently, and they always crab walk to the commonsense position in the broader public that everyone knows has to happen. Everyone knows that we should have delivered on fibre. Everyone knows what they were doing when they were wheeling out their debt trucks and going all over the country politicking. Everyone knows that these people couldn't deliver. In fact, the debt and deficit ballooned under their watch. Everyone knows we should be getting to a smarter point on climate change and finding better ways to generate energy without having the emissions growth that we've seen and that we should start tackling. They always said they could do better, and they never could. We have been victim to the coalition's politicking, the hard Right in their party room and the way they've gone about. We waste all this taxpayer money, we waste all this time and we see ordinary members of the Australian public being forced to suffer the political games of the coalition. The NBN is an absolutely classic example of that.

This mob opposite doesn't care about the Australian public. What they care about more than anything else is power, and the way to get power is to score those political points, and it doesn't matter who suffers as a result. They wasted nearly double what should have been spent on the NBN. When you look at the time we lost and the opportunities that were forsaken as a result of it, you see that it is an absolute shambles, and they should be held to account for it. It is the job of Labor to keep reminding the public that, when it comes to delivering for the Australian people, the coalition is more interested in delivering for themselves—delivering themselves into power so that they can sit in the plush seats, do nothing and waste taxpayer money. The ordinary people of the country have to pay the bill for it. I'm absolutely happy to support the amendment moved by the member for Greenway, the shadow minister for communications, because it is an opportunity for us to point these things out.

In my neck of the woods, in Western Sydney, I have residents who live around Colebee who, many years ago, were able to benefit early through a fibre-to-the-premises deployment undertaken by Telstra. At the time, this fibre-to-the-premises deployment delivered great download speeds and, because of the configuration, upload was better than what was available at the time. But developments have accelerated and now people are able to find much better ways of getting upload speeds that meet the modern requirements of the community. However, that Velocity network has not kept pace with consumer expectation. In my area, I have had constituents approach me, concerned about the fact that they've got only one network that they can rely upon. There's very little competition and choice to go to alternative providers. The only technological choice that they've had is to rely on 4G or 5G. And, while these networks do provide a better service, they cost a lot of money if you want to access them. For a lot of people in my area, relying on a mobile network to manage their data needs is just unrealistic, and it's too expensive, frankly—they just can't pay for it. Especially through the pandemic, people have been working at home a lot more. People in the IT sector have much higher requirements, not just for downloaded data but for pushing it out, and they need the network to be capable of managing that. They just can't use a mobile network, and it's just not realistic to advise them to use a 5G network to do that, even though it's being rolled out in our area and people are very happy, in many respects, with that rollout.

I've been at Telstra to do something about this issue for some time, and I have to express a bit of surprise that, apparently, in the last few months, they've decided to sell their Velocity network. It would have been good to have known in advance that that's what they were doing. They've now onsold that network to someone else to manage. I want to give voice to the concerns of my constituents and their absolutely reasonable expectation that they would have a modern fibre network in their area that could meet their needs and, importantly, that they could have choice. For many years, particularly in the telecommunications sector, consumers have had the ability to choose a provider that satisfies what they want and meets their quality expectations. They should have that choice. They've only ever had Telstra. Telstra has provided a good service for many years, and I speak as someone who lives in that area and has had that service provided. But other consumers who live in that area have had a different opinion. It is absolutely their prerogative to make a choice, but they haven't been able to. So we will wait to see what the new owner of the network in that residential estate will be able to do with the network.

On behalf of the people that I represent in my part of Western Sydney, it is important that I flag to the House that they need, and understandably expect, more. They should see a better network. They should see that it moves with the times. They should see that an investment is made to ensure that their expectations on upload speeds can be met so that they can work from home, they can do their job and they can contribute. The network as it stands at the moment did a great job for many years; it can't provide it anymore. We do need to see that. The reason why it's a problem is that, with the network as it stands at the moment, NBN would either purchase it outright and upgrade it at some point in time or stick with it. Either way, it is going to require some sort of build, some sort of upgrade, and it may present, potentially, some sort of inconvenience to residents that have relied upon that Velocity network for some time.

People in the Colebee area need to be given a clear signal: What's going to happen to the network? Will there be an upgrade? Can they expect better service? When will this happen? What disruption will there be? I think the residents of the area have been very patient and very decent about it, but they are right to expect a better deal, and they haven't been getting it so far. It would have been great if residents in our area had got the NBN sooner. It would have been excellent if they had got that purchase between Telstra and the NBN done sooner, so that we had seen a potential upgrade years ago. It didn't happen. There's no point crying over spilt milk. The biggest signal I want to send is: enough is enough. Colebee residents have been patient. Colebee residents have been able to use that network up until this point, but they do, rightly, expect a better network, and it should be delivered to them.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020, which extends to unincorporated developers the requirement for incorporated developers to install functional fibre-ready facilities on building sites. It's worth pointing out that the majority of developers do the right thing, but some don't. According to government, there are around 3,000 premises a year that are sold or leased without the pits and pipes for telecommunication cabling. Some of these premises have actually been in my electorate—not many, but, for those who have saved up to buy their first home or even their retirement home, the additional expense of having to spend thousands to connect it to telecommunications is distressing and, for some, something that they just can't do.

While I've not experienced the same level of stress, I do appreciate the frustration. When I opened my satellite office at Victor Harbor some 18 months ago, the NBN infrastructure was not installed. We had to wait six months to connect telecommunications to the premises, and the contractors had to dig up the footpath. I'm advised that the cost to a developer of installing pit and pipe during construction is estimated to be between $600 and $800, yet the average cost to a new homebuyer of retrofitting pit and pipe is estimated at $2,100. That figure can easily climb to thousands of dollars if more civil work is required.

Most states and territories have planning requirements for pit and pipe. Tasmania and South Australia do not, and they have had time to rectify this. This legislation partly addresses that oversight. The message now needs to go out to unincorporated developers. Australians consider telecommunications to be an essential service in their homes, almost as important as water, sewage and electricity. In fact, in my electorate and many other electorates declared high bushfire risk, when the power is switched off on a catastrophic fire danger day, having access to telecommunications is considered to be critical for public safety.

Two areas in my electorate—Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills—were devastated by the Black Summer bushfires last fire season. Just last week, another heavily populated area of the hills—bounded by Cherry Gardens, Mylor, Bradbury and Echunga—was on fire and facing the prospect of a major disaster when they were saved by the wettest January day in South Australia's recorded history. When I went to the community fire information meeting at Echunga Football Club, my community wanted to know why they lost mobile phone coverage and internet in the early hours of the morning, when the situation was critical. It's hard to explain to people making life-and-death decisions that the mobile network is not covered by the Universal Service Guarantee, that batteries run out of power and that, if you have fibre-to-the-node NBN, you will lose phone and internet access as soon as the power is switched off.

Since being elected to office, I've strongly advocated on behalf of my community to find solutions. I've introduced private members' bills that led to policy change so that when new base stations are funded under the Mobile Black Spot Program at least 12 hours of battery life is provided. And I've advocated for the continuation of the Mobile Black Spot Program, a bespoke solution to the Cherry Gardens area, which isn't eligible for black spot funding, even though access to mobile and internet is extremely poor. I also continue to advocate for copper network replacement and upgrades to areas in my community where they cannot get their landline to work, their fire damaged landline replaced or their fibre-to-the-node service to deliver a minimum of 25/5 standard because the copper is so degraded. These issues affect the copper network inside and outside Telstra's responsibility.

Telstra receives $230 million a year to maintain the copper network, outside of the NBN fixed-line footprint. They have less to maintain, so my question is: what do they do with all of that money? Why, a year down the track, do I still have constituents in bushfire affected areas without landlines who have been warned that they may never have their copper replaced? I also question how much of the billions announced in NBN Co's latest corporate plan is going towards upgrading old and degraded copper in their fixed-line footprint so premises can actually receive the minimum NBN standard. It would be interesting to know if NBN actually received a detailed assessment of the copper it inherited in the fibre footprint when it was handed over from Telstra. I'm advised that NBN Co expects to provide additional detail on the upgrade criteria for fibre-to-the-node areas in the first quarter of this year.

My electorate is a region with one of the highest percentages of satellite. There are nearly 2,000 premises, in the hills within 25 kilometres of the Adelaide post office, that have been allocated satellite. Satellite is a technology that is much maligned, and early experience of satellite didn't help its reputation. But I do appreciate the chagrin of many in my community who live within a 20-minute commute of the major capital city and yet can only access satellite, which has always been described as the technology of remote Australia. Telecommunications is an essential service.

Western Australia is battling its own bushfire disaster right now, and the hearts of all Australians are with them as they are caught up in this catastrophe. Based on previous experiences from bushfires in my community and in the communities around our nation, I know that poor and failing telecommunications will be a perennial complaint. The government is acting to make telecommunications more resilient, with the $37-million Strengthening Telecommunications Against Natural Disasters package, but more needs to be done.

We need longer-lasting batteries on our mobile phone towers, and we need to continue to address mobile phone black spots and find bespoke communications solutions for different communities. Through my advocacy and the advocacy of the state government member for Davenport, Stephen Murray, we have secured funding to upgrade a mobile phone infrastructure that's going to be erected on a new NBN wireless tower in Cherry Gardens. We cannot guarantee that the telecommunications won't fail or be destroyed by major disasters, but we can work together to make our infrastructure more resilient. I commend the bill to the House.

Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to echo the sentiments of the shadow minister for communications and the member for Chifley, who spoke earlier and very eloquently on the Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020. As they've indicated, this bill does put forward provisions that are, in a sense, a sensible step forward. But in another sense there's a profound irony to this bill, a profound irony that even nonexperts in telecommunications, engineering or economics would very quickly grasp. This bill is basically making the point that, if there is a new development, it would make sense to install pit and pipe at the point of construction for a cost of around $600 to $800 rather than failing to do that and going in and rebuilding the construction at a significantly higher cost of, on average, as I understand it, $2,100.

Any of us who have undertaken any kind of minor repairs around the house or a renovation or built anything from scratch understand, at a very basic level, that, if you're going to do something, do it right the first time. It always costs more to come in after the fact and re-engineer something. So, at this very basic, household level, I think any of us understand this very basic concept. It is scary that those opposite don't understand the profound irony in bringing to this place a bill which reflects that very basic concept, when we have seen on a national scale the politicisation of a project which had broad support across telecommunications experts, across engineers and across the economists who looked at the business case of this project. We have failed to do at the national level what makes so much sense at the household level. At the national level we didn't do what makes common sense and build the thing correctly from the start. At the national level we've had a government in power for a scarily long period of time—they are well into their third term—that, time and time again, has grasped for any way to differentiate from what was a very sensible path forward. We have seen the government grasp for any way to undermine the project that they inherited, to change direction even when it flew in the face of expert advice.

I won't go off into the many other areas of policy where this government has flown in the face of expert advice—that is something we've talked about at considerable length already this week and will continue to. But in this area it is absolutely tragic that, because of this government's pig-headedness and its politicisation of this project, we as a nation have done exactly the opposite of what is such common sense at the household level. So yes, when it comes to a new household development we support doing the low-cost solution—building it right the first time. We implore the government, even after their many botched attempts to change direction for political reasons, to take the advice from this point forward and invest in the NBN for the benefit of the nation in the least cost and highest output way.

I understand that, as the shadow minister for communications, the member for Greenway, mentioned earlier, around 3,000 to 6,000 homes are built in Australia every year without pit and pipe. That is unacceptable. We support regulatory measures that will reduce that number, of course we do. As I said, there is some irony in this government's bringing this bill to this place and pontificating about the need to do things right the first time.

In supporting this bill, we will also continue holding the government to account for its many macro failings when it comes to the NBN over the past decade. It has spent tens and tens of billions of dollars more than was necessary on what is in practice today a far, far less effective telecommunications network then it ought to have been. Let's go back to the vision of the NBN. The NBN was about Australia embracing the digital future. The NBN was about Australia taking advantage of all the productivity benefits of the digital opportunity for the benefit of today's and future generations. What were the values, the guiding principles that underpinned our response to that? One was access for all, one was opportunity for all, and one was improving quality of life. Those guiding principles were for access to telecommunications, for access to all of the productivity benefits for the opportunity for business growth and for quality-of-life improvements to be shared across the country, no matter geography, income level or background. Those were the underpinning principles. This bill reinforces some of the key failings of this government's approach, because it is exactly the kinds of people who are most adversely affected by these kinds of situations—those people in outer suburbs and in regional communities—who are failing to get their house built correctly the first time. These are exactly the kinds of people who would have benefited from a stronger adherence to those guiding principles of access, opportunity and improvements in quality of life for all. It is exactly the people in these new communities—outer suburban communities, regional communities—who are missing out because of this government's implementation of the NBN.

There were long-term trends underway in our economy and our society that boosted the case for the NBN: the fact that our economy was becoming more digital, the fact that telecommunications between people and between businesses was becoming more important, the fact that sharing huge amounts of data was becoming important and that video was becoming so important. These trends were underway long before the NBN was commissioned by the Rudd and Gillard governments and were a key rationale for it, and that was the opportunity we wanted to take advantage of.

Of course, what we've seen in this COVID era is an acceleration of a lot of those trends, and that is what we often see during times of economic disruption. In the case of health we've seen the move towards telehealth. In the case of education we've seen an acceleration of the trend towards remote education. This has reinforced the importance of the NBN but it has also, tragically, reinforced the failings of the government's approach. Connection between businesses has never been more important, and the NBN, as a fundamental utility in our society, is akin to the payment system and its relationship to the financial system. It is absolutely imperative that we get it right. So many businesses in Australia need to connect remotely, not just to consumers within Australia but globally. COVID has shown the importance of those connections. It has also shown the remarkable opportunities there are, and this NBN, as botched by this government, is not giving our businesses the opportunities they deserve.

There's of course the absolute need for communication access for social purposes, for people to be able to communicate with family and other loved ones and friends around the country and the globe. It's needed for telehealth, as I mentioned earlier, for remote education and for so many other services. The NBN is going to underpin access to so many services for so many people. But, again, this bill highlights how the government has botched it for so many people: people in the outer suburbs, people in regional communities—people who aren't getting access. These are often people who are the most isolated to start with. And of course there's working from home. It is again something that was already happening in our society, and the COVID pandemic has accelerated that trend. This government's botched implementation of the NBN has reduced the opportunities for many, particularly those who were already the most disadvantaged, particularly for those who were already the most isolated.

We know that too many Australians have been left digitally isolated by this government's approach to the NBN. Before the pandemic struck, the ABS estimated there were up to 1.3 million Australian households not accessing broadband at home. That's not a random scattering of households across the country, it's not just 1.3 million households here and there; that's 1.3 million households that would be disproportionately from low-income areas, outer suburbs and regional areas. These are the people who needed the NBN the most. This government's botched implementation has left them isolated. There are many households not using ADSL, many not using the NBN and many not using wireless broadband.

We can go back to the very start of this government. I quote the Prime Minister at the time, Tony Abbott: 'The government is going to invest $43 billion worth of hard-earned money in what I believe is going to turn out to be a white elephant on a massive scale.' So he was a climate denier and also a digital denier at the time. That really underscored the approach that the government have taken throughout. They never embraced this project with any enthusiasm. To the extent that they have implemented this project, it has always been with an eye to the politics. It has always been with an eye to differentiating it from the project they inherited, but without any rationale on the basis of economics, engineering or telecommunications expertise. That's why, time and time again, they've botched it. That's why this project is running tens of billions of dollars over budget yet is underperforming for so many Australians who are most in need.

I don't have time to run through the many technical aspects that the shadow minister ran through so well in her contribution—as indeed did the member for Chifley—but, as they both alluded to, never before have copper traders had it so good. It's an interesting point of contrast with the 18th century Royal Navy, which pioneered the use of copper sheathing to protect the underwater hulls of ships from salt water and biofouling. What we have when it comes to case studies of the use of copper is the 18th-century Royal Navy, in the 1700s, trying to improve ships and protect them from salt, and the Morrison government in 2021. I'll leave you to guess which of those was at the cutting edge of technology and which of those was not at the cutting edge of technology.

It is an embarrassment that we are world-leading purchasers of copper wire. The solution was clear almost a decade before this government came to power. They changed direction not for any good policy reason but for politics alone. The shadow minister talked at length about the HFC disaster and the multiple backflips we've seen by multiple ministers in that space. And of course there are modems and lightning surges, and the list goes on and on. We can run through all of those technical deficiencies, but, without surprise, we end up with a cost blow-out of tens of billions of dollars and many hundreds of thousands of Australians who don't have access. There are many hundreds of thousands of Australians who can't get the minimum speeds this government promised. Many hundreds of thousands of Australians who are already isolated are missing out on the opportunities this government should have realised and should have given them.

It's a shame this government can't see the profound irony of this bill. This bill is trying to remedy the situation at the household level. Of course it makes sense if it costs $800 to build a connection at the point of construction to do it when you're building a new house and not a year later when it costs $2,100. It's a profound irony and a profound tragedy for our country that this government can't see that the same argument applies nationally. If you're going to build the NBN nationally, do it right the first time. Don't spend a decade grasping for political changes for the benefit of the minister's media releases in a way that's going to cost tens of billions of dollars extra and reduce the functionality.

This is a classic case of what applies at the household level applies to the bigger picture. At the household level if you do it right the first time you avoid, on average, an extra $1,300 in costs. Unfortunately, at the national level the additional costs, both in terms of lost opportunity and extra expenditure, have been far more than $1,300.

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

I'm pleased to speak on the Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020. The purpose of this bill is to address the lack of enforcement tools and penalties when unincorporated developers fail to install fibre-ready duct and pipe infrastructure in new housing developments. I'll be pleased to speak to the shadow minister's second reading amendment further on. This bill seeks to amend part 20A of the Telecommunications Act 1997 to extend the current regulations for incorporated developers to all developers. These regulations were originally introduced in 2010. It's now 2021. There was some uncertainty at the time about how regulations could be applied to unincorporated developers, so they were left out. We're 11 years down the track and we still have the problem.

The infrastructure department now has updated legal advice that confirms this regulation is applicable to unincorporated developers. It's now time for us to ensure the standards for 21st century infrastructure are consistent and up to date. Without telecommunications pits and ducts, new houses cannot be connected to the National Broadband Network or other fibre telecommunications networks. While most developers do install pit-and-pipe infrastructure as standard practice, some smaller unincorporated developers do not and have not been compelled to do so. Under the 2010 regulations, incorporated developers must install this infrastructure or they will face significant fines. This bill seeks to extend these regulations and penalties to all developers. It has been seven years into the term of this government before action has been taken.

Under the current piecemeal regulation, the government estimates that around 3,000 new homes are left without this infrastructure every year, which is around 1½ per cent of new homes. Now, 3,000 new homes nationally in the scheme of things is not many in toto, but that is of small comfort to those 3,000 homeowners, many of them young people, who discover they don't have NBN infrastructure preinstalled in their new homes.

Just imagine the situation. You've got your new home, you're excited, you've shaken hands upon signing the mortgage, you've made the commitment. You've bought the new home. You move in with your partner, unpack the boxes and unpack the TV and the computers, plug everything in, ring up your ISP and say, 'I want the NBN connected,' and they say: 'Sorry, no way. It can't be done, you don't have the NBN connected in your new home, in your new suburb, in your new estate.' You say: 'What? This is a 21st-century home. How can I not have the NBN connected or preinstalled?' 'It hasn't been done.' 'Well, how do I do it?' 'It's going to cost you 2½ grand—$2,100—and we'll be there when we can.' So, weeks or months after moving into your new home, you finally get the NBN. There are no connections at home until they get around to it. It's just disgraceful. But this has been the situation under seven years of this government, and it is only getting around to fixing it now.

Furthermore, it costs the developer between $600 and $800 to install the necessary infrastructure during the construction phase. It's a cost that they can easily recover from the purchasers. If you're buying a new home in a new estate for between $350,000 and probably $550,000 or $600,000, depending on where you are, $600 or $800 on top of the mortgage isn't going to break the mortgage. It's amortised over the life of the mortgage. It's not difficult to do and it's cost-effective for the developer. They can get the trenchers in and use the excavation materials to get it all done in one go.

If the home's built, the gardens are landscaped and everything's in, the walls are plastered up, and then they come in to do the install of the infrastructure, it's costing that homeowner—as well as the inconvenience—more than $2,000 to have that work done. And they can't put that on the mortgage. They've got the mortgage there. The $2,000 has to come out of their wages, out of whatever savings they've got. I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker, young homeowners who have mortgages these days of $500,000 to $600,000 don't have a lot of money in savings, on the flat wages they've suffered under this government. So finding $2,000 for an NBN connection is no easy task. It's an unnecessary burden that could have been easily fixed and which should have been dealt with years ago, but, as is so often the case with this government, why deal with a problem when it can be put off into the never-never?

Access to the NBN is a critical part of modern life, especially after a year when we have seen the importance of being able to work and study from home and when, increasingly, a lot of employers, if not directing their staff to work from home, are certainly encouraging it because they have seen the cost benefits that arise. Connecting all new homes to NBN infrastructure as a standard element of the building process will ensure that the quality of housing is improved, over time, with the latest technology. We know it will cost more in the long run for both homeowners and governments if this infrastructure is not installed at the construction phase. The member who spoke before me, Dr Mulino, made the very good point that there's a metaphorical link between what's happening here with homeowners and what should have happened with the NBN on the national level originally. Do it once, do it right, do it the first time.

My office has dealt with many, many NBN complaints since I was first elected in 2016. Too many times I have had to go in to bat for my constituents because no-one would take responsibility for the lack of necessary infrastructure. A lot of the complaints I've had to deal with have been about the fixed wireless network—the lack of coverage and the poor response rates. But, as new estates are being built in my electorate, I am getting requests for intervention on matters such as this. Councils say they are powerless to act; developers shrug their shoulders and say they're acting within the law; and ministers give my office the run-around. Meanwhile, it's new homeowners who suffer, having to shell out north of $2,000 for what should have been a $600 or an $800 addition amortised into a 30-year mortgage.

So, to highlight just how important it is that all developers are required to install the pit-and-pipe infrastructure, I'd like to take a moment to tell you about one of my constituents, Alex. Alex first contacted me in August 2018. He'd purchased a new home in a development at Longford in Tasmania's Northern Midlands. In March 2018, shortly after moving in, Alex realised the developer had not connected the NBN to his new home, so he contacted my office to ask about the process to get the infrastructure installed.

Alex discovered that the entire subdivision, not just his own home, had been completed without the necessary infrastructure for NBN internet connection—a connection desert in the Northern Midlands, about 25 kilometres south of Launceston. And, in the middle of Launceston, thanks to Launtel, which is a Launceston based company, they get one gigabit—one gigabit! And you know why? Because, when Labor was in government, Launceston got fibre to the premises. So, in Launceston, one gigabit fibre to the premises is possible; 25 kilometres south, no internet at all, because for seven years this government failed to ensure that developers must provide internet connection to new housing estates. What's worse is the properties in this subdivision have been advertised as being NBN connected.

After several months of chasing up this issue, work finally began on the pit and pipes in September. As you can imagine, digging up the entire subdivision and laying the appropriate cabling was a messy, disruptive and lengthy process—not to mention entirely avoidable if the developer had installed the necessary infrastructure from the start. In mid-October, six months after Alex purchased the property, the work was finally completed and the NBN wiring was finally connected. I've got to say that, unfortunately, again, under this government, it's not fibre to the premises; it's fibre to the node. But it's better than nothing. That's six months of frustration, delays and costs that could have been avoided if the developer had just done the work in the first place.

This is the exact scenario this bill does seek to fix, albeit seven years late. We are happy to support it. To date, my office has assisted at least five homeowners who had purchased property in this subdivision, some of them waiting more than a year before being able to get an internet connection because the necessary infrastructure had not been preinstalled. Buying a new home should be a time of excitement, not frustration and disappointment.

Under the act in its current form, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, as the regulator, will warn incorporated developers about the penalties if they have been found to have failed to meet their obligation to install infrastructure. ACMA will allow them to remedy the issue by retrofitting the infrastructure; otherwise, they get to take the developer to court, where they face a fine of up to $50,000. It would be interesting to know how many fines have been issued and whether any incorporated developers have in fact failed to follow this direction.

This system ensures that the incentives for developers are in place while also allowing for a graduated system of enforcement, with the possibility of a mutually beneficial solution before penalties are applied. So this bill will extend this structure onto unincorporated developers, to cover all new developments and take the burden of NBN coverage completely off homeowners. Homeowners should not have to worry that their new home does not have NBN installation. It should just be a given.

This bill underwent an extensive consultation process in September 2020, resulting in the approval of important stakeholders such as NBN Co, Telstra, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, various consumer groups and the planning department of Western Australia. Additionally, the Housing Industry Association and the Urban Development Institute have said they could accept this bill, if considered necessary. That's nice of them!

This bill is necessary. Australia is a modern country and we need modern infrastructure to support our growth in the 21st century. The nature of work and study is changing. We need to make sure we're at the forefront of this innovation.

Our nation has already taken a massive hit from this government's complete bungling—bungling on a massive scale—of the National Broadband Network rollout. It's difficult to speak about the magnitude of the incompetence of this government when it comes to the National Broadband Network: $57 billion and four years late!

They are billions—thousands of millions—of dollars over budget, and, even when it's complete, it's going to be second-rate. They haven't got fibre to the premises for 93 per cent of Australian properties, which Labor would have had—for less money. It's a complete mishmash of technologies. They've bought enough copper to wrap around the globe—think about that—to lay underground to provide NBN services that are fit for the 20th century, not the 21st. This isn't just about watching faster Netflix or making sure you've got 4K HD TV reception. This is about business; business needs 21st century speeds. We're in a global competition and we're now behind the pack because of this government's rank incompetence on telecommunications. Our international competitors, across Asia and Europe and increasingly across the Americas, have got world-class fibre networks, and this government has riddled us with copper.

It's an absolute disgrace, and they just shrug their shoulders. They think: 'What we've got is good enough. We're proud of the fact that the rollout's nearly complete.' Despite thousands of homes not being connected, they're pretty happy with it. They think it's good enough. It's not good enough. Business says it's not good enough and, in fact, the government have conceded that it's not good enough because they're now spending billions of dollars trying to go back and retrofit fibre in places where they put copper last year. They laid copper just a few months ago, and that's got to be ripped up and replaced with fibre. That's how incompetent they are. Unfortunately, that cost, in many cases, will be borne by businesses and home owners. Australians at the retail end are paying the price for this government's rank incompetence on telecommunications and broadband. What we've now got in the ground would have been world-beating in the 1970s. If you're wearing a brown suit and flares, you would be pretty happy with copper in the ground. But it's no good for the 21st century.

The bill before us will ensure that NBN connection infrastructure will be incorporated into new housing as standard practice, and Labor does support that. But we will not give this government a free pass on the complete bungling that it's made of the NBN. It should hang its head in shame at the way it has consigned this country to decades of catch-up. We are way behind the eight ball when it comes to telecommunications, and this government has put us there. They should be held responsible for every business failure, for every business that doesn't get ahead because of their poor telecommunications record, and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's sometimes good to come into the House, which I'm not noted for, and listen to speeches, because I didn't know we were using a lot of copper. As a copper miner and an owner of copper mines, I'm disappointed to hear that, but my knowledge of optical fibre would lead me very strongly to endorse the remarks of the previous contributor to this debate. We really do need optical fibre. We're getting plenty out of the electric cars and that sort of thing, so we don't need to be in the communications system. This leads me to saying that I owned a moderately remote, very large cattle area, some 250,000 acres of country, and we had the flying doctor radio network—God bless John Flynn and Alfred Traeger for that. You would have to say, 'Over' every time you finished a sentence and then you would say, 'Over and out' when you finished your phone call. Of course, everyone could listen in. Then we had the party line, as it was called, which was copper wire, and everyone on the party line could pick up their telephone and listen in to your conversation, which was very, very unfortunate at times. Then we moved onto what I think were called DRCs, digital remote concentrators, and then another form. We had four changes in technology in the space of 20 years, and these were complete changes in technology.

One moves forward with fear and trepidation, but I want to emphasise to the House: you have presided over the sale of every single asset owned by the Australian people. You sold them off without any consultation with the Australian people. Michael McCormack's seat was held by Kay Hull and she had the courage to walk across the floor—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy will refer to members by their proper title and also remember—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't know the name of the electorate which they represent, so—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Deputy Prime Minister'—you can use that title.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have no alternative. She is not in this House now, so I can use her name.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you can't refer to the current Deputy Prime Minister by their name; you have been here long enough to know that.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am talking about Kay Hull. She is not in this place, and I have no alternative but to use the name Kay Hull and I don't want to fight with you about it.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, you won't because you will sit down.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are one of the people who sold off—

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Kennedy is going very close to reflecting on the chair. I know—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very close to reflecting on the chair; you're dead right.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Be quiet and listen for one second. You referred to the current Deputy Prime Minister by his name. If you can't remember what you said 30 seconds ago, for that I'm sorry. But when you're in the chamber you refer to members by their correct title.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will refer to the Deputy Prime Minister's predecessor and I will use her name, Kay Hull. I hope that pleases you, having taken up the time of the House—not me, yourself, Sir. She crossed the floor because she said the Australian people own Telstra, not this government. They do not own it; the Australian people own it. If you want to sell Telstra then the Australian people should have a say; they're the shareholders. It is their taxpayers' money that provided that service and built that service for the Australian people. She was dead right. It would just be wonderful if a few other people in this place had the courage of their convictions to do what she did on that occasion and acknowledge that you have sold off every single asset. You have sold off the Commonwealth Bank. You have sold off Qantas. You have sold off the railways. I can't think of anything that hasn't been sold.

There are three exceptions and it's very important they go on the record. The NBN—all of you may be forgotten but Kevin Rudd will never be forgotten because Kevin Rudd delivered to the Australian people one of only three assets they now own. The NBN is a priceless asset. So he will go down in the history books and the rest of us, I submit, will not. When you talk about Chifley, you will recall the Holden motor car, you will recall the Snowy Mountains and you will recall—I am not going to go through everything; you can read my book, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I doubt it.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is $39 at every good book store. Let me return to the subject of this—telecommunications. Ahmed Fahour was put in charge of Australia Post and paid himself $11 million in his last year. Before I exposed that salary to the House and the fact that he sacked 2,000 employees, I might point out that the Labor government hadn't opened their mouths about the sacking of 2,000 employees, possibly because there were about 50,000 of them sacked under Labor governments in Telstra and probably 100,000 sacked in the railways throughout Australia. We never sacked a single railway employee when we were in office. That is the essence of what we're talking about here.

The remarks by the previous speaker—that we're not going far enough with this—are acceptable remarks. If you say the cost is astronomical, well, it was exactly the same when Chifley put in the telephones: it was $25 million, and the budget of Australia was less than $25 million at the time. Don't quote me on those figures, but I think you will find they are roughly right.

I'm switching tack completely now. As to what we're talking about today, if you say the current services are adequate, I say they are grossly inadequate. In Normanton and Mornington Island and all of the Gulf country—and there are 5,000 or 6,000 people living in the Gulf country—their services vanish completely every time we get a cyclone. Since we get a serious cyclone once every two years, there is a very serious risk to the enjoyment of life, for the sake of a better word. Everything comes to a halt when the telecommunications system goes down, and it goes down in every cyclone. In fact, in some storms it goes out. Our ability to fix it up is very, very limited indeed.

I asked John Nelson, one of the leading cattlemen in Australia, about the first thing he would do if he were the boss of Australia, and I was quite amazed when he said 'telecommunications'. The band speed just drives you off your head. The mayor's wife at Burketown—I don't like using her name without her permission—is constantly advocating the need for faster speeds and greater bandwidth for people living in remote settlements in Australia. There are mining settlements, there are tourism settlements, and there are cattle stations; there are 101 people in this sort of situation in Australia. If we do nothing good in Australia, one thing we have done well is The Ghanthe taking of the railway system right out into the middle of nowhere—and the taking of the telegraph system right out into the middle of nowhere. We've prided ourselves on that, but we're now falling right behind the eight ball.

You can't cash your cheque in places like Dajarra, because there's no EFTPOS there. The services are so limited, and the modern day and age require these services. People work a hell of a lot in plastic magic rather than cheques, and it becomes a very serious problem if your telecommunications system goes out. I ran out of cash during Cyclone Larry and I was hungry. It was the second day and I hadn't eaten very much. People won't take a cheque these days, and of course I couldn't use my plastic magic. So I simply had to go hungry. One of my Sikh friend's family were good enough to take me in that night and feed me. Otherwise, I would have just had to go hungry. There were an awful lot of people in Innisfail and the greater Innisfail area that went hungry when the telecommunications system went down, and there were very serious threats to life and limb. A tree falls across the road, and a bloke driving a motorbike at a very low speed comes over the crest and hits it. He's got serious brain damage. There are no telephones to communicate to anyone that he's in this situation. He waits for a car to come along, and, of course, by the time he gets to hospital, he's nearly dead. That actually occurred.

In summary, I wasn't aware of the use of copper. I'm not a cattleman; I'm a copper miner. That's my trade. That's who I am. Before I went into parliament, I was mining copper out of my own mines that I found and prospected myself with my partner. The necessity for optical fibre is absolutely essential. We should be making optical fibre here in Australia. We have the best silicon deposits in the world at Cape Flattery and numerous areas north of Cape Flattery—the very far north-east coast of Queensland.

We can produce silicon at one-tenth the price that our competitors can produce it at. I was with the great Sir Leo Hielscher. Two of the four biggest bridges in Australia are quite rightly called the Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges. Bjelke-Petersen gets all the credit for the building of Queensland, but I think half that credit should always have gone to Leo Hielscher. Speaking to him the other day in the presence of my parliamentary chief of staff, he said, 'They are exporting bauxite from the new mine in Cape York.' He burst out laughing. My chief of staff was looking at me. He said, 'What's the significance of that?' I said, 'Because when the Japanese came in and said that they were going to export bauxite, and they thought we'd think that was wonderful, Leo Hielscher laughed and kept laughing.' He said, 'You will not export bauxite from Queensland; you will export aluminium from Queensland!' Would to heaven this place was run by Sir Leo Hielscher! 'You're not taking the bauxite; you will take aluminium.' They said, 'What about the cost of electricity?' He said, 'We'll complete Gladstone next year, and we will have the cheapest electricity in the world, because we have a reserved resource policy that coal is free.' Gladstone was fired on free coal. It was the biggest power station in the world, so its economies of scale were beautiful.

We had a working station at a place called Collinsville. It had 200 employees, and it was putting out 200 megawatts of electricity. Gladstone put out 1,400 megawatts of electricity and only had 200 employees! So the wage structure was nil; the coal cost was nil, because under the reserved resource policy the coal was free; and, of course, it was a massive economy of scale, a massive power station. When it was built, it was the biggest power station in the world. So we could provide the Japanese with the cheapest electricity in the world, which meant they would have the cheapest aluminium in the world. But the current government in Queensland, of course, like every other government in Australia, including the government in this place, has allowed the product to go out of this country completely unprocessed. And it'll be to the shame of this place.

I've written a history book. It was published by Murdoch Books. They're the big boys on the block when it comes to publishing. You've got to be pretty good to get a book published with Murdoch press. But I won't go into all the ins and outs of it. You write the history of the nation. You put in Ben Chifley, because he gave this country 26,000 houses, built after the war to mop up unemployment. He gave this place a telephone in every house. He gave this place the Holden motor car. He gave this place the Snowy Mountains Hydro.

An opposition member: Hear, hear!

Don't say 'Hear, hear!', mate. Your mob in this place gave us absolutely nothing, with the exception of Kevin Rudd, who was stabbed in the back by a lot of people on the Labor side of this parliament. That's the best example. I was quoting Chifley, but I don't want you saying 'Hear, hear!' as if you have the same policies as him. You have the complete opposite policies to him. Your government sold off almost every asset that the people of Australia owned! (Time expired)

An opposition member interjecting—

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The members might like to take their continued conversation outside.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Telecommunications Amendment (Infrastructure in New Developments) Bill 2020 will improve access to telecommunications in new developments. Access to telecommunications underpins modern economic and social life. When people move into new houses or business premises, they expect that the developers will have arranged access to telecommunications.

Since 2011, the Telecommunications Act has required developers that are constitutional corporations to install what are called 'fibre-ready facilities' in proximity to new developments. These are essentially pits and pipes that house telecommunications cabling. Most developers do the right thing and install the pits and pipes. However, there has been a small but persistent failure by some unincorporated developers to install the facilities. The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications estimates that up to 3,000 premises each year are being sold or leased without pit and pipe. The impact on people moving into these new houses or business premises can be significant, in terms of restricted access to telecommunications, reduced social and economic participation, retrofitting costs and sheer inconvenience. This bill extends the arrangements that currently apply to incorporated developers to unincorporated developers. It will mean that people who occupy new premises can have greater confidence that appropriate pit-and-pipe facilities have been installed, in turn giving them ready access to telecommunications regardless of whether the developer is incorporated or unincorporated. I thank members for their consideration of this bill.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Greenway has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

A division having been called and the bells having been rung—

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

For the information of members, in the Federation Chamber the chair has a light to tell them whether it's a division or quorum that has been called in the House. I've just been advised that during this division it was showing a quorum. What we might do is open the doors, there being no objection, and ring the bells for another four minutes.