Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

With some pleasure, I rise to take note of answers given by Minister Conroy to questions asked by Senator Minchin. The Auditor-General’s report released yesterday unfortunately shows that not only did the Rudd government waste money with round 1 of the National Broadband Network promise but they deferred getting the expert advice that would have told them that the process was essentially doomed to failure from the start. So they got away with doing just that—wasting money—for a period of time. What has happened? In the process, millions of dollars have been wasted and Australians have come to expect from the Rudd government promises without delivery. Look at the waste of money: megabucks for not one extra megabit under NBN round 1. Unfortunately, history is repeating itself with NBN round 2.

The Auditor-General said of NBN round 1 that the one-stage tender process was ‘not conventional for a competitive assessment process of this size, nature and risk’ and made a complex commercial transaction considerably more complicated. The Auditor-General criticised the prescription of fibre-to-the-node technology in NBN round 1 and noted that it was ‘limited in potential scalability’. The Auditor-General concluded that, while the Rudd government was made aware of key risks and their broad significance in early advice that it received from the department, the consequences of some of these key risks were not fully assessed until late in the request for tender process.

History is repeating itself. The best that the minister can say about the Auditor-General’s report is, ‘No recommendations.’ The minister is like a naughty schoolboy who has been rapped over the knuckles. In fact, he has had ‘the cuts’. The Auditor-General has given Minister Conroy the cuts, but Minister Conroy is trying to say, ‘But it’s okay. He didn’t expel me from school, so I should be able to chance repeating the same mistakes with NBN round 2.’ And NBN round 2 is repeating the same mistakes: megabucks for not one new megabit. There is not one new customer under NBN round 2. There is not one new internet connection. But there is a CEO of NBN Co. who is being paid $1.9 million a year. There is a government relations manager who is being paid almost $500,000. The company has not yet delivered one new internet connection, one new megabit, one new customer or one new service. History repeats itself.

History repeats itself again with the minister deferring getting expert advice until it is arguably too late. The minister has again and again deferred answering questions about who will get what, when they will get it, where they will get it and how they will get it under NBN round 2 until the implementation study is delivered. We are led to believe that that will be delivered at the end of February this year. The government is again seeking to defer the gaining and release of independent and external advice as to the risks of its NBN round 2. So history is repeating itself with NBN round 2. Megabucks were spent for not one new megabit under NBN round 1. Thus far the situation is exactly the same under NBN round 2: megabucks being spent and not one new megabit. We look forward to seeing history not being repeated post the receipt of the implementation study. We look forward to seeing Australians getting the national broadband network that they deserve.

Question agreed to.