Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

This momentous day in the ongoing history of turmoil and destruction in the Labor Party, with yet another leader of the party, reminds me of the days not all that long ago when Mr Hawke and Mr Keating were at each other’s throats. Certainly today is a momentous day in that ongoing history of turmoil and backstabbing in the Labor Party.

I did want to make a contribution on the motion moved by Senator Parry noting the ineptitude of the Rudd Labor government to deliver promised services to the Australian people, but there are not enough hours in the day to do that. In moving the motion, Senator Parry wrongly called it the Rudd Labor government. He should have called it the Rudd-Gillard-Tanner-Swan Labor government, because we all remember that the gang of four made all the decisions—nobody else.

Mr Kelvin Thomson let the cat out of the bag today when he said that none of them had any idea of what was going on. He was going to vote for Julia because, he said, ‘We have been sent out there to sell policies that we’ve had no say in and don’t even support.’ So he was dead keen to get rid of the then jockey on top of the horse. But he did not quite understand that those decisions had not been made by Kevin Rudd; they had been made by four people, and Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan were two of them. In the course of the day, the gang of four has suddenly turned into the gang of two as Mr Tanner picks up his bags and goes home. But the ineptitude is still there.

I want to briefly come back to Senator Conroy’s NBN proposal. The motion before the Senate talks about the ineptitude of the Rudd Labor government. In question time yesterday, when I said that Senator Conroy had shown his incompetence, I was very correct. Those who remember question time yesterday might recall that I asked a question about Telstra’s HFC cable in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, which currently serves over half of the Australian population.

I was making the point that, for a fraction of the $43 billion that Senator Conroy is wasting on the NBN, we could have upgraded Telstra’s HFC cables, built on to them, and provided a network better than or equally as good as the NBN. I also raised the point that by doing this deal—albeit a deal that is not binding—Telstra has to shut down its network, therefore taking away competition in the networks in the name of promoting competition. Can you believe that? You reduce the competition so that you increase the competition—it was clearly nonsensical. When Senator Conroy gave the answer, he stood up and said to me, ‘Let me explain to you the laws of physics.’ Then he went on with a diatribe. No sooner did I get back to my office than I had any number of people who really understand the internet, broadband and telecommunications emailing me to say, ‘Conroy has no idea what he is talking about.’

Senator Conroy, as you will recall, said HFC is like wireless in a pipe: the more people who switch on and use HFC at the same time the slower the dedicated speeds become. Then he went on as though he knew something about it. The people who understand these things will tell you that it is all matter of engineering. The same will happen with his fibre unless it is engineered properly, but it can be engineered and this is what engineers do. How they do it I do not have a clue, but engineers can deal with the fibre so that slowdown does not happen. Similarly, as I have been told by experts, HFC can be dealt with by engineers in a way that does not have the results that Senator Conroy was alleging.

Anyone listening to question time yesterday would have thought, ‘That Senator Conroy knows what he’s talking about, he really is very understanding and very knowledgeable in this area.’ But, as with all of the Rudd government ministers, it is just blah, blah, blah. Senator Conroy sounds good, but his knowledge of the NBN is about equal to his knowledge of financing and getting a return on an investment. It is all blah, blah, blah—very seldom does it relate to reality and the actual facts.

That is why I am very disappointed. It does not matter whether Mr Rudd or Ms Gillard is the boss, we will still have Senator Conroy as the broadband minister and we will still have this waste of $43 billion on something that could have been done for a fraction of that cost. I say $43 billion but, if we add on the $11 billion they are going to pay to Telstra, does it become a $54 billion program? When we said to Senator Conroy, ‘Tell us how much you are going to save,’ he had no figures, no answers. He did not have a clue about those things.

What the Australian taxpayer is going to be left with is a huge bill, paying off an NBN that most Australians will not need or can already get. Instead of spending the money on duplicating a system that, with a bit of upgrading and engineering, would already be there, they could have been using that money to provide fast broadband to places like Birdsville, Bedourie, Boulia and places out in the south-west of Queensland—and other parts of Australia are the same. That money could have been spent on a fibre link through those areas so that people in remote parts of Australia could have got a decent broadband service, and you do not need to spend $55 billion of our money to do it.

So I urge support for this motion of Senator Parry’s. I know that, if all senators could have the opportunity of speaking on it and even voting on it, they would support Senator Parry’s motion, because I think it is quite clear from the actions of the Labor Party over the last few months, and particularly the last couple of days, that the government is simply inept and is unable to deliver the promised services that it committed to deliver to the Australian people.