Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—In relation to the ministerial statement on the National Broadband Network, I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I thank the Senate for the opportunity and acknowledge the courtesy of Senator Conroy in providing a copy of his statement on the National Broadband Network a short while ago. This is, of course, yet more evidence of why two things should occur. Those two things that should occur are, firstly, that the government should ensure that the NBN is sent off to the Productivity Commission for a full cost-benefit analysis and, secondly, that the NBN business plan should be made public. This ministerial statement demonstrates that there is yet another batch of legislation that this chamber can expect to see next week and that there is extensive expenditure still to be undertaken, yet it provides no real further information to inform the deliberations of this chamber. We have heard all of the hollow claims that are in here before, and yet we see no further real information or evidence.

If we look at the detail of what Senator Lundy has tabled on behalf of Senator Conroy here today, Senator Conroy tells us that the government is embarking on the largest infrastructure project ever undertaken by the Australian government—and yet it is doing it without a cost-benefit study. That is why next week we will be introducing into the Senate for the first time legislation to require the Productivity Commission to undertake the cost-benefit study. That legislation will be brought into this chamber, and I hope it will be dealt with expeditiously.

We look at the detail here and we see that Senator Conroy is continuing to make claims about the number of premises that have taken up a connection of the fibre that is being rolled out past their homes. He claims that rates up around the 90 per cent mark are being accomplished, yet still he provides in this ministerial statement absolutely no evidence or information on how many of the Tasmanian households who have the opportunity to take out actual services under the NBN have chosen to do so. Many of them have the opportunity to do it for free, but all he wants to talk about is how many households who have been offered the connection of fibre to their home at absolutely no cost to them have said, ‘Yes, okay; run the wire to the house.’ That is all. How many of them, however, have taken out a service? Of course, most have not been offered one yet. None of them outside of a small bundle in Tasmania that is still ignored in terms of any detail in this ministerial statement even know what the service might cost them. So they are agreeing to have a cable connected to their home with absolutely no knowledge about the cost, the plan or anything else associated with the NBN program.

What we have here is a case where the government is saying, ‘Show me the money,’ to Australia’s taxpayers. Show us the money so they can invest this $43 billion in their national broadband network. But when the parliament turns around and says to the government, ‘Show us your plans; show us your costings; show us your pricings,’ there is nothing that comes back. This is just a ministerial statement designed to make everyone feel a little bit better. This is a ministerial statement designed to make it look like there is a sense of activity on the government benches—that they are getting on with the job somehow.