Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his question. The opposition spokesman, the member for Wentworth, has attacked Australian technology writers for being pro-NBN zealots. He has called on them to look overseas. Well, we have gone looking. And what have we found?

In New Zealand they dumped fibre to the node and are now building fibre to the home. Just two weeks ago, New Zealand's minister for communications on a visit to Australia was asked: 'Why did you dump fibre to the node for fibre to the home?' And this is what she had to say: 'Because FTTH is the most comprehensive and future-proof network that we could build.'

I have previously informed the Senate of France Telecom which is building fibre to the home to 15 million French homes by 2020. The opposition spokesman, the member for Wentworth knows France Telecom well, as he is an investor in what he described as a 'good-value share'.

So we turned to Spain. What is Spanish Telefonica doing? It is investing in fibre to the home. Telefonica commenced in 2011 what has been described as a 'very aggressive deployment project' to offer fibre to the home, including bringing 100-megabit services to 1.3 million premises in Madrid.

Mr Turnbull asked us to look overseas. We have, and what we see is fibre to the home in France, in Spain, in New Zealand. Mr Turnbull needs to commit to building fibre to the home for Australia's future.