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 and for his ongoing interest in the NBN and regional Australia. By this week more than 30,000 premises should have already connected to the NBN. Over 87 per cent of those are in regional Australia and, so far, the highest take-up of fibre services has been in Kiama where 44 per cent of the premises passed have an active NBN connection.

Can I congratulate the good senator Senator Bernardi on gaining the No. 1 Senate ticket. Perhaps we will all now have a quieter time in the chamber. But I do not think so.

Last week Business Review Weekly profiled Kiama and its embrace of the NBN. The article quotes Kevin Bogie, a contractor for Spectrum Art Glass in Sydney. He has found a huge difference through using the NBN. Previously, he found it a struggle to send and receive large files, such as artwork. Here is what he had to say:

It’s pretty much halved my trips to Sydney for that sort of work.

With regard to his saving on the connection, he went on:

My new plan is 100 times bigger for half the price and I think it has to be at least 10 or 15 times faster.

The owner of home business Hartgerink Media Services, Nick Hartgerink, has also benefited from the NBN. He says that the NBN makes it significantly faster to send and receive files. He told the BRW:

… our fixed-line phone bills have dropped dramatically from well over $100 a month to around $10 a month …