Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

"The need for the Government to honour its election commitment to rollout fibre-to-the-premises broadband to no less than 200,000 premises in Tasmania."

Those opposite come in here and talk about mandates. They yell and scream and huff and puff about their mandate to do this and their mandate to do that; yet, on one clear infrastructure project that they do have a mandate on, they perform an almighty backflip and get completely tangled in the wires. There was a clear commitment to rollout fibre-to-the-premises broadband to no fewer than 200,000 premises in Tasmania. The people of Tasmania have been deceived once by the Liberal Party. They deserve to know the Liberal Party's true intentions today.

The challenge for those on the other side, if they are able to keep their election commitment, will be not only to speak to the urgency motion and to quietly allow this motion to pass later this afternoon but to outline their party's path to ensuring the fibre-to-the-premises rollout is completed in Tasmania. It is simply not good enough to say that the aerial rollout trial has been announced, because such a trial was announced almost three weeks ago by the minister. It is a trial that Dr Switkowski seemed totally disinterested in at Senate estimates last week, a trial without locations, a trial without a start date and a trial without a purpose, because the work has already been done.

Tasmania has been on the path to fibre to the home since the state Labor government first completed an aerial fibre-to-the-home trial in 2008. The trial of over 1,200 premises was found by an independent review to be successful, and the learnings were incorporated into the federal government's National Broadband Network. Most of stage 1 of the NBN rollout in Tasmania incorporated an aerial fibre-to-the-premises rollout. Stage 2 of the rollout, currently underway, utilises above-ground infrastructure. With many thousands of Tasmanians connected to the NBN with above-ground fibre, it is no wonder that NBN Co has not released any details about a trial.

They know, like we all do, that the time for trials is over. Now it is time to complete the fibre-to-the-premises rollout that was contracted for by NBN Co in March 2012—the rollout that the Liberals opposed, then supported, then opposed and then supported before the election, have since supported and then opposed and now say they will support again but only if a further trial meets undisclosed hurdles.

The Liberals in opposition relied on precise technicalities of their commitment to appear bipartisan on this issue. There was never unqualified support for the fibre-to-the-premises rollout. They understood how much Tasmanians wanted this rollout, how Tasmanians saw high-speed broadband as a way of connecting their island to the world and how Tasmanian businesses are delivering their products to customers quicker with the NBN and enabling them to compete in the global market and live in the most beautiful place on earth.

Let me just take the Senate through the great entanglement the Liberal Party has got itself into on this issue. As we know, the contracts were signed by NBN Co and Visionstream in March 2012. The media release from NBN Co at the time remarked that the construction contract would see Tasmania be the first state in Australia with the NBN. The whole entanglement stems from Mr Turnbull's desire to only ever commit to anything based on existing contracts. The coalition released its broadband policy around a year ago, amongst much fanfare and complete with holograms. Crucially, this policy failed to mention the special case of the fibre-to-the-premises NBN rollout in Tasmania. There was no mention of Tasmania in the whole document. Two months later Mr Turnbull sought to clarify the concerns of Tasmanians with the now infamous line 'that the coalition intended to honour existing contracts'.

At the start of the election campaign Mr Turnbull repeated his assurance on ABC radio. However, when Mr Abbott launched the coalition's economic growth plan for Tasmania, the commitment had been watered down to honouring only contracts that were underway. In response to concerns raised by Labor, Mr Turnbull again told Tasmanians on 16 August that he would honour all contracts. It was clear that Mr Turnbull's intention was for Tasmanians to believe that this meant full fibre to the premises. Of course, buried inside the coalition policy document of March last year is their out-clause:

The Coalition reserves the right to review and seek to vary any of those contracts in light of the Coalition’s broadband policy …

If genuine about their commitment to the fibre-to-the-premises rollout in Tasmania, Mr Turnbull or one of his federal Tasmanian colleagues would have corrected the reports of August 2013 that did not mention this crucial fact. If genuine, they would have included this line in media releases, in promotional material and in letters to the editor. But the spin was working too well. At least twice that week Senator Bushby backed up his shadow minister with public comments. The first was:

In opposition, we're not fully au fait with what those contracts are, but we understand that those contracts are in place to roll out right across the state, and if that is the case, we will honour that.

Five days later Senator Bushby again sought to make sure Tasmanians believed that there was a unity ticket. He said:

… Malcolm Turnbull has made a crystal clear commitment that the Coalition will honour all contracts in place for the rollout of the NBN in Tasmania. If contracts are in place for the full fibre rollout, there will be no difference in who gets fibre to their home in Tasmania under Labor or Liberal.

The Tasmanian IT industry group released a statement welcoming Mr Turnbull's announcement of the commitment to complete the fibre-to-the-home rollout in Tasmania. Of course Mr Turnbull and Senator Bushby did nothing to correct the record. In trade practices law this is known as misleading and deceptive conduct by inaction.

Of course, Mr Turnbull, Senator Bushby and the Liberal Party were quite happy with the misinformation they had created. In fact, it continued right through until February this year. In October there was the 'what is construction' debacle when new Tasmanian Liberal MP Brett Whiteley sought to justify the sudden change in the rollout maps by dismissing the work of planners, engineers and estimators, despite Mr Turnbull participating on the Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network, which included vital design stages and consultation work on the definition of 'construction'. In December Dr Switkowski confirmed to Senator Thorp at a Senate committee hearing that NBN Co is still releasing work for all fibre rollouts. He said:

The release of work happens in smaller quantities, and the next significant quantity, which is an all-fibre rollout, is being currently negotiated.

This is a matter of urgency because Tasmanians need to hear about where the Liberals went so wrong. Liberal senators need to justify their election commitment that there would be no difference under Labor or Liberal, because there never was a unity ticket. NBN Co. boss Ziggy Switkowski confirmed the great fears of many Tasmanians last month. On ABC radio in Tasmania, Dr Switkowski confirmed that the contracts had been renegotiated and that many thousands of Tasmanians would actually get the multi-technology mix—a fancy way of saying substandard copper.

Tasmanian Premier Lara Giddings was straight onto Mr Turnbull and Dr Switkowski to offer an alternative. Tasmanian Labor offered NBN Co. the use of Aurora Energy power poles for distribution of fibre to the premises across the state. Tasmanian Labor's plan would see a faster rollout of fibre to the home. The plan would see the rollout completed at one-sixth of the cost of building underground. The plan presents a way for the federal Liberal government to meet its commitment to the Tasmanian people.

So great was this Labor initiative that Tasmanian Liberal leader Will Hodgman used a pre-existing trip to Sydney to meet with Mr Turnbull to seek federal support for the aerial rollout. In his press conference after the meeting, Mr Turnbull said that Mr Hodgman had 'definitely drunk the fibre-to-the-premises Kool Aid.' Instead of accepting this good proposal, Mr Turnbull would only commit to a trial. It is a trial that we all know is unnecessary; a trial that Dr Switkowski could not confirm any details about; a trial that many Tasmanians view as a nice smokescreen to get Mr Hodgman through the state election next week; a trial that will no doubt face extraordinarily—even impossibly—high hurdles; a trial that will no doubt be designed to fail; a trial that is just another Liberal con, because anyone who recognises the benefits of fibre to the premises has drunk the Kool Aid, in the words of Minister Turnbull

This urgency motion aims to ensure that Mr Turnbull keeps just one promise. That promise is to build fibre to the premises in Tasmania as originally planned by Labor. Liberal senators must outline their path to delivering fibre to the premises. (Time expired)