Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I know that a Tasmanian state election is only about 10 days away, but it is still no excuse or justification for Senator Urquhart to misrepresent what Senator Bushby said before the election in relation to the NBN in Tasmania. I will leave it to Senator Bushby to do a forensic dissection of Senator Urquhart's misrepresentation. I very much look forward to listening to Senator Bushby when he has the opportunity to set the record straight as a result of the misrepresentations by those opposite.

I will start at more of a macro level, to put the NBN as a national venture into a bit of context. When it comes to the NBN nationwide, it would be fair to say that never before has so much been spent on so few for so little. Minister Turnbull has likened the scope and scale of Labor's mismanagement of the NBN to that of the state bank debacles in Victoria and South Australia. I think that, when it has been tallied, in the fullness of time, the cost of the NBN and Labor's mismanagement of it will be shown to have been greater than those financial disasters. It is very difficult to underestimate just how badly it was mismanaged and what the cost to the Australian people will be. I stand in great admiration of Minister Turnbull and his efforts to bring the NBN back onto a sustainable footing and to put the NBN in a position where it will be able to start seriously rolling out a National Broadband Network to the Australian people.

The great lie that has been perpetrated by those opposite is that Labor is for the National Broadband Network and the coalition is against the National Broadband Network. That has never been true. We are for a National Broadband Network. Everyone in Australia is for a National Broadband Network. The question is: how do you deliver a National Broadband Network quickly, at lowest cost to the taxpayer and in a way that delivers for consumers a product that is within their reach? That is all this debate in relation to the National Broadband Network has ever been about. We are for the National Broadband Network.

It is important to note that Labor's plan would have cost $29 billion more than they had let on before the election and would have increased monthly internet bills by up to 80 per cent, or $43, a month. It is very important that I make the point that everyone in Tasmania will still receive the National Broadband Network. The job of those of us in the government is to do that sooner than would have happened under the Australian Labor Party and to do it at a lower cost to the taxpayer than would have been the case under the Australian Labor Party. We are going to incorporate into the NBN technologies that can be readily upgraded and that are already delivering high-speed broadband to families in other countries. We will be able to do just that. We are on course to deliver more NBN connections to Tasmanian homes and businesses this calendar year than over the entire five years since the rollout began.

Premier Giddings in Tasmania is attempting to distract attention. You can understand that. They have been in government for 16 years. They have been in an alliance with the Greens—something those opposite know very well. You cannot be critical of Premier Giddings for wanting to distract from the fact that they have been there for 16 years or for wanting to distract from the fact that they had been in an alliance with the Greens before they performed one of those quickie faux-divorces that those opposite have done with the federal Greens. However, we know that the Greens and Labor are secretly still cohabiting. They are trying to pretend that they have gone their separate ways and that they do not know each other, but when it comes to the political night they are together under the same roof, where they feel most at home.

From the middle of July 2013, just before the last election, virtually no houses in the state were passed with optical fibre. There were reasons for this—there will always be reasons for everything. There were delays due to asbestos and there were ongoing issues with the contractor Visionstream. It is a matter of public record that Visionstream asked for more money in Tasmania. They were the ones who said they could not complete the job under the terms of the contract that they had already signed. As a result, NBN Co signed an amending agreement for 16 fibre serving area modules to get the rollout back on track in December. There were good reasons for doing this. The objective was to get that provider and that rollout back on track. I am very happy to report that by the end of year about a third of the premises in the state will be passed by fibre. We are on course to deliver more NBN connections to Tasmanian homes and businesses this calendar year than over the entire five years since the rollout began.

The clearest sign that the coalition will honour the contract already signed, contrary to everything those opposite say, is that after many months of delay and inaction under the previous government NBN Co have agreed with Visionstream to remobilise their workforce before Christmas. We are honouring the contracts, but contracts do require both sides to perform. It would only be an irresponsible government—we all know what an irresponsible government looks like—that would agree to honour contracts at any cost. We need to be clear that the coalition never promised to deliver fibre to the premises at any cost, as that would be reckless and irresponsible. We are getting on with the job of putting the rollout back on track. We are ensuring that there are workers out in the field undertaking this important endeavour. I am sure that Senator Bushby will further touch on issues like the overhead wiring proposals and the work with Aurora on that proposed trial.

Coming back to where I started, we always have to remember that these are taxpayer dollars. Government has no source of funds other than taxpayers. Government always has to make sure that every dollar it expends—that it has received from the taxpayers and that it expends on behalf of the taxpayers—goes to the most productive and beneficial use possible. The previous government were not doing that. There is an opportunity cost for every single dollar that government spends—it is a dollar that cannot be spent on something else. It cannot be spent on schools, cannot be spent on hospitals and cannot be spent on roads. So you have to make sure that you make every dollar count. Not only were the previous government wasting dollars; they were borrowing massively which means that we now have a massive interest bill. The opportunity cost of the money spent on servicing the interest bill is even greater, because those are dollars which are going towards precisely nothing other than repaying debt.

On this side of the chamber, we make absolutely no apology for wanting to make sure that the taxpayer exposure to the NBN is lessened. We want to make sure that the NBN is rolled out quicker—it would not be hard to roll out an NBN quicker than the guys on the other side did—and we want to make sure that the final product is affordable for consumers. To the people of Tasmania and the people of Australia more generally: you will get the NBN sooner under this government, you will get it at lower taxpayer cost, you will get it cheaper than would have previously been the case, and you will receive the quality and level of service that you need.