Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by Senator Fifield to questions asked today by Senator McAllister relating to the National Broadband Network.

We know that recently there has been a change in the leadership of this country. We now have Malcolm Turnbull as the Prime Minister. He has said quite up-front that he believes his government is a government of the 21st century. Nothing could be further from the truth. I would respectfully suggest that he should revisit that statement. Quite clearly, some of the worst parts of the policies that were brought down by the Abbott government are still in place. You can change the leader, but you have not changed the policies. It is still the same terrible, out-of-touch, harsh policies that this government is carrying on with.

If you look at Mr Turnbull's own experience, we can see what he did about the rollout of the NBN when he was Minister for Communications. He has doubled the cost of the rollout of the NBN and given us less than half of the quality of service that the Australian community has demanded and deserves. He may have been a formidable opponent in the past, but what has overshadowed his performance has been the mistakes that he made in the communications portfolio.

We had a Labor government that initiated the rollout of the NBN. They set Tasmania up as the pilot state to have the first rollout. What has this government done? It has stopped or slowed down the rollout of the NBN, and is now saying to rural and regional Australia, 'You are only worthy of a second rate system that will cost more money and will take much longer to roll out.' That was the performance of the now Prime Minister when he was the Minister for Communications.

To top that off we have a failed assistant minister responsible for aged care now having the responsibility of the portfolio of communications. In his former responsibilities as assistant minister responsible for aged care we know that he did not have his eye on the ball for the last two years. He failed dismally in aged care. The sector knows that and the Australian community certainly knows that.

All I can say is that we on this side will continue to keep an eye on the new Minister for Communications, because this country cannot afford, and the economy cannot afford, to have another failure. We are expecting a greater performance when it comes to the rollout of the NBN. Quite seriously, the cost has blown out. From those on that side who harped and harped when they were in opposition, what have they delivered when it comes to the rollout of the NBN? A much slower service and a much, much more costly service.