Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Smith. I can, actually, provide a contrast with the approach of our predecessors. Colleagues may have forgotten that when we came into office in 2013 the NBN was in effect a failed project, that contractors had downed tools in four states and, despite about $6½ billion having been spent over the best part of five or so years by those opposite, that there were only 51,000 paying customers on the NBN. Also, those opposite could not even work out how much the NBN was costing to deliver. Those opposite thought that it cost between $2,200 and $2,500 per premise to deliver the NBN. When we came into office we found out that it was actually costing $4,400 per premise. The project was a failure. As of this week, we now have over 1½ million Australians who are on the NBN.