James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Senator O'Neill's interesting contribution, there was one fairly major omission—one major fact in this debate that went unremarked upon—that I think is worth repeating and placing on the record as a matter of history.

How did we get to where we are today with the NBN? We didn't get here because the coalition proposed and suggested that it was a good idea for the government to build a national network of communications. We didn't get here because we commenced during our time in government a multibillion-dollar scheme to push aside the private sector and institute a government intervention on a national scale. We didn't get here even because the private sector embarked on this and were not successful. We got to where we are today because a government which she was part of, the Rudd government, decided that it knew best. The Rudd government knew best. The Rudd government would be able to build a national broadband network, it would be able to build it better than the private sector and it would be able to build it with no costs, no consequences, no faults and no issues.

Well, look what's happened. Look what's happened, first on their watch, and then look at the effort that we've gone to to fix up the mess that they left us. On their watch, by 2013 Labor fell short of 83 per cent of their rollout targets—83 per cent! It was a dismal failure on their watch. What has this government had to do? This government has had to make the tough decisions necessary to deliver this program, to deliver it on time, to deliver it on budget and to deliver it in a meaningful way for the Australian people.

It was the Labor Party which was dismally failing to achieve these targets when they were in office. By contrast, in just a few short years upon coming to government and by making some tough decisions about the best way to roll out this program, the Turnbull government has delivered. The Turnbull government has ensured that the NBN is in fact being rolled out, that it is in fact being connected to people's homes in a way that it never would have been under the previous government. We could have had no guarantees that it would have been done under the previous Prime Minister.

We know that, because when it was on their watch, when it was under their stewardship, they failed time and time again. They met none of their financial targets and they met none of their rollout targets. It was a failure that had to be fixed. That's the contrast. This government, upon taking over this program, took it over with a pretty dismal statistic in place: 51,000 fixed and wireless premises had been rolled out by the previous government—51,000! By contrast, each week under this government 32,000 connections are rolled out for a total of 5.8 million addresses that are today NBN ready and 2.6 million customers that are connected.

Senator O'Neill described it as being 'inflicted' upon these people. I doubt that's how they feel about the NBN service that they are now able to access, and are able to access in a more affordable way than they would have been able to under the previous government. They have it all, when there was no promise that it would ever actually get there under the previous government and under their method of delivery. More than 11,000 premises have been made ready for service on the NBN every working day in the past year. We achieve in a week what the Rudd government was not able to achieve in years under their program.

The Turnbull government takes very seriously the complaints and concerns that some consumers have raised about their transition to the NBN, and we have a number of initiatives in place to respond to those concerns. In April, the government announced funding for the ACCC to conduct a broadband performance monitoring and reporting program. The ACCC is currently seeking 4,000 volunteer customers of retail service providers across the country to participate in the monitoring program. The BPMR program will enable consumers to compare speeds delivered in peak periods by independent reporting of broadband speeds. Performance information is a key factor for consumers when purchasing their plans from their retailer.

As the minister outlined in his answer to the senator's questions in question time, there are a number of factors that can lead to slower-than-expected performance, and many of those factors are of course in the hands of retail service providers, not the NBN. In addition to the ACCC program that I mentioned, the Turnbull government is empowering ACMA to conduct research and collect data on the NBN customer experience. ACMA is commissioning this research to obtain information directly from customers about their experience before, during and also after migration to the NBN. The research will span the range of technologies that are used to connect households and businesses to the network. ACMA will be using its formal powers under the Telecommunications Act to collect information from businesses across the NBN supply chain.

This is a government which is fixing Labor's mess on the NBN. This is a government which is delivering the NBN in a way they never could.