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

I thank Senator Brockman for his question. I'm sure that all colleagues will be absolutely delighted that the NBN continues to hit its milestones. It's on its way to being completed by 2020, on time and on budget. I might remind you that, just two years ago, when we released a three-year plan to reach three-quarters of Australians by mid 2018, the plan was derided by the then shadow minister for communications as a ramp that even Evil Knievel couldn't jump. But I am very pleased to be able to report to colleagues that what some said was impossible has indeed been achieved, with six million premises now ready for service across the nation with the NBN. The NBN is now being switched on at a rate of 1,000 premises every working hour, week in, week out. Behind the rollout stats there is literally an army of skilled field technicians, mum-and-dad contracting businesses and NBN's own project managers, engineers, and technical specialists who are making this network a reality. None of us should underestimate the scale and the challenge of this project. The field workforce now exceeds 24,000 personnel, and there are some 2,500 Australian subcontracting businesses engaged either directly or indirectly to roll out the NBN. Then there are the vendors who provide the cabinets, the fibre, the electronics, the cables, the termination devices and all the other equipment. All in all, NBN will spend $6 billion this financial year procuring goods, 80 per cent of them locally.