Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to decry the abysmal state of communications policy under the people's choice for Liberal Party leader. When you have polls like the recent ReachTEL one that puts the Minister for Communications as the most popular choice for leader—even more popular than the Prime Minister and the Treasurer combined—you really have to wonder what the Australian public have done to deserve such a set of choices of men with such limited vision for this great nation of ours. The fact that people would prefer to have in charge of the Liberals the very minister responsible for ripping away affordable, high-speed broadband from every household across the nation only to replace it with a retrograde, century-old infrastructure is a sad indictment of this government that is determined to shrink Australia's capacity and at the same time our belief in ourselves as a nation with the capacity to lift up and envision a bold and great future. That is the hallmark of Australians—a willingness to innovate and a capacity to see a bolder future. But the small-mindedness of those who are leading now could not be better represented than in the terrible policy they have decided to implement around the NBN.

To be fair to Mr Turnbull, Mr Abbott once again deserves to wear most of the blame. He simply has no regard for or even a basic conceptual understanding of the genuine technological challenges facing Australian households and businesses going into the future. Nor does he understand the opportunity presented by ubiquitous NBN access for all Australians. Businesses do not operate only in business parks. Businesses—small businesses in particular—operate out of homes where technological capacity gives them the opportunity to work, earn an income and employ people in the local community and still access a global market. Mr Abbott is a leader who has in the past questioned the very need for the NBN, stating:

… do we really want to invest … hard-earned taxpayers' money in what is essentially a video entertainment system?

That level of enlightenment was in 2010. He has also said:

… if you're gonna get me into a technical argument, I'm going to lose it …

It is the Australian people who have lost—by losing Labor's high-speed broadband network, which would deliver up to 1,000 megabits per second, only to have it replaced by an obsolete, cheap-bit patchwork that struggles to top 50 megabits at the very best.

While the argument is often about speed, I make the point that it is the reliability of a fibre-to-the-premises network that is a critical part of what the NBN delivers. If we are really going to take heed of what we have been finding out about in telehealth, if we are really going to give Australians who have given their working lives to this nation the chance to age in place and have the support and technology to help them monitor their health in very efficient and effective ways, we need a stable provision of this service to homes. Even Mr Turnbull has tacitly conceded that his plan for a patchwork quilt of delivery is flawed. Who would invest their hard-earned income, as Malcolm did, into France Telecom when the company was rolling out fibre-to-the-home technology across France if they doubted the economic benefits of the fibre-to-the-premises model?

True to form, on the NBN, as on so many other issues, this government has broken its promise to the Australian people. Prior to the election, the coalition promised to honour all contracts entered into by the NBN, with Mr Turnbull stating:

Every contract the NBN Co has entered into will be honoured in accordance with its terms.

That was as recently as 16 August 2013. ut simply, he has deceived the Australian people. It is yet another deception from an increasingly deceptive and sneaky government.

As we see in Tasmania and where I live on the Central Coast, the coalition has walked away from their prior commitment to rolling out the NBN in an equitable way to all Australians. It is so toxic that even the Tasmanian Liberal leader, Will Hodgman, was recently heard conceding that it could cost them the election. To add insult to injury for the Central Coast, the government has listed Umina as one of the test sites to trial the obsolete fibre-to-the-node technology. It is an open admission that they are going to create a community of haves and have-nots on the Central Coast. We know that they have not even consulted local businesses or the community—they confessed to that at estimates. It is little wonder that over 250 local businesses have banded together to lobby the government to give them fibre to the premises. I support their actions and will continue to fight this government of small-mindedness and limited vision.