Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Communications (Senator Fifield) to a question without notice asked by Senator O'Neill today relating to the National Broadband Network.

Since our return this year, we've had Senator Fifield coming into the chamber and rabbiting on about the great success of his NBN rollout. However, we need to let him in on the secret that the rest of Australia knows: what a dog he's rolling out. It's a lemon. It was only supposed to cost $29 billion—that's what they said. They said that the market would come in and put in any additional funds that were required to finish the job. Instead of that happening, because what they'd rolled out was so bad the government couldn't get people to invest, they've had to tip in another $20 billion themselves. So now, at a cost of $49 billion, we've got a copper-loaded lemon distributed across the country.

And this morning the government's second-rate NBN took another hit. The NBN CEO, Mr Morrow, has been quoted overnight as saying that already he's considering building a 5G wireless network to bypass the copper NBN, the one that this minister keeps coming in and telling us is really good, bragging about his numbers—except that, every time he says another 10,000, another 15,000, another 20,000 Australians have had the Malcolm Turnbull model of the NBN inflicted on them, I feel the pain and suffering of our local communities, all of those people out there who have had a terrible time managing their connection to the NBN, and all of those businesses. Let me just say that 83 per cent—not a small number—of small businesses say they lack confidence in the government's NBN delivery. Now that's got to be a fail by any measure, yet this minister, this senator, keeps coming in and telling us what a great job he's doing. The gap between reality and Mr Fifield's version of it is absolutely unfathomable. I cannot understand why he doesn't understand the Australian people's concerns about this copper based technology he is rolling out.

The reason that we had Mr Morrow say that he's going to have to go to 5G is that he knows what the government has been trying to deny for a long time—that parts of the Malcolm Turnbull version of this NBN are unreliable and corroding. There are thousands of Australians out there who have what the NBN euphemistically call 'service class 0'. That means they don't know when they're going to get to you, because they've got big problems. And why have they got big problems? Because they're trying to force information down a copper line that's landing at a node at the speed of light. They're trying to splice together 21st-century technology with a technology that should have been left in the last century, and, where those two things meet, it's not working out. Mr Morrow even knows it. He's saying: 'It's failing. We might have to go to 5G.' But this minister didn't want to answer those questions; he doesn't understand the dog that he is inflicting on the Australian people.

Today we've seen Senator Fifield failing once again to take responsibility for the mess that's been created by this Turnbull government, and, by doing so, he is absolutely failing to understand or recognise the real impacts that this mess is having on ordinary Australian men and women and the businesses right across this country. Every single member and senator who is in this place will have had hundreds and hundreds of Australians contact them in their offices and say: 'Please help me out. I'm about to lose my absolute patience with the NBN. I cannot survive this any longer.' We had evidence given to the NBN committee on the Central Coast of New South Wales of one gentleman at Masters Beach who lost in the order of $70,000 from his business in the lead-up to Christmas because this government just doesn't get it. It just doesn't understand, and it continues to deny the reality that businesses right across this country are being compromised in their capacity to compete in a global market. They're being compromised by constant dropouts. They're being compromised by slow speeds because the technology that this government's inflicted on them won't deliver what they need to do business in the 21st century.

Australians are concerned about the costs, and our government should also be concerned about the costs to maintain an old copper technology that is redundant. We know that our company, NBN, is an Australian company—it belongs to all of us. And yet, under the custodianship of this government, it has failed to deliver us the technology we need for the 21st century. They can call it Malcolm Turnbull's multi-technology mix, but we know it's Malcolm Turnbull's mess.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I simply remind the honourable senator opposite that hyperbole is never a substitute for facts. The simple facts are these. Labor missed every single one of its NBN rollout targets. Let me remind the Senate of that: every single Labor target for the NBN rollout was missed, was not achieved and was not delivered, whereas the coalition government has in fact been smashing the targets. Let's not forget that, under Labor, the NBN fell 83 per cent short of its 2013 rollout target. So it failed to deliver that which it promised the Australian people by not just one or two per cent—a rounding error—but 83 per cent.

You would think that the Australian Labor Party, clothed with that shameful record, would have some sense of decency and seek to sidestep any debate about the NBN. But, in typical Australian Labor Party style, what they seek to do is mislead the Australian people. They do it time and time again. At the last election they did it so despicably with the 'Mediscare' campaign—a false and dishonest campaign seeking to mislead the Australian people—and now today they are doing it again with the NBN. Their policy was developed on the back of an envelope and, whilst they were in government, they failed to deliver by 83 per cent. However, I am pleased to report that, as we speak, 7,000 premises are being connected every working day.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Reynolds, 7,000 premises are being connected every single day.

Opposition senators interjecting—

Of course, when you roll out these facts, what do you get? A cacophony of interjections from those opposite. When you hit them with the facts, they are unable to deal with reality.

I simply say to those opposite and, more importantly, to the Australian people: don't look at what the Australian Labor Party promise; look at what they actually deliver. They promised us this grand National Disability Insurance Scheme. It was completely underfunded but they had to roll it out on the basis of cheap politics. They had a health policy without any funding attached to it. They also had an education policy without any funding attached to it. They will always speak using hyperbole, trying to get the Australian people to vote for them. You then ask: does the rhetoric match the delivery? You have to give the Australian Labor Party 100 per cent for their consistency. They constantly fail to deliver on that which they promise the Australian people.

The simple facts are: they failed by 83 per cent their 2013 rollout target. That is what Labor had when they were in government. There was a change of government and we have now sought to clean up the mess that we inherited. What a lemon we inherited from former Senator Conroy and the Australian Labor Party. Today we are seeking to clean up the mess of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, just as we are trying to clean up the mess Labor left us in relation to the budget and just as we are trying to clean up the mess they left us in the health and education portfolios. Having left us with all of these messes, the Australian Labor Party then come in here and pontificate to us and the Australian people on how we should be doing better. There is the phrase that actions speak so much louder than words. I simply say to the Australian people and those opposite: don't listen to Labor's words, don't listen to their hyperbole and rhetoric; have a look at what they actually deliver. (Time expired)

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we have heard about another saga with regard to the NBN rollout, which that side of the chamber know as the multi-technology mix and this side of the chamber obviously know as Malcolm Turnbull's mess or even the multi-technology mess. I've said in a number of speeches in this place, over quite a number of years, that, given the increasing demand of Australian businesses and households for fast broadband, Mr Turnbull's second-rate copper national broadband network will largely be redundant by the time it's built. Now, with the emergence of 5G mobile services, we face the prospect of more homes and businesses abandoning the network in favour of mobile-only services.

The 5G providers like Telstra and Optus know what consumers need and want, and they're willing to provide it. A study by Venture Insights, co-funded by the ACCC, reports that as many as 30 per cent of households could abandon the NBN and switch to wireless—30 per cent. Yet NBN's corporate plan continues to cling to the assumption that only 15 per cent of users on the inferior multi-technology mix network would abandon the NBN for wireless services. NBN Co's recent announcement about 5G technology is obviously an admission that the second-rate copper network has failed. The MTM rollout has been a disaster from the beginning. The cost of the rollout has increased from $29.5 billion to $49 billion—a $20 billion blowout—including a recent potential $450 million blowout to the cost of the troubled HFC network.

But the problems with the government's second-rate network don't end there. Oh, no! The copper based network costs more to maintain over its lifetime, yet it generates less revenue because it cannot reach the high speeds that consumers are willing to pay for. It's a less reliable service with slower speeds. In some cases, users who have purchased a copper NBN service have ended up with a slower and less reliable service than their previous ADSL plans. Senator O'Neill mentioned concerns of people in New South Wales. Well, in Tassie, let me tell you—and Senator Brown, I am sure, will attest to this—there are areas in Tasmania which are 20 minutes from the city centre—Hobart—that the NBN left off the map to start with. When we had consultations, it took them months and months and months to be able to get these people any form of access to the network. There are other areas in Tassie that I know have been left off the map altogether. Tasmanians, I think, are really underwhelmed with the government's approach to the NBN.

As I said, the copper network costs more to maintain over its lifetime, yet it generates less revenue because it cannot reach the highest speeds that consumers are willing to pay for. It's a less reliable service and it's much, much slower. In some cases, the economics of copper are nothing short of a liability. It's no wonder that consumer complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman have gone through the roof. Demand for broadband speeds are such that it's inevitable that most Australians will soon require and demand a full fibre network. But the rollout of the copper network means that the pathway to the fibre network will be expensive and wasteful—an expense that could have been avoided under Labor's plans.

So we see lots of dissatisfaction with Mr Turnbull's second-rate NBN reflected in a number of surveys. Let me put some facts on the table to refute some of the things that Senator Abetz stated. According to Recon, 83 per cent of small businesses lack confidence in the delivery of the network—83 per cent—and 54 per cent of small businesses believe they will be left behind as the digital economy develops, with technology infrastructure identified as a key barrier to starting a new business. According to the New South Wales Business Chamber, 43 per cent of businesses are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the NBN—43 per cent. So we've already wasted enough money and opportunity on the farce that is the MTM. The longer we take to commit to Labor's plan for a full fibre rollout to 93 per cent of premises, the more we risk being left behind in the global economy.

I just want to point out that Rebecca White, the Labor leader in my home state of Tasmania, understands this. That's why Tasmanian Labor has committed to working across all levels of government and the private sector to facilitate the rollout of fibre-to-the-premises across northern Tasmania. (Time expired)

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of Minister Fifield's answer. After nearly four years in this place, the chutzpah of those opposite never ceases to amuse me, talking about the NBN and other projects that they implemented, developed and completely stuffed up. The list is long: pink batts, school halls, unfunded NDIS programs, and the NBN is yet another one of their failures. I remind those opposite of exactly the mess you left us. Here we have probably one of the largest infrastructure projects ever in this country—and how was it developed and planned? It wasn't on the back of a wine-stained coaster in a VIP jet with some great idea your colleague Stephen Conroy had, 'Let's do this NBN'?

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Disability and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He doesn't even drink.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He hadn't been drinking? It was just a wine-stained coaster?

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He doesn't drink alcohol.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How does it explain this project? That's even worse, if he came up with this plan sober. Good Lord! After all of their pontificating, let's have a look at what they left this government four short years ago. After six years of Labor, how many households do you think were connected?

Fraser Anning (Queensland, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

None.

Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, there were more than none; 51,000 were connected across the entire country under Labor. Labor's fibre-to-the-premises NBN policy would have cost $30 billion more, under their own figures, and taken six to eight years longer to complete. This project, like so many of the others, shows that there are two maxims in politics: never let the Labor Party near taxpayers' money, because you know they're going to stuff it up, and never let them near any large-scale project management, particularly infrastructure, because they will waste taxpayers' money and completely stuff it up. We've seen that with the NDIS and the NBN.

Let's look at the facts that not even those opposite can dispute. Labor paid $6 billion for the NBN to reach just three per cent of Australian premises. In fact the rollout was so badly managed by those opposite that the contractors downed tools and stopped construction in four states. Remember that? Those opposite try very hard to whitewash history, how much you spent, how little you delivered, 51,000 households. Tell me I'm wrong. It cost $6 billion to roll it out for three per cent of premises. How many rollout targets, on their own dodgy planning, do you think Labor met? When they spent $6 billion to reach three per cent of households and 51,000 households taking it up, how many of their milestones do you think they met? Not a single one.

What is it like under the coalition after four years? The NBN is now available to half of all Australian premises, or more than 6.2 million—six years, 50,000 households; four years, 6.2 million premises. It has over three million active connections, and all Australian premises will be connected by 2020. The facts are irrefutable, and nobody over there can deny these reported facts. Our NBN is connecting more users every two weeks than Labor connected in six years. We are connecting 30,000 premises per week—two weeks, 60,000 premises; six years, 51,000 premises. Despite all the howling of those opposite, trying to rewrite the history of this project, the NBN is on track to be available to two-thirds of Australian premises this year, with more than nine out of 10 premises in 2019 and, as I said, all Australians connected by 2020. Those are the facts. (Time expired)

Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note today of the appalling answers from Minister Fifield to the very serious question from Senator O'Neill on the parlous state of broadband communications under his watch and under the watch of Prime Minister Turnbull. Senator O'Neill sought a simple answer from Minister Fifield on the cost of the NBN Co CEO's thought bubble to potentially build a 5G network because the copper network is already not up to standard. Minister Fifield had no idea—just like Minister Fifield and Mr Turnbull have no idea about how much their multimedia technology mess is going to cost. Minister Fifield said that the NBN has a mandate to conduct the rollout under the multi-technology mix—or multi-technology mess, as it's currently known—which he says will see it rolled out fastest and at lowest cost but not best quality. The Liberals and Nationals are happy with quick and dirty broadband—definitely a direction from the top. The minister found it hard to mention 5G in his answer. One wonders why. Does he not support the CEO? Does he not want Australians to harness the immense opportunities that would be afforded by 5G? Does he not want NBN Co to invest? We just don't know—and he probably doesn't know either.

One thing the minister did say is that he believes that his broadband rollout will cost $30 billion less under a full fibre rollout. But the minister never presents the rationale behind his ridiculous argument. That's because the minister's argument just doesn't stack up. NBN Co's CEO, Bill Morrow, and CFO, Stephen Rue, said to a Senate committee that the $30 billion figure is not a continuation of Labor's full-fibre NBN but what it would have cost if it had been restarted in 2015. I repeat: stating that Labor's full-fibre NBN would cost $30 billion more than the multi-technology mess is just not true. It wasn't true when Malcolm Turnbull first said it, and it isn't true today. It's a bad political argument with no logical underpinnings. The minister should consult with his NBN Co executives—who, it has to be said, are doing the best they can with a very bad statement of expectations from Minister Fifield and Minister Cormann.

I want to share four simple facts about the NBN rollout that Minister Fifield should also address in the near future—four facts that tell the story of how the man who supposedly created the internet in Australia completely fell into a pit of rotten copper, dashed hopes and bungled deadlines. Fact No. 1 is that three-quarters of all fibre-to-the-node premises will not be able to reach 100 megabits per second. Fact No. 2 is that over 200,000 premises on copper will not be able to receive the minimum 25 megabits per second that was promised by Prime Minister Turnbull. Fact No. 3 is that there are around 80 million hours of network downtime per year across the multi-technology mix. Fact No. 4 is that about $100 million has been spent purchasing almost 17,000 kilometres of copper wire. They're not my numbers. These are numbers that were provided to the Senate committees by the government and NBN Co. These four facts are part of the reason that NBN Co's CEO is out in the press today saying he is considering his options: copper isn't working, it's not actually cheaper than fibre, it's not as effective as fibre and it can never be more effective than fibre. The overuse of copper is all about a bad political argument made by Mr Turnbull and Mr Abbott almost a decade ago. They were so desperate to find a point of difference with an excellent Labor government policy—and the people of Australia are now suffering as a result of that political point of difference.

In Tasmania, the Turnbull government claims that the network is complete. But there are still thousands of premises that can't get connected. No matter how many phone calls people make, and despite NBN promising that the micronodes would be connected by October last year, it is not finished. And, worse still, for most on the north-west coast of Tasmania—where I live—which is one of the poorest parts of this country, there is no upgrade path from fibre to the node to full fibre. So while the big cities of Launceston and Hobart skate ahead with gigabyte connections, the north-west coast is left behind by this government. And then when the minister is asked about 5G as an alternative, all he can do is bleat incorrect facts and political spin. Thank goodness this government's time is almost up! (Time expired)

Derryn Hinch (Victoria, Derryn Hinch's Justice Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the issue of the NBN, I heard Senator O'Neill saying that the NBN is a lemon. It is a lemon, but what the Labor Party doesn't understand is that it was their lemon first, and at least the government has tried to make lemonade out of it. I find it surprising that people during question time waste their questions. Senator Fifield was attempting to answer the question and trying to answer it correctly with his version of the facts. But it shouldn't surprise me when it comes to question time and answering questions like this. Even Senator Cormann today, in answering a question I was putting through him to the Minister for Defence, said that my question was 'bordering on inappropriate'. I suppose he would think it was bordering on inappropriate when the Dorothy Dixers on his side of the chamber come up and the first question is usually some anodyne, milquetoast Dorothy Dixer that that side puts up. Question No. 1 is a milk sop, question No. 2 is usually just excruciatingly boring and question No. 3 is some saccharine sort of press release. If we get rid of questions Nos 2 and 3 in question time, we could get more questions in, we could have more transparency from the government, and the Labor Party on the opposition benches and the crossbench especially would be happier for it.

Question agreed to.