Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on the National Broadband Network, I present a progress report of the committee, and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

As the progress report notes, this committee has had 11 public hearings in Canberra, and we've called for and taken submissions from across the community. I would like to thank the member for Barker for his work in chairing these proceedings, as well as the work of the committee secretariat in ensuring the important work of this committee ran smoothly.

The committee originally sought to inquire solely into the business case for the NBN and the experiences of small businesses, with an emphasis on regional areas. This is a vital piece of work that is being conducted by the committee because, as someone who comes from the bush, it cannot be understated how important it is for us to ensure that communications and connectivity remain not only constant but also accessible in the bush. There is nothing worse for a small business than for someone to go to a store, willing to buy, but be unable to pay because an EFTPOS machine has gone down. We've learnt during COVID that people have transferred away from cash. More and more people are relying on their debit card or their credit card or, indeed, even their telephone pay apps. We received 34 submissions, including from Hay Shire Council—just an hour north of my home town of Deniliquin—about the experiences of small business when things like their EFTPOS machine goes down and how much money they lose just by that one small piece of infrastructure going down.

The rollout of the NBN is a major task. It is vital to continue looking at ways to improve its service for our regional and small businesses. It's also important to look at how far we've come in rolling out the NBN. More than 8.1 million premises across Australia are now connected to the NBN and 11.9 million premises are ready to connect. As at the end of 2020, there were only 34,000 premises remaining to be made ready to connect. It is expected that by the end of this month that will be down to 10,000 premises. In fact, today, 71 per cent of homes and businesses are on a 50 megabit-per-second or higher NBN plan.

In the March quarter of this year, the number of Home Superfast services increased from 11,136 back in December to almost 490,000 at the end of March. In the same period, Home Ultrafast connections grew from 9,900 to 83,000. This is a monumental effort by NBN Co to complete their rollout and also complete and provide improved, better services.

Having successfully rolled out the network, our government's priority is now to continue to leverage the NBN for the social and economic benefit of all Australians, especially those in regional areas. That is why, last September, we announced a $4.5 billion network investment to provide 75 per cent of the fixed-line network access to ultrafast broadband—that is, one gigabit per second—by 2023. This investment is pivotal, because through COVID we learnt how important connectivity and access to the World Wide Web is. In May last year 46 per cent of Australians were working from home. That is 46 per cent of Australians, regularly using videoconferencing, such as Zoom, Skype, Teams, Webex and many others, who rely on reliable and stable internet connectivity. The NBN saw an increase of up to 70 per cent in traffic volume from pre-COVID levels. COVID-19 resulted in a spike of demand in the NBN, and its service partners handled this very effectively. At peak there were up to 40,000 new connections in one day.

In regional Australia the NBN is investing more than $2 billion to strengthen the digital backbone through the implementation of on-the-ground support teams focusing on assisting to resolve community issues, helping to provide advice, representing regional customers and businesses and working with them on finding solutions for their needs. NBN Co has also established the $300 million co-investment fund. Through this fund it will partner with governments at federal, state and local levels to deliver access to higher-speed broadband services to households and businesses in regional and remote Australia.

The NBN, though, is just one of many networks available across Australia, and our government is committed to encouraging innovation, competition and choice. That is why we developed the Regional Connectivity Program. Under this program we have already seen 16 new co-funded projects roll out that will help enhance connectivity for rural, regional and remote Australians. The locations of these successful projects range from remote communities in East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory to rural communities in western Victoria and the Huon Valley in Tasmania.

One fantastic example from this program was the Costa Group Regional Connectivity Program project, which saw $570,000 of co-funding in conjunction with the Armidale Regional Council, so that this Australian, world-class, leading fresh fruit and vegetable company, the Costa Group, could improve connectivity and their connection on their regional sites. The Costa Group employs more than 700 hardworking Australians across two regional sites and contributes about $31 million annually in wages and salaries to these local communities, one of which is in Guyra, just outside Armidale in New South Wales. I've been to see their facilities up there. They have the largest glasshouse tomato production in our country. What an efficient and exciting place it is. This project will see these sites gain access to NBN technology and will support the Costa Group to expand their business operations at their facilities, including research, administration and horticultural production. This will result in significant benefits to those local economies around Guyra and Falconer and will increase employment opportunities and regional output.

I also want to highlight the Mossgiel regional connectivity project in the Carrathool Shire Council, which is just up the road from me in the Western Riverina. They've had $269,000 committed to upgrade their local community antenna equipment and backhaul capacity at the existing Telstra 3G base. This project will give local families and travellers Telstra 4G and internet coverage into the broader area, along the Cobb Highway. This is just one example where connectivity is not reliant on cables; connectivity is a combination of fibre, of cables, of wireless and of mobile technologies. We need the mix to keep our regional areas connected so that our farmers, our regional businesses, our travellers and our tourists going through the regions are connected, have access to the internet, can continue to do their business remotely, and can continue to be productive participants in our society.

Our government is committed to continuing to invest in the NBN and projects that directly improve connectivity and provide quality for all businesses in rural and regional Australia so as to ensure every Australian has access to quality services, irrespective of where they are. I will continue to actively participate in the ongoing work of the joint NBN standing committee as it finalises its inquiry into NBN services, and I look forward to being able to present the final report at a later date.

Question agreed to.