I rise today to address the
National Broadband Network Companies Bill 2010 and the
Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010.
The National Broadband Network Companies Bill is designed to limit the
operations of NBN Co., which is the Commonwealth-owned builder and
operator of the fibre internet network. It also seeks to establish the
framework through which the NBN Co. will eventually be privatised.
Similarly, the telecommunications legislation amendment bill proposes
changes to current legislation to ensure that NBN Co. gives equal
access to all retail carriers. Collectively, these bills are designed
to push ahead with the rollout of the Gillard Labor government’s white
elephant, the National Broadband Network. What we know about the NBN is
that it will take at least eight years to roll out—more like 15 to 20
years—it will cost the taxpayer at least $50 billion dollars and it
will reach 93 per cent of Australian premises.
To translate those figures, what we have here is the single largest
taxpayer-funded infrastructure project in our nation’s history. Yet
despite the massive commitment of our money made by the Gillard Labor
government, seven per cent of those taxpayers who fork out will not
even get access to it. Worse still, we have not been supplied with a
cost-benefit analysis, and there are serious doubts about whether the
internet services promised will actually be cheaper than what is
currently available.
The problems do not stop there. As I mentioned, the NBN will take
eight years to roll out, and that is if it is done on time and on
budget. But can we really expect that to happen? Of course not.
Remember, the Rudd-Gillard Labor government is the same one that wasted
billions of dollars on a failed and tragic home insulation scheme. This
is the government that wasted billions of dollars building dodgy school
halls that were not as good as the buildings knocked down to make way
for them. This is the government that is so incompetent at controlling
our borders we now have a record number of people risking their lives
on unsafe boats run by illegal people smugglers. But let us be generous
and give Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, the benefit of the doubt.
Eight years is a long time in technology. Allow me to provide some
examples. Eight years ago Windows released its new operating system XP
2003. Since then we have since had Windows Vista and Windows 7. Eight
years ago Apple launched its first iTunes store. Today, the iTunes
store accounts for more than 70 per cent of all worldwide online
digital music sales. Eight years ago Apple’s premium product was the
iBook laptop. It has since created the iMac G5, Mac mini, iPod nano,
iPod touch, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, and most recently the iPad.
Eight years ago your average USB thumb drive was eight megabytes. Today
you can pick up a one terabyte portable memory device for around the
same price. That is about 131,000 times more capacity. Are we seriously
supposed to believe that the NBN will be up-to-date if it is finally
delivered in almost a decade from now?
Journalists have also raised issues with the Gillard Labor
government’s NBN plan, including concerns over cost, relevance, access
and competition. I refer to an article by Mitchell Bingemann published
in the Australian on 8 February in which he compares the Australian approach to that in the United States. He writes:
THE Labor government is betting its $36 billion
National Broadband Network can only be built by government and must
rely almost universally on a fibre optic network.
But last month US President Barack Obama in his
State of the Union address went in the reverse direction, promising the
American people a nationwide wireless network among other technoligical
solutions built by the private sector. The question is does Obama know
something Communications Minister and NBN champion Stephen Conroy does
not?
… … …
The project is bold, ambitious and expensive, but
it is also one that was devised in haste, bereft of industry or public
consultation, or considered against the demand for other broadband
technologies such as wireless internet access. The US plan in contrast
was forged through extensive public workshops which drew more than
10,000 online and in-person attendees and generated some 23,000
comments totaling about 74,000 pages from more than 700 parties.
The article goes on to reference President Barack
Obama, who says that it is America’s free enterprise system which
drives innovation. He said:
That’s what planted the seeds for the internet.
That’s what helped make possible things like computer chips and GPS.
Just think of all the good jobs—from manufacturing to retail—that have
come from these breakthroughs.
Finally, Bingemann quotes Peter Cox, a respected media and telecommunications analyst, who says:
We want a clever and educated Australia and we
know broadband helps this. We can encourage Australia down this path by
providing fibre to all major and small businesses but this doesn’t mean
we need fibre to every home. We can achieve the outcomes that are
required at a much lower cost by changing the mix of technologies the
government is prescribing.
The bottom line is that you don’t need to spend
anywhere near what we are spending to achieve the NBN goals. The issue
is not about us building fibre or wireless networks, it’s about getting
that mix right at the right cost.
The issues raised by Bingemann are wide reaching,
and it is extremely important that we get a proper explanation before
any further money is spent on the NBN rollout. The Gillard Labor
government needs to provide detailed, costed and relevant answers to
the questions raised. Why is this project best delivered by government
and not through private enterprise? Why do we need fibre to every home?
Will enough people take up the service to actually make it affordable
and viable?
A telecommunications analyst at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Ian
Martin, raised another important point in an article entitled ‘Tied to
cable yet future is wireless’ which was published in the Australian on 8 February. He wrote:
The US wireless broadband initiative has left some
supporters of the NBN nonplussed. Why couldn’t Obama see, as Kevin Rudd
did, with Julia Gillard’s endorsement, that a government-owned,
wholesale-only, fibre to the home network was the better vision to
“underpin future productivity growth and our international
competitiveness”?
For one thing, Obama couldn’t afford it. Even a
fibre access network to 80 per cent of US households would cost $US80
billion to $US100 billion. It’s unthinkable that congress would have
supported that kind of budget spending. Nor would it have supported a
similar role for government in owning and operating a fibre access
network. And structural separation of access networks was tried and
failed in the US in the 1980s.
More important, President Obama chose to support
wireless broadband over fibre access because it has more to offer.
Bearing in mind that the backbone of wireless networks is typically a
fibre core, it’s wireless broadband, not fixed broadband, that is
growing with advances in wireless network capability, wireless devices
and applications. Obama’s firefighter is downloading the design of a
burning building on to a handheld device, not knocking on a neighbour’s
door to plug a laptop into the local fibre network. In fact, they would
probably download it in the fire truck on the way to the building.
The point Martin is making is that wireless
technology is more accessible than fibre infrastructure, and I agree
with him. As the member for Paterson I am often travelling throughout
my electorate. Further, when I am away on shadow portfolio business I
rely on the internet to stay in touch with constituents via email.
Using my Blackberry or my iPad, both utilising wireless technology,
allows me the freedom to do what I do. There are no cables and no
compatibility issues; you just turn on your device and you are
connected to the digital world. That is of extreme value to consumers,
and that is why the best internet plan for Australia should be a mix of
technologies, not a restrictive fibre network which will cost billions
of dollars to deliver to 93 per cent of premises regardless of their
needs.
Today’s consumers do not want to have to plug in. They want to
connect wirelessly with the push of a button from wherever they are,
regardless of whether they are sitting at a table, standing in line
waiting for a coffee or on the street watching for their bus. That is
why new products on the market, such as the iPad, do not even have a
standard cable socket through which to connect to cable internet. How
does the government explain the increase in the number of households
that have mobile phones only? The fixed line is a restrictive and dying
trend, and the figures back this up. According to a Telstra report on
29 September 2010, its wireless broadband business grew 109 per cent
per year over three years. In just one financial year, between 2009 and
2010, the number of wireless broadband subscribers in Australia rose
from two million to 3.5 million, and that does not even include smart
phones.
Do we really want to be building a cable network when the rest of
the world is going wireless? One answer we have been given by the
Gillard Labor government concerns the physical delivery of the NBN. We
know that some cables will go underground, while others will need to be
placed overhead. This raises serious concerns for my constituents, who
deserve to know how their properties and those nearby will be affected.
If Labor is determined to push ahead with its NBN, the legislation
package needs to be tightened to ensure full public accountability.
When governments deliver infrastructure it is crucial that the right
balance is struck between the delivery of services and the physical
location of any structures. Failure to do so creates anxiety for the
local community. Public consultation must therefore take place. One
need only look at the current situation in Corlette, in my electorate
of Paterson, to see what I am talking about. In Corlette, Telstra has
proposed to build a new mobile phone tower on Port Stephens Council
land. Many nearby residents of the planned tower only found out about
the development application through a letter sent by council little
more than a week before comments were due. Further, council’s
submission period was over the Christmas holidays, when the majority of
residents were either dealing with family matters or away on holidays.
As a result, dozens of people have contacted my office furious,
frustrated and upset. After a phone call to council, the submission
period was extended by one week. However, more needs to be done to
ensure the public has its full and rightful say in public
infrastructure projects such as this.
The Labor government must heed the lessons of the past. 2011 appears
to be the year of big new taxes. If the Gillard Labor government gets
its way, we will have a flood tax, a carbon tax and a mining tax—and it
is only February. Prime Minister Gillard and Mr Swan have to resort to
these taxes because they cannot manage the money they already have.
They took a $20 billion surplus, which we the coalition worked hard to
save for a rainy day, and wasted it. Then they worked us into a massive
national debt which will peak at $94.4 billion according to the latest
Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
Simply put, taxpayers cannot afford to fund a $50 billion broadband
network—not when they are crying out for basic improvements in health,
roads and other areas, and especially not when a wireless OPEL network
that would have required less than $1 billion from the government would
have been completed by mid-2009. In my electorate of Paterson a tiny
fraction of that $50 billion would pay for the road upgrades that are
desperately needed to protect lives on the Bucketts Way and the Lakes
Way and on the roads between Paterson, Vacy and Gresford, between
Nelson Bay and Fingal Bay and on main road 301.
A tiny fraction of that money would deliver the life-saving medical
equipment needed by patients in my electorate, such as dialysis
machines and a chemotherapy unit at Forster-Tuncurry and more public
hospital beds on the Tomaree Peninsula. A tiny fraction of that money
would deliver the digital television upgrades we so desperately need to
guarantee the delivery of local news, advertising, entertainment and
community announcements. Labor has delivered none of these things
because, as we are told, there is no federal funding available. That is
why Labor needs to re-examine its NBN and offer us a more
cost-effective solution to our broadband needs that combines the use of
wireless and fibre.
A paper released on 9 February this year by the Economist
Intelligence Unit, one of the world’s most respected research
organisations, shows that the NBN will cost Australian taxpayers 24
times as much as the scheme in South Korea. Despite the excessive cost,
it will deliver only one-10th of the speed. The Australian newspaper explained the report in further detail in its 9 February article:
The report assesses the plans of 40 countries to
enable high speed broadband development, assessing the target speeds,
rollout time frame, cost and regulatory provisions to deliver a final
ranking.
The research body marks Australia down in its
government broadband index because of “the huge cost to the public
sector” of the NBN.
It also loses points due to limited private-sector
involvement, high government intervention and the exclusion of state
and municipal authorities from the plan.
The report highlights the disparity between the
cost of the network - estimated at 7.6 per cent of annual government
revenue - and the cost of the South Korean network, which is estimated
at less than one per cent.
The report does score the NBN highly for having a
target speed of 100 megabits per second, but it says Sweden, Finland,
Estonia and France have all set similar targets with much lower costs.
Clearly even international commentators are aware of the Gillard Labor government’s waste.
There are many questions that remain regarding the NBN, as I have
detailed today. Until those answers are provided to the people of
Paterson and the Australian public in general, the NBN should be put on
hold. That is why the public works and public authority exemptions
within this legislation need to be erased. We cannot afford any
reduction in the ability of parliament to publicly scrutinise NBN Co.
When the Labor government was elected last year, Prime Minister Gillard
promised that it would be an open, honest and accountable government. I
call on her to deliver on that promise. The task should be simple if
she has nothing to hide.
