Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2016-2017: Consideration in Detail

I thank the shadow minister for the opportunity to respond on the question of the multi-technology mix which characterises the NBN, which is being rolled out by the Turnbull government.

And that rollout is going well. As at 13 October, there were 3,252,709 premises which were able to connect. Of course, when Labor left government in 2013 there were barely 50,000 services in operation. So what we are seeing is the rollout of the NBN gathering pace, and a very substantial number of Australians are now able to access the National Broadband Network using the multi-technology model—a combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node and, of course, the HFC—hybrid fibre coax. I do emphasise the point—despite some of the ill-informed rhetoric that we hear—that all of those modes involve fibre at different stages of the network.

When the incoming coalition government developed the multi-technology mix—more specifically, when NBN developed the multi-technology mix—with the assistance of extensive external consulting advice and also drawing on the capabilities of the management team, amongst the considerations was how best to achieve the rollout in the speediest possible fashion, bearing in mind that after six years' rhetoric we had inherited a situation where there was an enormous amount of talk about an NBN network but very little had been delivered.

As I mentioned, barely 50,000 Australians were actually able to get a broadband service, and the primary service delivered by the NBN was supporting photo ops—and they were very good at supporting photo opportunities. If then Prime Minister Gillard had a desire to appear in a photo op with a hard hat and a high-vis vest, then the NBN was at her service. If then Minister Conroy had a desire to be photographed or videoed feeding fibre into a pit, then the NBN was at his service. But when it came to actually rolling out fibre—rolling out the National Broadband Network—it turned out that the company charged with doing that had done a truly dismal job.

Now partly that was undoubtedly due to the fact that there was almost nobody on the board who had any serious telecommunications experience. And the chief executive, while certainly with distinguished experience running one of the largest telecommunications equipment vendors, was not an experienced networks executive. We fixed those issues. We fixed those issues when we came to government. We put in Ziggy Switkowski as chair, one of Australia's most experienced telecommunications executives—the former chief executive of both Optus and Telstra. We put in an experienced and capable management team and we charged the management team with developing the multi-technology mix—the combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, hybrid fibre coax—

An opposition member: Yesterday's technology tomorrow.

Mr FLETCHER: Tell me, how many years have you actually worked in the telecommunications industry?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Craig Kelly ): The minister should ignore interjections.

Mr FLETCHER: Fibre to the node is very widely used around the world by companies like AT&T, British Telecommunications and Deutsche Telekom, and one of the reasons they use it is the speed of the rollout. This was precisely the point that the management team of NBN, together with extensive consultancy advice, arrived at. One of the key considerations was getting the rollout achieved and delivered quickly. And, of course, that is now what is happening. Look at the rate of rollout compared to the performance of the previous Labor government, which, as I have mentioned, managed to connect barely 50,000 people to the network in six years. They spent $6 billion, but they connected barely 50,000 premises to the network. We are now at a point where some 3.2 million premises are able to connect and the total number that are actually activated is 1.417 million.

The shadow minister asked about fibre to the distribution point. Obviously, that is an option that is being used, and we have announced that some 700,000 premises are planned to be served by fibre to the distribution point—some on the Optus HFC and some going beyond that.