David Coleman

I want to speak about section 43A of this bill, which seeks to say that the NBN must always stay in public ownership. It is a completely farcical piece of legislation that this government is seeking to put before the parliament. It contrasts this section—and indeed the whole bill—with many, many statements by members of the Labor Party about the NBN over a period going back some 14 years, when the government introduced the legislation in relation to the ownership of the NBN.

You know who actually introduced the legislation that this government is seeking to overturn? It was the member for Grayndler, the Prime Minister, who stood at the dispatch box over there and made a number of statements about the bill, which this section 43(a) seeks to overturn. He said the bill:

… sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth's stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

What the Prime Minister—the member for Grayndler back then—said was that this legislation sets out processes in relation to NBN ownership. The minister for communications of the day put out a press release saying 'government committed to sale of NBN Co'. This section 43(a) seeks to overturn those arrangements.

Frankly, section 43(a) of this bill needs to be called out for the pathetic and sad stunt that it is. What matters with the NBN is the fact that, under this government, it is crashing to earth in a very bad way for Australian taxpayers. We saw the minister say last year, when huge price rises were approved for the NBN, that this was 'great news for consumers'. There were price rises of up to 14 per cent from October of last year to June this year. That was across just eight or nine months and affected six million Australians. We have seen people leave the NBN—and why are they leaving the NBN? It is because, under this government, the service is bad. The NBN satellite business is absolutely collapsing. It has lost tens of thousands of customers under this government. Does the government actually do something to focus on the success of the NBN and make sure it provides good products to Australians? No. The government's main interest in the NBN is the occasional hi-vis photo opportunity, but you don't make the NBN better for Australians by standing on the side of the road in a hi-vis vest. You just don't. But that is what this government is doing, and to say that price rises are great news for consumers is extraordinary.

We've also seen in the brownfields business of the NBN, which is the core NBN homes—this is existing homes. Guess how many Australians have abandoned the NBN's brownfields product under this government. One hundred thousand. And why are they leaving? They're leaving because prices are going up and up and because the service is poor. You know what else is happening for taxpayers under this government and the NBN? The cash losses continue to increase. In the last financial year, we saw Australian taxpayers have a cash loss of $1.4 billion, up $300 million on the previous year. NBN is losing heaps of cash, losing lots of customers and raising prices. It's a very bad situation.

Logically, what should you be doing? You should be focusing on getting the NBN back on track so it actually provides good services for Australians and Australians don't continue to leave at such an extraordinary rate. But the government instead is trying to create a silly faux debate about the ownership of the NBN in contrast to its own legislation and its own public statements about this issue, which had always contemplated circumstances in which its ownership arrangements could potentially change down the track.

What we need is maturity. We don't need silly, lame, pathetic, childish stunts. We need maturity about the NBN. We need a focus on getting the NBN back on track. We need a government that can actually successfully lead the NBN. We don't need this silly legislation.

Bob Katter

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3) as circulated in my name together:

(1) Schedule 1, item 1, page 3 (line 7), after paragraph 3(1)(b), insert:

; (c) to ensure that NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

(2) Schedule 1, item 12, page 4 (after line 22), after the paragraph beginning "Under provisions" in section 43, insert:

NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible and equitable to all people in Australia.

(3) Schedule 1, item 13, page 5 (line 7), at the end of section 43A, add:

; and (c) NBN Co has a universal service obligation to provide the national broadband network in a way that is reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis, wherever they reside or carry on business.

The previous speaker was talking about whether we should own government assets or whether the incompetent Public Service should own and run assets. A more streamlined, foreign ownership is what he is advocating. That's his line, but you'd see it differently if you were sitting in a car that was dry-bogged to the eyeballs and you were praying with rosary beads for your survival when the ground temperature was about 200 degrees Fahrenheit and your father had third-degree burns and was suffering heat stroke and had nearly died. You'd probably see communications a bit differently than you city blokes see it. You have absolutely no concern for anything outside the cities.

To their enormous disgrace, the founders of the Country Party would turn in their graves if they saw all those banks that they set up being sold off by the Country Party, which now call themselves the National Party. They would see, in the deregulation, the protection that all of our farming industries had being removed. They would be horrified.

But you don't care how many of us die in the bush. You couldn't give a damn. There's a person dying once a fortnight in the greater Cairns region simply because of the collapse of the roads system there. The Liberals would say that it's Labor's fault. Well, the Liberals are now in there. Will anything happen?

We're talking about communications. Our honourable member here is from Tasmania. All of Tasmania, really, is a rural and regional area. They will suffer the same as the rest of us. I would say that probably every week in Australia there's an accident where they desperately need a telephone to get an ambulance there to save somebody's life. It might even be that every day that occurs in Australia.

There are 60,000 or 70,000 people living on the Atherton tableland, 30 kilometre from Cairns, and there are three highways on which it will take you about an hour and a half to get there. In spite it being only 30 kilometre, it will take you an hour and a half. Those roads are not covered by the current communication system, so if you have an accident on those roads, too bad, so sad. You just hope someone comes along and can get to a telephone somewhere or get somewhere to use his mobile and rescue you. I can go into the details of how many accidents are occurring, but we've had one death a fortnight there, I think, for the last two or three months. I use that as an example.

I asked two people about this, and I think I've made reference to this before. I asked the wife of the very famous and illustrious mayor of Burketown—where a very tiny number of people live in a very big area of Australia—whose from a fourth-, fifth- or sixth-generation family in Australia, 'What do you need most?' and she said, 'Speed with my internet'. John Nelson is maybe one of the top 20 or 30 cattle owners in Australia. He owns a huge swag of country in north-west Queensland. I asked him, 'What do you want most?' and he said, 'Faster internet access. It just drives me off my head, the amount of work that you have to do and the time you have to wait for something to happen.'

This is, seriously, life and death for us, and I bring the attention of the House to my own family as an example. The Tyranny of Distance is a wonderful book by the historian Geoffrey Blainey. My family are a good example. There were three Katter brothers. Grandad had gone there in the 1870s in a stagecoach, and there were three boys, two of whom died as a result of the tyranny of distance. My father—and all of us—nearly died in that example I gave previously, but this is a separate issue.

You say that you're looking at putting in a universal service obligation. It's good you're looking at it! It would be nice if you did it. Ben Chifley, John Curtin and 'Red Ted' Theodore would turn in their grave if they saw a government making this service available without a universal service obligation attached to it. The mob on the other side want it to be saleable. Sell-off the most essential service in the country outside of water! (Time expired)

Mike Freelander

Are you seeking leave to continue?

Bob Katter

Yes, if I could. Another couple of minutes would be helpful.

Leave granted.

I just want to point out that because the Liberals allowed foreign ownership in Telstra, as they wanted, the biggest shareholder is now the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. It is by far and away the biggest shareholder. J.P. Morgan, United States; Citigroup, United States; BNP Paribas, France—these are some of the major shareholders. All the rest are less than one per cent, with one little, tiny exception of four per cent. So Telstra's completely owned by foreigners, and the major and dominant shareholder is China. That's a wonderful outcome! Is there a single person in this country that would agree with the Liberal Party on this? Maybe four of their moronic followers would. And the Labor Party needn't look cute, because they were involved in the sale of Telstra. Now the ownership of your communications systems, which is, outside of water, the most important essential service in this country, is dominated by China.

In light of those things, I can't stop you from doing that. The Australian people will slaughter you in the next election and then they'll slaughter the Liberals in the election after that, and it'll just keep going on until we on the crossbenches get the power, and that is rapidly happening of course. I moved this amendment, which would provide a universal service obligation. The government has officially informed me that it's 'all under control and they're looking at it'. Well, that's a standard joke, isn't it? Those sorts of comments are what we crack jokes about. We've moved that here and we intend to divide the House on the issue.

Long debate text truncated.

Summary

Date and time: 11:18 AM on 2024-11-20
Allegra Spender's vote: Abstained
Total number of "aye" votes: 16
Total number of "no" votes: 48
Total number of abstentions: 87
Related bill: National Broadband Network Companies Amendment (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024

Adapted from information made available by theyvoteforyou.org.au