HON. WAYNE SWAN MP
FEDERAL MEMBER FOR LILLEY
CONSTITUENCY STATEMENT: BROADBAND
FEDERATION CHAMBER, CANBERRA
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2018
***CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY***
Since coming to Government in 2013, Malcolm Turnbull and the Liberals have done just about everything they could possibly do to destroy the NBN.
They’ve taken a world-class fibre‑to‑the‑home network, and they’ve turned it into fraudband.
Across the area I represent, tens of thousands of households are frustrated and caught in a time warp. There are at least 20,000 households in my area which have received Labor’s first‑class broadband, and their neighbours, their fellow citizens are saying “why couldn’t we have that?”
In those lucky suburbs, house prices are now rising even further because people have access to Labor's first‑class broadband. But across the rest of the area, there are approximately 40,000 premises that are struggling on the HFC network – Malcolm Turnbull's Fraudband – or they are receiving absolutely nothing.
Around 20,000 premises are limping through on the HFC network. And the problem is that the speeds that have been promised, the service that has been promised, has not arrived. And people are left in limbo.
Some people have no service whatsoever. Some people have services which drop out. And this is particularly the case in the bayside suburbs in my electorate.
The standard HFC network has been more degraded in these bayside suburbs, which has led to cost blowouts, long wait times, and very, very poor service. It is quite clear that those areas which are receiving HFC, connectivity is very low and service is very poor.
Large sections of the area are receiving the inferior service, but there are many households in places such as Chermside, Chermside West, Geebung, Kedron, Northgate, Nundah, Wavell Heights, Zillmere who are still waiting for a connection to the NBN.
So roughly a third of my area has Labor’s first-class broadband, roughly a third is caught in the time warp of HFC and may have a service, but it is not likely to be superior in the way it has been promised – and is likely to be inferior in many cases compared to what existed before. And the remaining third has not received anything at all.
This is a disaster. It is, in the history of this country, probably our biggest infrastructure failure.
The rolling rollout disaster has presented dramatic consequences for small businesses right across my electorate; people who are operating childcare centres; others who are operating accounting firms; families with children studying in schools and universities. All of these people have been sacrificed to Malcolm Turnbull’s fraudband.
