DESPITE making an ironclad guarantee before the September election that every home in Goulburn would have access to the National Broadband Network within the next three years and repeating it since, Hume MP Angus Taylor is unsure if his government can keep that promise.
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The back flip came after NBN Co’s strategic review revealed that the Coalition’s targets were not only unachievable but in order to complete the project, it would need to commit an additional $41 billion in funding, $11.5b more than predicted before the election.
The government last week ditched its commitment to deliver download speeds of 25 megabits per second to every Australian household by 2016, with about 43 per cent of premises now set to enjoy those speeds.
Mr Taylor says poor internet access “is one of the most singularly impacting issues” facing Hume and that he is leading the charge to deliver faster, cheaper speeds for regional areas.
He asked Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull a ‘Dorothy Dixer’ about it in parliament.
However, the back bencher can’t definitively say when his constituency will have access to the NBN.
The real issue, he says, is that the project was in a shambles when his government inherited it. Now they need to clean up the mess.
“What we’ve learnt in this review is that instead of costing $44bn the ALP plan would have cost $73bn and its two years behind after three years of work,” he said.
“We all knew it was bad and we suspected it was worse than they were saying…but I don’t think anybody could have anticipated it was going to be this bad.
“The other thing that hasn’t got any news (coverage) is that it was not going to deliver any return – zero – and the only way around that was to take what was ultimately about a $70bn hit to the budget or to up the fees we were going to charge…
“What we’re doing is triage on this thing… Malcolm has made it very clear to all regional MPs that he is going through a process now of prioritising the areas of highest need… to make sure they get their very bad problems fixed as soon as possible.
“He hasn’t given us a map yet, we’ve all asked him for that because we know that’s what our constituents want but he has said, ‘We’re doing the work on broadband speeds right now by locality and on the back of that we will come out with a re-sequenced, reprioritised plan using the full range of technologies that are available to us now that we’re moving away from fibre to the premises’.” Mr Taylor told the Post he could not guarantee locals would have access to the NBN by 2016 but believed a “blanket guarantee” wasn’t useful to anybody.
“Ultimately people want a guarantee about their area and when it is going to come. That is the focus (for us) and that is where the work is being done…,” he said.
“I am inundated with complaints from Hume residents fed up with slow internet, no mobile phone reception and dodgy connections.
“Constituents at Wayo complain they have to wait until the small hours of the morning to update phone and computer applications because of congestion on the satellite.
“At Tirrannaville, near Goulburn, they’re disgusted at the waste of rolling out broadband to areas already served by ADSL, ADSL2+, 4G or at worst 3G, when they are waiting half an hour to download a single photo… “Under our plan, by 2019, nine out of 10 Australians will have access to download rates of at least 50 megabits per second and seven out of 10 will have access to 100 megabits per second. There will also be lower Internet bills. An average broadband plan will cost $72 per month, compared to $139 under Labor.
“We are committed to completing the NBN quickly and costeffectively.
We will do it with honesty and transparency and I will be fighting hard for Hume internet black spots to be at the top of the priority list.”