Labor cannot be trusted on the NBN

Liberal Senator for Western Sydney, Senator the Hon Marise Payne, said Labor can’t be trusted to deliver an upgraded NBN.

“Under six years of Labor, just 51,000 premises were connected to the NBN nationally at a cost of $6 billion,” Senator Payne said.

“Since we came to Government, there are now 12 million premises able to connect, and 8.3 million already connected to the NBN.

“What is clear is that Labor has now back-flipped and accepted the coalition’s efficient demand-based model of fibre on demand and abandoned their signature policy of fibre to every premises regardless whether it is wanted or not.”

More than 70,000 premises in Macquarie can now order a service whereas only 7,549 could in 2013 when Labor were last in power.

Senator Payne said Labor needs to explain how their plan will be funded, instead of offering murky comments referring to a “combination” of funding sources. 

“Labor’s plan clearly does not involve 1.5 million premises actually getting fibre, instead it gives them the option to order fibre if they take up a high speed service. Labor needs to explain what the minimum cost of those services would be,” Senator Payne said.

It’s clear that what Labor proposes is more wasteful spending of taxpayer funds.”

The Morrison Government committed $4.5 billion to making ultra-fast broadband of up to 1Gbps available on demand to 8 million premises across regional and metropolitan Australia by 2023, and we are already well advanced in delivering on that commitment.

Only the Coalition can be trusted to deliver an upgraded NBN.