Senator REYNOLDS (Western Australia) (15:19): I too rise to take note of Minister Fifield’s answer. After nearly four years in this place, the chutzpah of those opposite never ceases to amuse me, talking about the NBN and other projects that they implemented, developed and completely stuffed up. The list is long: pink batts, school halls, unfunded NDIS programs, and the NBN is yet another one of their failures. I remind those opposite of exactly the mess you left us. Here we have probably one of the largest infrastructure projects ever in this country—and how was it developed and planned? It wasn’t on the back of a wine-stained coaster in a VIP jet with some great idea your colleague Stephen Conroy had, ‘Let’s do this NBN’?

Senator Carol Brown: He doesn’t even drink.

Senator REYNOLDS: He hadn’t been drinking? It was just a wine-stained coaster?

Senator Bilyk: He doesn’t drink alcohol.

Senator REYNOLDS: How does it explain this project? That’s even worse, if he came up with this plan sober. Good Lord! After all of their pontificating, let’s have a look at what they left this government four short years ago. After six years of Labor, how many households do you think were connected?

Senator Anning: None.

Senator REYNOLDS: No, there were more than none; 51,000 were connected across the entire country under Labor. Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises NBN policy would have cost $30 billion more, under their own figures, and taken six to eight years longer to complete. This project, like so many of the others, shows that there are two maxims in politics: never let the Labor Party near taxpayers’ money, because you know they’re going to stuff it up, and never let them near any large-scale project management, particularly infrastructure, because they will waste taxpayers’ money and completely stuff it up. We’ve seen that with the NDIS and the NBN.

Let’s look at the facts that not even those opposite can dispute. Labor paid $6 billion for the NBN to reach just three per cent of Australian premises. In fact the rollout was so badly managed by those opposite that the contractors downed tools and stopped construction in four states. Remember that? Those opposite try very hard to whitewash history, how much you spent, how little you delivered, 51,000 households. Tell me I’m wrong. It cost $6 billion to roll it out for three per cent of premises. How many rollout targets, on their own dodgy planning, do you think Labor met? When they spent $6 billion to reach three per cent of households and 51,000 households taking it up, how many of their milestones do you think they met? Not a single one.

What is it like under the coalition after four years? The NBN is now available to half of all Australian premises, or more than 6.2 million—six years, 50,000 households; four years, 6.2 million premises. It has over three million active connections, and all Australian premises will be connected by 2020. The facts are irrefutable, and nobody over there can deny these reported facts. Our NBN is connecting more users every two weeks than Labor connected in six years. We are connecting 30,000 premises per week—two weeks, 60,000 premises; six years, 51,000 premises. Despite all the howling of those opposite, trying to rewrite the history of this project, the NBN is on track to be available to two-thirds of Australian premises this year, with more than nine out of 10 premises in 2019 and, as I said, all Australians connected by 2020. Those are the facts. (Time expired)