Preliminary Pages

Chair’s Foreword

This is the fifth and final review report of the joint oversight committee of the National Broadband Network (NBN) and the NBN Co for the 43^rd Parliament.

For all the challenges of the largest infrastructure build in our nation’s history, as well as the policy risks to manage at the September 2013 election, Australians can now be confident the NBN will be completed in some form.  It will make a big difference in many lives.  It will strengthen our economy.  It will promote our cultural identity in a flattening global culture.  Overall, it will create opportunity and deliver equity for all Australians.

The NBN remains on track to deliver a rate of return to the taxpayer of over 7% per annum.  The NBN, in its current form, assists greatly in delivering industry restructuring in telecommunications, which many have identified as an historic problem in Australia. And, on the politics of the moment, part of this upgrade is Telstra Management and shareholders improving their ‘pits and pipes’, including removing asbestos from old infrastructure -and may they do that safely.

By building the NBN, we can unlock this even more than the current cultural boom allows.  We promote Australian culture to the world.  We show respect to sectors like education as our second biggest export market and invite it to grow. We play to our strengths by unlocking entrepreneurship as a nation. 

The NBN delivers ubiquity.  This means the wholesale platform being built does not discriminate by location.  Wherever you live and in no matter what style of residence you live in (farm or flat), the speed, reliability and wholesale pricing will have equivalence.  The principle of consumer equity is finally alive in Australian telecommunications.

All of this is before we explore personal and business benefit of improved speed and reliability with a technology that is open to faster and faster speeds.

It is human capacity, not the technology’s capacity that holds us back on even faster transfers of data.  Once built, the advancement of speed is an exciting challenge for the innovators.

I make particular reference to the excellent report commissioned by Google titled Culture Boom: How Digital Media Are Invigorating Australia which can be found at: http://google-au.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/australias-cultural-boom.html#!/2012/03/australias-cultural-boom.html.

The cultural boom happening in Australia today, contributing $26 billion per year in export value to our economy is important and should not be dismissed as merely a platform to access episodes of the television series ‘Game of Thrones’. It is an export market. As the report identifies, more Americans are digesting Australian content than Australians are today -with existing poor telecommunications. What an opportunity to promote Australia and expand our export economy by getting this build right.

I have personally done what I can to see the NBN completed to the best standard possible.  It is, in my view, real nation-building.  I invite the 44^th Parliament and its NBN oversight committee, to commit to doing likewise.

As this is the final report, can I thank all 60 committee members, in particular, the 15 voting members.  We have all got to know each other better through some difficult, but important policy discussions.

And finally, I also thank the Secretariat.  I have often watched them and wondered what they are really thinking when committee members (including me) drift off track, ask the silly question, or demonstrate forgetfulness.

The Secretariat has been a group of quality professionals and the engine room of true oversight.  On behalf of all committee members, I sincerely thank them.

Robert Oakeshott MP

Chair

Committee Membership

Participating Members

Committee Secretariat

Terms of Reference

The resolution of appointment establishing the Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network was passed by the House of Representatives on 1 March 2011 and by the Senate on 3 March 2011 and provides:

(1)               That a Joint Committee on the National Broadband Network be appointed to inquire into and report on the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN);

(2)               That every six months, commencing 31 August 2011, until the NBN is complete and operational, the committee provide progress reports to both Houses of Parliament and to shareholder Ministers on:

(a)                The rollout of the NBN, including in relation to the Government’s objective for NBN Co Limited (NBN Co) to:

                                             (i)                    connect 93 per cent of Australian homes, schools and businesses with fibre-to-the premises technology providing broadband speeds of up to 100 megabits per second, with a minimum fibre coverage obligation of 90 per cent of Australian premises; and

                                          (ii)                    service all remaining premises by a combination of next-generation fixed wireless and satellite technologies providing peak speeds of at least 12 megabits per second;

(b)               The achievement of take-up targets (including premises passed and covered and services activated) as set out in NBN Co’s Corporate Plan released on 20 December 2010 as revised from time to time;

(c)                Network rollout performance including service levels and faults;

(d)               The effectiveness of NBN Co in meeting its obligations as set out in its Stakeholder Charter;

(e)                NBN Co’s strategy for engaging with consumers and handling complaints;

(f)                 NBN Co’s risk management processes; and

(g)               Any other matter pertaining to the NBN rollout that the committee considers relevant.

List of abbreviations

Recommendations

2       Performance Reporting and Regulatory Issues

Recommendation 1

The committee recommends the Government task the NBN Co Limited to update its Corporate Plan 2012-2015 to prepare strategies to minimise risk in any policy changes that may reasonably be expected to occur in the 2012-2015 period.

3       Regional and Remote Issues

Recommendation 2

The committee recommends the NBN Co Limited revised Corporate Plan and the six-monthly Shareholder Ministers’ Performance Reports to the committee include further information on the National Broadband Network fibre rollout in regional Australia.

Recommendation 3

The committee recommends NBN Co Limited and the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy closely monitor the current rate of Interim Satellite Service (ISS) activations and, prior to the customer cap on the ISS being reached: