Senator JOYCE (Queensland—Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) (11:45): It is great to have the minister in the chamber today during what must be a very touchy time for the Australian Labor Party. I am sure the minister has complete confidence in his capacity to get the NBN out—'complete confidence' are words being used quite a bit around here lately. I am sure he has complete confidence in the government's capacity to reach a surplus, complete confidence in the carbon tax, complete confidence in the NBN and complete confidence in the member for Dobell. At the outset, it is important to acknowledge what we are looking at here: the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2011 in the guise of the Labor Party's NBN. The difference between the Labor Party and the coalition is not that we do not believe in broadband; it is that we do not believe in $56 billion of debt. We believe in fibre to the node. They believe in fibre to just about any place they can point a stick at. They believe that the only way to pay for it is to remove themselves from market principles, create a monopoly and, in the meantime, borrow the money. And if they cannot pay it back, they just put it on the credit card bill along with all the other debt—another issue that is in the news at the moment. The coalition will be proposing a couple of amendments to this— Senator Conroy interjecting— Senator JOYCE: He is awake. I have complete confidence in the minister—complete confidence, like the complete confidence they have in the member for Dobell! I have complete confidence in the Labor Party! I might go to a few of the allegations being made by the minister. The minister talks about his belief in unit pricing. The National Party believe in unit pricing and that is why the National Party moved an amendment to have unit pricing on the download speed—true unit pricing. But what we got from the minister was another swindle where they only told half the story. 'Half the story' is another term you hear to describe what the Labor Party say. They tell half the story. They do not tell the full story about what actually happens. On this the Labor Party have three silos: the fibre silo in the urban areas, the wireless silo in the rural areas and the satellite silo. And they all have different costings. The people who will pay the most are the people in regional areas—that silo. So the government do not really believe in unit pricing and that is why they voted against the amendment to bring about unit pricing. As we know, the Independents, Mr Windsor and Mr Oakeshott, supported the government in making sure that regional areas did not get true unit pricing. So we can dispel that one. Now we have a piece of legislation that is going to bring about a new monopoly. In the past, under the coalition one of the great reductions in the cost of living came about through telecommunications where there was a 20 per cent reduction, I think, in the actual costs. But, now, the crowd opposite—the complete confidence crowd—have legislation that will allow the NBN to charge five per cent above the CPI. The reason they are doing that is that the numbers do not actually stack up. It did not take too long to find that the numbers do not stack up. Who are they charging this to? In this new monopoly, everybody will have to be part of it and connected, and they will be ripped off. I notice shadow minister Malcolm Turnbull has said that the NBN only has 50 customers. Even I found this number to be so incredibly ridiculously small that I had to ask my staff to check it. Surely, it cannot be that bad. There cannot be just 50 customers. Surely, this $56 billion enterprise cannot have just 50 customers. But I think it is true: they only have 50 real customers. Remember the launch in Armidale where they all put their hands on the button with Julia Gillard? I have complete confidence in Julia Gillard! I have complete confidence in the Prime Minister! She has complete confidence in the member for Dobell! We have the minister— Senator Conroy: The one over there! Senator JOYCE: The out there minister; the minister out there—I should say, Minister Stephen Conroy. In Armidale, there was Minister Conroy, the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, the Labor aligned Independent, Tony Windsor, and a few other people, and they all put their hands on the button. Down the button went, but the trouble was that the button was not connected to anything. The seven customers there were actually connected beforehand. What the button actually did, God only knows, but it looked really good. It was right up there with the 'Hour of Disney'—lots of flashing lights! I have complete confidence in what happened up in Armidale! But now we have to have complete confidence in the Labor Party and the NBN. With the investment of the Australian taxpayers' money in this process there has to be some sort of purpose to what we are doing. We do not, in the coalition of the National Party and Liberal Party, not believe in fibre; we absolutely do if it is fibre to the node and not fibre to every house. Let us clearly spell that out. We are having huge advancements now in wireless— Senator Conroy interjecting— Senator JOYCE: I have got complete confidence in your capacity. There are a number of amendments we will be looking at under this telecommunications legislation. One is where they are trying to bring in this sort of new monopoly to squash out of the marketplace independent providers who go into a residential area to install fibre. We believe in small business, and small business has the capacity to do that. Our amendment goes to making sure that we do not lose those independent providers of the installation of fibre. And it does make sense that as new subdivisions come on site that people look at the installation of fibre— Senator Conroy interjecting— Senator JOYCE: What are you saying? I have complete confidence in you, Minister. The Prime Minister has complete confidence in the member for Dobell, and I have complete confidence in your story. The member for Dobell is telling the truth; I have complete confidence in that! There is no doubt about it: somebody broke into his house and stole his credit card, his licence and his phone, and they drove down to Surry Hills. They managed to make a few phone calls on the way. I hope the phone did not have a code lock on it. They must have known the code. That thief looked awfully like Craig Thomson and signed something with a signature that looked awfully like Craig Thomson's signature, and then after a certain transaction, which we will not go into because it will scare the kiddies, went back up to Central Coast at which point in time they must have broken back into the house and put everything back where they found it. That is a marvellous story and the Prime Minister has complete confidence in that story! And I have complete confidence in the NBN! I think it is going to work! It is a plausible idea! I have complete confidence in their capacity to bring the budget back to surplus! Let us go into this confidence trick, because that is what we have got. It is absurd that we are now going to lock ourselves into a place where a monopoly is going to have the capacity to jack up prices and basically rip it out of the consumers. That is not a good outcome. It is also not good that we have a monopoly going in and basically knocking out of the market the private providers of fibre rollout. That is obviously a very bad outcome. I am glad to hear that the Greens are considering those amendments. We will not lock them in. But I am glad to see that they are considering them. I am sure that—and I do not want to say with complete confidence—in due course you will make your mind up about them. We must also make sure that the Labor Party are truly held to account over the fact that they have not brought unit pricing to regional Australia. An honourable senator: Are you voting for these? Senator JOYCE: You can have complete confidence that you will find out. Unit pricing is an issue that the Labor Party voted against and the Independents voted against. Did the Greens vote against unit pricing for regional areas? I am not quite sure whether the Greens voted against unit pricing for regional areas. They made a speech about unit pricing for regional areas. An honourable senator: They voted against it. Senator JOYCE: Oh! They voted against it. The Australian Greens voted against unit pricing for regional areas. They actually believed that people were naive enough that they could pull the wool over their eyes. Unit pricing in the delivery of a product is obviously download speed. That is where you should have the unit pricing. You did not believe in that; you voted against it. Your credentials on unit pricing and parity and fairness are there for all to see in the way you voted on amendment (2) on subsection 151 DA(6). That was it and you voted against it. An honourable senator: The amendment was written in crayon! Senator Conroy: He has got you there! Senator JOYCE: I did not hear it; but I am sure it was funny. Senator Conroy: It was red crayon! Senator JOYCE: Red crayon, was it? I have complete confidence that it was in red crayon—absolute and complete confidence a la the Prime Minister! We will be moving some amendments which will, hopefully, try to make sure that we keep the providers of fibre rollout in the market. It is a viable sector, and that viable sector should have the capacity to continue. I do have concerns about the debt that this is going to leave us with. It is vitally important that you understand that if we cannot pay back this debt, the Australian people are going to pay it back. All the money is being borrowed. You have got to have complete confidence in the Labor Party. What was I saying about the member for Dobell? He is a great asset to us! Stick by him! Stay with him! Do not let him out of your sight! Do not let the CT scan out of your sight! You just stay right next to him. I want you in every photo, holding him, arm in arm—oh, maybe not! Stay close by him; he is a great asset for us. The coalition is proposing an amendment to impose cost discipline on NBN Co. This amendment will require NBN Co. to purchase at a set price any network from developers who have had other NBN co-competitors install that network. If this amendment is successful then NBN Co. will not be able to charge a fee greater than that set under this agreement. This will have the effect of regulating the cost to developers of having to install fibre developments in greenfield sites. Just as NBN Co.'s prices will be regulated when supplying services to brownfield sites, there should be oversight of its supply of fibre to greenfield sites as well. The coalition proposes an amendment to preserve competition for those who currently have new fibre infrastructure. This amendment would exempt those providing this infrastructure from part 7 and part 8 of Telecommunications Act 1997. Those parts of the Telecommunications Act are fundamentally anticompetitive. They prevent fibre network owners, other than the NBN, from providing a superfast carrier service to residential or small business owners so the Labor Party have to revert to such anticompetitive practices. Apparently it is to provide more competition in the telecommunications marketplace. That is what they said. They said they were going to provide more competition but they have instead provided a monopoly. Now that they have the monopoly in place, as we said they would, they are legislating the five per cent above the CPI increase in the pricing so they can rip the people off. That is what they are good at. They have to protect the NBN business case. The NBN's business case is another thing that I thought the Prime Minister might have complete confidence in. Where was the cost-benefit analysis before they went into the largest capital infrastructure process in our nation's history? I do not know where it is, but I tell you what: when Minister Conroy leaves this place, he will be the best salesman for vacuum cleaners that this nation has ever known. He will have a boot full of vacuum cleaners and he will be ready to sell, sell, sell. This man will be unstoppable. He will slay Amway; he will slay Reader's Digest. He will be the best door-to-door salesman. How he ever managed to get this through ERC I do not know. I just do not know what happens in the Labor Party. Did he walk into the Expenditure Review Committee and say: 'I'm about to launch on this nation about $56 billion worth of expenditure. We could build hospitals galore, up and down the coast and everywhere, and inland rail. We could build so many things: dams, roads—you name it—but we are getting ourselves a telephone company. We have already got a few of them but we're going to get another one'? And he did it without even a cost-benefit analysis. He told us the story about how he waited for the Prime Minister of the day, Kevin Rudd. Julia Gillard had complete confidence in Kevin Rudd! He waited for the former Prime Minister of this nation, before they got rid of him, and jumped on a plane with Mr Rudd, and that is how he got this through. That is how we have ended up with a new telephone company, which is actually an old telephone company. In fact, it is the same telephone company; it is just a much bigger monopoly. Then he decided he was going to put fibre into every house, every shed and every toilet in the nation—everywhere you go there will be fibre. It will just be a fibre wonderland out there. The trouble is that it is going to cost the earth. Senator Conroy interjecting— Senator JOYCE: You should have complete confidence in it. I have complete confidence in you! So we had Optus, we had Telstra and we had other providers, and now we have the NBN, which is basically coming in as the new monopoly. We are closing down the ones we have. They have made an absolute killing because they saw the minister coming and they have leased him back the pipes and the trenches. They actually still own them. It is only a matter of 19 years and they will get them back. It is so pathetic that if you did not laugh you would cry. All they got were 50 customers and it cost $50 billion plus. That is a billion dollars for each customer. What a bargain! What an absolute financial genius! They are incredible. What a great deal! You should recommend yourself to the Australian people at the next election on how you have gone with the NBN. I am sure they will have complete confidence in you, just like the member for Dobell. It is just bizarre. But, with the expenditure of the nation's money, the coalition have to make this thing, wherever it goes, work. It is not that we do not believe in fibre, because we do. We put about $8 billion on the table in order to get it to the node. We just do not believe in running it to every house, because we cannot afford it. We have $197 billion in gross debt. Last week that debt went up by $2½ billion—that is $2,500 million in one week. Our nation is just going down the tube. Everywhere you look, everything they touch is just manifest incompetence, and that is reflected in their polling. If somebody said, 'What do you think of the NBN?', I would just say, 'I believe that the Prime Minister of Australia has complete confidence in it.'