Senator BUSHBY (Tasmania—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (17:58): This motion of urgency just demonstrates the fact that the Tasmanian Labor-Green government does not have the record to be able to stand up and say that it needs to be re-elected, on the basis of what it has done to Tasmania over the last 16 years. If you look at the state of the economy, if you look at the state of jobs and if you look at any of the economic or social indicators, Tasmania is at or near the bottom in just about every particular category. The fault for that has to be pointed directly at the fact that we Tasmanians have suffered under 16 years of Labor, and the last four years from Labor in bed with their good friends, the Greens. And so what are they doing here at the last minute? They are trying to create an issue, because they cannot stand on their record about the NBN. Senator Polley: Will Hodgman is concerned that it will cost him the election! You're leaving him out to dry! Senator Cormann interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Boyce ): Order! Senator Polley! Senator Cormann! Senator BUSHBY: As Senator Polley mentioned, the Leader of the Opposition in Tasmania, Will Hodgman, was overheard saying that the NBN could cost him government. That is because Labor are working very hard to try to make this into an issue. The reality is that Tasmanians need to make their decisions based on the record of Labor and the Greens and the appalling state of the economy in Tasmania; the embarrassing fact that Tasmania is at the bottom of so many economic and social indicators. I think Tasmanians are smart enough to see through this. I think Tasmanians will look at the record of Labor and the Greens over the last 16 years and they will make the appropriate decision. I think they will see past this smokescreen that Labor is trying to create, surrounding the NBN issues, and will vote accordingly. I am confident that on 15 March we will see the Liberals do significantly better than the Labor Party, and the Labor Party will get a real lesson—but, of course, because of the Hare-Clark system that does not necessarily mean we are going to win. That is why they are going so hard with this. They are going so hard because a few votes here or there could mean they end up getting a second seat in an electorate, even though they are going to suffer the judgement of the Tasmanian people. Honourable senators interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senators on my left, please stop interjecting. Senator BUSHBY: Coming to the actual subject of this motion, the only promise that has been broken here is the promise that the Labor Party made to the people of Australia prior to the 2007 election—namely, that they would deliver and build an NBN that would be finished in 2013, for $4.7 billion. We all know that under Labor the timeframe and the cost blew out horribly. The rollout in Tasmania last year—even when they did get it going, and it was at a much higher cost—ground to a halt in the middle of last year, due to Labor's incompetence. Labor has also peddled the line that the NBN is free. There is nothing free about the NBN. Under Labor's plan taxpayers were on track to foot a $73 billion bill—that is, seventy-three thousand million dollars—and increased monthly internet bills, by up to 80 per cent. That raises the issue of affordability, which if I have time I will touch on later. Senators opposite appear to live in a world where blank cheques are doled out and money grows on trees. If it is somebody else's money they do not care about spending it. On this side of the chamber we actually take the decision to spend taxpayers' money responsibly, and we want to make sure we get the best possible outcome for the money we spend. There is also a misconception that under Labor's proposal 100 per cent of premises will get optic fibre, right up to their doors. But of course that is not the case. Senator Polley was talking about e-health and people who might be able to take advantage of that in remote areas. People in remote Tasmania were not getting any fibre to their door. They were getting a mixture of wireless and satellite, and that will continue. We are delivering exactly the same outcome to people in those areas as they would have under Labor's plan. Under Labor they would get wireless and satellite and under us they will get the same, only they will get it a bit quicker. They will get it sooner than they would have under Labor. Tasmanian Labor senators, most of whom seem to be here, did not seem too concerned when they were in government— Opposition senators interjecting— Senator BUSHBY: You are showing concern now, but when you were in government you did not show concern about the fact that the NBN practically stopped under Labor. In the middle of last year it stopped, and it took a change of government to get it back on track in Tasmania. I have a couple of general points on our mixed technology plan. Firstly, there seems to be a misapprehension that businesses, education and health will miss out on getting fibre to their premises. That is just not true. Senator Whish-Wilson and Senator Polley both made comments in their contributions about how there would be missed opportunities in business, health and education. Under our plan, every school, every hospital and every business hub will get fibre to the premises. So you are spinning things that just are not true if you suggest anything otherwise. Further, under our plan approximately one-third of all Tasmanian premises will get fibre to their door. Fibre on demand means that anyone who is running a business from their home will be able to get fibre to their premises for a matter of a few thousand dollars, which, if you are running a business, is usually not the end of the world. But it certainly is available to you to do that. A lot of people will not do that, and I will tell you why in a minute. Where premises do not get fibre to the premises they will get fibre to the node. This is seriously upgraded compared with the broadband we have now. There is, I think, somewhat of an impression out there—and certainly the Labor Party are doing their best to foster it—that under our plan there will be no improvement and there will not be any super-fast broadband being delivered to premises around the country. The reality is that all premises under our plan will get super-fast broadband to their premises. That will come via fibre to the node, and then that will deliver super-fast broadband to houses, the last 400 metres or so using the copper network. In other countries that technology is delivering 100-megabit downloads and 40-megabit uploads. That technology is currently being used in other countries and it is delivering those speeds now. It is hard to conceive how a normal household could possibly use 100-megabit downloads or, alternatively, 40-megabit uploads. Senator Polley interjecting— Senator BUSHBY: Senator Polley interjects to talk about health. If you are getting 100-megabit downloads and 40-megabit uploads you will be able to do any of the e-health things that Senator Polley is suggesting. That is 10, 12 or 15 times faster than the fastest broadband you can get using the existing copper that is in the ground now. This will increase the speed 10 or 15 times. So it is hard to conceive how a household— Senator POLLEY: I rise on a point of order. Senator Bushby is misleading the Senate. To have fibre to the home will cost households $5,000 to $6,000, so they will not have that— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Polley, there is no point of order. Senator Bushby has the call. Senator BUSHBY: I agree that there was no point of order, but Senator Polley made an interesting point in saying that I was misleading the Senate. I indicated that fibre on demand will cost a few thousand dollars. It may be five or six thousand or it may be two or three thousand—we do not know yet. But what I am talking about is our plan to deliver superfast broadband to the premises using fibre to the node. That technology in other countries is delivering 100-megabit downloads and 40-megabit uploads. The technology is improving all the time and the speed is getting faster all the time. In coming years we can expect to actually see much higher download and upload speeds than we are currently seeing in other countries. The suggestion that Tasmanians or Australians are going to miss out completely, because they are getting fibre to the node, is just not true. The other thing to remember is that, in Korea, Samsung, I think it is, has recently been trialling wireless superfast broadband that delivers one-gigabit downloads over wireless. That is probably not going to be commercially rolled out for a good five years, but it highlights that technology is developing in a way that may well usurp the benefits of delivering fibre to the premise which Senator Whish-Wilson was talking about. Labor has managed this project incompetently—there is no doubt about that. Their plan would have cost $29 billion more than they had let on and would have increased monthly internet bills by up to 80 per cent, or $43 a month. Crucially, everybody in Tasmania will receive superfast NBN. Our job is to do that sooner and at less cost to the taxpayer. Incorporating technologies into the NBN that can be readily upgraded and are already delivering high-speed broadband to families in other countries will enable us to do just that. We are on course to deliver more NBN connections to Tasmanian homes and businesses this calendar year than over the entire five years since the rollout began. I make this point: since we got into government, we started rolling out fibre to the premise again. That is what we are doing. We will double the number of homes in Tasmania that have fibre to the premise and we will do it in a year when it took you five years.