NBN delays ‘just not good enough’: MP

MP for Isaacs and shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has hit out at delays in the NBN rollout.

Mr Dreyfus, who is also Shadow Minister for National Security, said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in 2013 “promised that the National Broadband Network would be rolled out to every household in Australia by the end of 2016”.

“It is now 2018 and most parts of the Isaacs electorate are still without the NBN, while the areas that have been connected often suffer from inadequate speeds and other problems,” he said.

“Late last year the Turnbull government announced that NBN Co was putting an immediate halt to any new hybrid fibre-coaxial connections – pushing back the roll out of the NBN in parts of the Isaacs electorate by another six-to-nine months and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars more.

“The Turnbull government promised us a faster, cheaper NBN, but our community has ended up with a slow and delayed broadband network at best and, in many cases, nothing at all.”

Mr Dreyfus said the community was “fed up with Mr Turnbull’s pathetic excuses on the NBN”.

“Just this week a report came out showing Australia’s ranking in global internet speeds dropping down to 55th in the world because of Mr Turnbull’s second-rate copper NBN.

“It’s simply not good enough. I am calling on Mr Turnbull to do what’s best for residents and businesses in Isaacs and roll out an NBN that provides the speeds and reliability that he promised.”

First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 24 January 2018