“Labor’s failing of South Australians on broadband is plain for all to see and no amount of grandstanding by Senator Conroy and Kate Ellis can hide the truth,” Liberal Senator for South Australia Simon Birmingham said today.
“NBN Co has confirmed a failure to connect any South Australians to the National Broadband Network (NBN) in the 21 months of its so-called ‘volume rollout’.
“Instead of connecting South Australians, Labor simply launches rollout publicity stunts in areas such as Prospect but lets actual construction times drag out seemingly indefinitely.
“While NBN Co has regularly promised that rollout areas will be completed within 12 months of the commencement of construction, no sites have been completed in SA since the early trial site of Willunga of 2011 and a few new housing estates.
“NBN Co has not been able to connect active customers in its first nine ‘volume rollout’ sites in SA that include Prospect, Modbury, Valley View, Crafers, Aldinga, Port Willunga and McLaren Vale.
“Indeed, NBN Co was humiliatingly forced to reveal that it has had to revise down its rollout projections due to the failure of the rollout in South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
“South Australians are right to feel dudded by the NBN rollout, as Labor’s repeated assurances that the rollout is on track have been exposed as bare-faced fabrications.
“Labor promised in 2007 that the NBN would be completed in 2013.
“With no connections and Labor’s NBN rollout in disarray here, South Australians are right to wonder if they can believe a thing Julia Gillard or their local Labor MP says about the rollout of the NBN.”