Labor’s failing of South Australians on broadband has been exposed in Senate Estimates overnight, Liberal Senator for South Australia Simon Birmingham said today.
Under questioning from Senator Birmingham, NBN Co confirmed a failure to connect any South Australians to the National Broadband Network (NBN) in the 19 months of its so-called ‘volume rollout’.
NBN Co is the Government company established by Labor to deliver its National Broadband Network.
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.
Indeed, NBN Co was humiliatingly forced to reveal last night 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.
The revelations came despite farcical attempts by Communications Minister Stephen Conroy to treat the Senate and Australian people with contempt by refusing to answer basic questions about the largest, but poorly targeted, infrastructure project in the nation’s history.
“South Australians are right to feel dudded by the NBN rollout, as Labor’s repeated assurances that the roll out is on track have been exposed as bare-faced fabrications,” Senator Birmingham said today.
“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.
“Labor promised in 2007 that the NBN would be completed in 2013.
“With no connections and its rollout in disarray South Australians are right to wonder if they can believe a thing Julia Gillard or their local Labor MPs say about the roll out of the NBN.”