Labor reminds Australia of Turnbull’s broken NBN promise in lead up to 2013 election

THERE are just 19 days left before we reach a key milestone for the NBN. It will be a moment of failure for the PM.

SHADOW communications spokesperson Michelle Rowland has lashed out at Malcolm Turnbull for letting down Australians in need of a faster internet connection.

With the end of 2016 fast approaching, the federal government has just 19 days to get fast broadband to seven million premises to fulfil a three-year-old promise made by Mr Turnbull.

Of course, that is not, and never was, going to happen. For some time the renewed completion date for the national broadband project has been the year 2020 — a target NBN Co. says it is on track to hit.

But it hasn’t stopped Labor (which went to the latest election with an NBN platform touting more fibre and a 2021 completion date) from reminding the public about Mr Turnbull’s now broken promise.

Labor has highlighted repeated pledges from the prime minister, then opposition communications spokesman, in the lead up to the 2013 federal election that every Australian would have access to the national broadband network by the end of 2016.

“This was no idle promise. Malcolm Turnbull made this promise explicitly, confidently and frequently prior to the 2013 election,” Labor’s communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowlandsaid Monday.

Since the commencement of the project, the NBN has become a political football for both sides of politics and Ms Rowland is clearly keen to have another kick.

Stating the obvious, she said there was no way NBN Co. can meet the end-of-year deadline to provide access for all Australians despite Malcolm’s once optimistic pledge.

As communications spokesperson, Malcolm Turnbull went to the 2013 election with a very optimistic promise.

A project of such magnitude was always going to be plagued with difficulties and setbacks but delays and cost blowouts have been seized upon by the government’s opponents — a trend that doesn’t appear to be going away in the wake of the Coalition’s election victory.

For those who do have access to the NBN, the connection is often failing expectations, Labor says.

The opposition pointed to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman latest annual report which showed complaints about the NBN had doubled in the past year as the rollout ramps up.

“We saw nearly a 100 per cent increase in the number of NBN related complaints this year, but the rate of growth is lower than the growth of active services,” chief Ombudsman Judi Jones said at the time.

The NBN more than doubled the number of serviceable premises to almost 1.2 million from 485,000 in the previous financial year (ending June 30) so it’s only natural that complaints would rise.

But Ms Rowland says it remains an indictment of the Prime Minister’s multi technology NBN model that uses a mixed bag of technologies and relies heavily on old copper networks.

“No wonder Australians are fed up with all the deceit of Malcolm Turnbull’s fraudband,” she said.

“They are simply not getting what they paid for.”

In a written statement provided to news.com.au, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield refuted the attack by Ms Rowland.

“In less than three years, the Coalition has dramatically sped up the NBN rollout, which is connecting close to 100,000 Australian households and businesses to better broadband every single month. This is exactly what we said we would do when we came to Government in 2013,” he said.

“By September 2013, Labor had only managed to pass 207,000 premises with fibre which was more than one million short of its forecast from December 2010,” Mr Fifield added.

To date, 1,570,721 premises nationally have activated the NBN, representing less than half of the 3.5 million premises that are NBN ready.