Labor fires up over NBN action

Labor has questioned how much of the 50,000km of recently bought copper for the NBN will go to waste, after Paul Fletcher announced a $4.5bn ultra-fast upgrade with fibre.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland. Picture: AAP

Labor has questioned how much of the 50,000km of recently bought copper for the NBN will go to waste, after Communications Minister Paul Fletcher announced a $4.5bn ultra-fast upgrade with fibre.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland said the upgrade was “the most extraordinary, wasteful, humiliating backflip in public policy in a generation”.

While the Coalition built an NBN that largely used copper to connect homes to fibre nodes in the street, Labor’s preference was to use fibre to connect premises. “Today we have an announcement from this government that they are now going to invest billions more to fibre up their second-rate NBN. This absolutely cuts down any credibility this government may have left,” Ms Rowland said.

“After buying 50,000km of new copper wire … the government are now overbuilding that copper with fibre. You have to ask: how many billions of dollars are being wasted because the Liberals never had a clue to begin with?”

The government’s multi-technology mix costed at least $21.5bn more than promised, costs more to operate than Labor’s planned NBN, generates less revenue and is more exposed to 5G competition, she added.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd, whose government began building the NBN, said: “What a mega backflip on the part by Morrison. For seven years they’ve botched my government’s 2009 plan for fibre to the premises, instead wasting billions with fibre to the mythical ‘node’, giving us the worst speeds in the world. Now this.”

Mr Fletcher described upgrade as a “logical extension” of the NBN after the share of customers ordering a 50 Mbps or higher speed increased from 15 per cent to 70 per cent in the last four years. “We are committing to more fibre when it makes economic sense to do so,” he said. “We are now in a position to … drive fibre deeper and closer to homes and businesses.”