30/09/2016
Many residents in Wills are frustrated to discover that the scheduled deliver date for the NBN in Pascoe Vale, Glenroy, Fawkner, Hadfield, Coburg and many other northern Melbourne suburbs has been quietly cancelled, in yet another delay suffered for the Turnbull Government’s shambolic rollout of the National Broadband Network.
Federal Member for Wills, Peter Khalil, said that many constituents have complained to him about the poor quality internet service at their homes and businesses.
These people are desperate to access the benefits promised to them by the NBN rollout and are now left without any idea when this will become a reality.
“Worse still, as a spattering of adjacent suburbs have been connected to the NBN, there is a feeling in some suburbs that they are being treated as second class citizens,” said Mr Khalil.
The National Broadband Network is regarded as the largest and most important infrastructure project in Australia and one essential to Australia’s prosperity in the modern economy.
In Government Labor planned to rollout fibre-to-the-premises to 93 percent of Australian households. Malcolm Turnbull abandoned this approach.
As evidenced by the debacle in Wills, the second-rate copper NBN that Malcolm Turnbull is rolling out is slower and a lot more expensive than he promised.
Malcolm Turnbull promised it would cost $29.5 billion and be available by 2016. It has now blown out to up to $56 billion and will take until at least 2020 to build.
That means that many people, including many in Wills, have been left without the broadband services that they sorely need.
“After talking such a big game on his ability to deliver the NBN when in Opposition, the Prime Minister is delivering nothing but broken promises in government,” Shadow Minister for Communications, Michelle Rowland said.
It is precisely because broadband is such a vital service that Labor believes that National Broadband Network is the largest and most important infrastructure project in Australia.