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Labor lays into Turnbull over 'second-rate' NBN – question time live
Labor lays into Turnbull over 'second-rate' NBN – question time live
(35 minutes later)
4.54am BST
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04:54
05:28
Another dixer on energy, with Christopher Pyne deemed the latest salesman. Most of it is the same of what we have heard over the last week and a bit, but Pyne adds his own flourish at the end:
Michaelia Cash’s office has released another statement on the outcome of a court case involving a union and its delegate. Here is is in full:
The Australian public are not interested in politics. They aren’t interested in the Labor Party wanting to play the old politics of negativity and division. What they want is to see at COAG in November is the state and Territory governments getting on board with this government’s attempt at solving one of the most significant issues facing households and businesses everyday. We don’t want the snake oil salesman... the Leader of the Opposition, pretending to be bipartisan when all he wants is a political fight. The Labor Party needs to support the households and businesses of Australia this time.”
Today the militant CFMEU incurred yet another penalty in the Federal Court for breaking Australia’s industrial laws at a Victorian building site.
4.50am BST
The CFMEU and its delegate, Andrew Harisiou were penalised $90,000 and $8,000 respectively for breaches of laws relating to coercion, at the Pacific Werribee Shopping Centre site in 2015.
04:50
The court found that the CFMEU prevented workers from working on the construction site unless they joined the CFMEU and immediately paid the required membership fees.
That reminds me – still no word from the high court.
In handing down his decision, Justice Tracey made the following remarks;
Having regard to the history of offending by the CFMEU to which I have referred, it may be doubted that any penalty falling within the available range for contraventions of the kind presently under consideration would be “sufficiently high to deter repetition”. Any penalty will be paid and treated as a necessary cost of enforcing the CFMEU’s demand that all workers on certain classes of construction sites be union members.
Justice Tracey is the second judge in two weeks to express concern that penalties that can be imposed by the courts are too small to act as a deterrent in light of the CFMEU’s ongoing policy of deliberate law-breaking.
Last week, Justice Vasta of the Federal Court remarked that;
There has been no remorse from the CFMEU. There has been no evidence of the CFMEU training any of its officers as to the provisions of the FW Act to ensure that such abominable behaviour is not undertaken by any of its representatives ever again.
As I have noted, the approach of the CFMEU has been that the imposition of pecuniary penalties are nothing more than an occupational hazard.
This Court has been asked to ensure that the industrial relations regime as created by Parliament is observed and complied with. The Parliament has given the Court only one weapon to ensure such compliance, and that is the ability to impose pecuniary penalties.
In the main, this weapon has been of great value. If a Court has dealt with an employer who has contravened the FW Act in an appropriate manner, the use of the pecuniary penalty has deterred that employer from breaching the FW Act again. Very rarely has the FWO, or a union, had to bring a recalcitrant employer back to the Court for breaching the FW Act a second time.
But this cannot be said of the CFMEU. The deterrent aspect of the pecuniary penalty system is not having the desired effect. The CFMEU has not changed its attitude in any meaningful way. The Court can only impose the maximum penalty in an attempt to fulfil its duty and deter the CFMEU from acting in the nefarious way in which it does.
If I could have imposed a greater penalty for these contraventions, I most certainly would have done so.
The Court can do no more with the tools available to it to ensure compliance with the industrial relations regime. If the community at large are not satisfied with the actions of the Court to ensure compliance with the FW Act, then the next step is a matter for the Parliament.
While the CFMEU continues to pay out significant penalties on a regular basis, it also continues to funnel millions of dollars to the Australian Labor Party.
Labor Shadow Employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor recently confirmed that penalties for such behaviour would be “lower” under a Shorten-led Labor Government. What he failed to say was that the penalties under Labor would in fact be zero, as Labor’s policy is to abolish the ABCC and have nothing in its place to enforce the law.
Whilst judge after judge condemns the CFMEU for its deliberate flouting of the law, and complain that penalties are not sufficient, Bill Shorten’s policy is to give the green light to the CFMEU with no penalties whatsoever. Nothing more starkly illustrates Mr Shorten’s unfitness for government than his approach to the CFMEU.
It is now clearer than ever that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have been utterly compromised by the millions of dollars the ALP continue to receive from the CFMEU. Exactly what will it take for Bill Shorten to financial and political ties with this corrupt organisation.
*end statement*
5.25am BST
05:25
The chamber has moved on to debating the Medicare Levy Amendment–that’s in relation to funding the NDIS.
You can find more on that here
5.23am BST
05:23
Some question time visual action, from the wonderful Mike Bowers:
5.20am BST
05:20
Steven Michelson, a long time Bill Shorten staffer, has resigned, the Australian reports.
One of Bill Shorten’s most trusted aides has abruptly resigned amid an escalating ‘blackface’ scandal https://t.co/UyE4EBjogY
5.17am BST
05:17
Barnaby Joyce gets a question on a Rockhampton flood levy from Jason Clare (Queensland election, what Queensland election) and why the Coalition won’t commit to funding it.
It’s a complicated issue and Joyce, once he has got his blue collar worker lines out, says there is some division in the community over whether it is wanted. He then continues his attack.
Question time moves to Dan Tehan who talks about the upcoming 100 year anniversary of the Battle for Beersheba and Malcolm Turnbull says that’s a good time to end question time, on reflection of the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
Which means we made it through another question time– how did you go with those topic bingo cards?
5.10am BST
05:10
Malcolm Turnbull is asked again why One Nation got to announce $15m of government grants.
If it also usual for the government grants announced by non-government members and senators, in this case with oversized cheques with the focus on One Nation senators, in Coalition agreement with One Nation, will the prime minister table a copy of that agreement right now? If there is a Coalition agreement with One Nation?
Turnbull:
I refer the honourable member to my question, my earlier answer that he obviously noted. All government grants are approved by the appropriate ministers in the normal way.
That announcement got Pauline Hanson a nice front page in the Queensland town of Ipswich, which may go some way to explain why even the Coalition MPs were annoyed.
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05:06
Tony Abbott continues his recent form of wandering into QT a little late.
Peter Dutton is protecting us all from gangs.
4.45am BST
Moving on …
04:45
Australian Border Force has been without a commissioner since July
Ben Doherty
It’s only early, but we are getting into strange territory with the department of immigration and border protection before senate estimates.
The Australian Border Force - not an organisation unused to controversy and scandal - has been without a commissioner since the man who held that job, the married Roman Quaedvlieg, stood aside in July pending an external investigation into allegations he had used his position to help his girlfriend get a job with the organisation.
However, later that month, while he was on leave, Quaedvlieg’s official commissioner twitter account ‘liked’ a black-and-white (I know, classy right) pornographic video on twitter.
Department staff - professional obfuscationists who give up pieces of information to senators like they were teeth being pulled from their heads - conceded eventually that the department has been conducting an “investigation” into the incident.
It has been, apparently, terribly comprehensive. They asked Quaedvlieg if he did it. He said no. So then they asked some other people.
First assistant secretary Cheryl-Anne Moy: “There were approximately six staff who had authorisation to use the account.”
Senator Kim Carr: “And they all said they didn’t.”
Moy: “That’s correct”.
Quaedvlieg has been on paid leave - his salary is $731,000 - since July. It is not known when, if at all, he will return.
4.44am BST
04:44
Paul Karp
Dipping out of QT for a moment...
Labor’s Penny Wong has been quizzing David Gruen, a deputy secretary in the department of prime minister and cabinet, about the National Energy Guarantee - trying to get him to say the obligation for emissions reduction amounts to a carbon price.Gruen says the government “imposes a trajectory for low emissions” and then the market, through retailers’ contracts with generators, meets that obligation.Wong asks if the Neg “ascribes a value profile” to both energy reliability and emissions reduction, and Gruen accepts that “there is a symmetry between the two obligations”.Does it ascribe a value to a low emissions profile?Gruen:
“It depends on whether the system left to itself achieves the required emissions intensity or not. If it did, there would be no value. If it didn’t, there would be a value.”
The obligation to meet a low emissions intensity profile will be “reflected in the value of the contracts” and will be set “through supply, demand and competition”, he said.
4.44am BST
04:44
Justine Keay has the next NBN question and she is talking fast enough to rival a race caller.
And no wonder, she just ran out of time before getting it all out. This is the problem with trying to include all of your attacks in one question.
“Is the Prime Minister aware because of his incompetent handling of the NBN the business has been allocated a satellite connection when its neighbours 650m away can get fibre, given we are in the Prime Minister’s fifth year of mismanagement of the NBN, isn’t it clear...”
This is the funniest thing the Coalition has allegedly ever seen, given the gaffaws which come from that side of the chamber, but given the standard of debate in this place lately, I guess the bar is low.
Tanya Plibersek comes to the rescue by pointing out the question included “is the Prime Minsiter aware” which counts as a question in Speaker Tony Smith’s world and Malcolm Turnbull is called to the box.
“...What is very clear about the NBN is that we inherited a complete mess from the Labor Party,just as we did on energy policy I might add. As with energy policy we are fixing it and turning it around and cleaning it up. With the NBN, the honorable member raises a particular case and we will take note of that and we will make sure that BNP and...”
Lisa Chesters gets thrown out for heckling and Turnbull decides he has concluded his answer.
4.38am BST
04:38
Barnaby Joyce gets the next dixer, which is something about energy reliability and agriculture, but is really just an excuse for Joyce to continue his attack line which he really grabbed onto last week, about Labor turning its back on blue collar workers. No Dewdrop or Moonbeam this time. In fact, no real nicknames or references to basket weavers at all. Once again, his heart doesn’t seem in it.
4.35am BST
04:35
Michelle Rowland asks the prime minister another question about the NBN and the prime minister once again flicks it to Paul Fletcher.
Rowland:
The prime minister promised Australians that is second-rate copper in the end would be fast, affordable and soon. Given that we now know it is slower than that of Labor, has doubled in cost and has not delivered what was promised, when will the prime minister take responsibility for the fact that the NBN is slower, more expensive and late?
Brace yourself for a lot of numbers. A lot. Fletcher:
I am pleased to have the opportunity to look further into the comparative records of the Labor party and the Coalition. When it comes to rolling out the NBN. It is extraordinary that Labor keeps hitting their head against a brick wall on this topic. I think it is instructive to have a look, I think it is instructive to have a loyal and what Labor promised in the first NBN corporate plan, 2011-13. By 30 June 2011 they were to be 223,000 premises past. Actual number? 10,575. That is less than 10%. By 30 June, 2012 there were to be 496,000 premises asked. Actual premises, 95,799. By 30 June 2013 there were to be 1.7m premises past. They were building confidence. Actually, 292,000 ...
On any assessment that is a dismal record of rank in incompetents. It is also instructive to look at what the NBN committed to when the Coalition came to power and what has been delivered. Because what was committed by 30 June 2015 was 1.93m. What was delivered was 1.165m. By June 30, 2016, what was committed was 2.632m. What was delivered was 2.893m. June 30, 2017, what was committed, 5.442m premises past or covered. Actually delivered, 5. 713m premises. So a very consistent record under the Coalition government of consistently delivering what has been committed to. Compared to the record under Labor of consistently and by a very wide margin, failing to deliver on what was in the business plan. Very few people on this side have worked in business but many of us over here have. If you saw that kind of performance in a business world you would be out, fact, gone, and that is what you all deserve when it comes to the NBN.
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05:06
Another energy dixer, from Brisbane’s Trevor Evans. That gives Josh Frydenberg a chance to talk about the Labor Queensland government. You know, the one that didn’t sell its electricity network.
Greg Hunt then takes another question on energy policy and once again uses the line keeping the lights on in hospitals and I tune out. So does most of the chamber, by the looks of it.
I know that he and his constituents have been paying the high price of the Palaszczuk government’s electricity tax because it has been the government-owned generators in Queensland that have been bidding artificially high prices to line the coffers of the Labor government and put this hidden electricity tax on the people of Queensland. That is why they welcome the efforts of the Turnbull government to make sure we rein in the power of the network.
On to Bill Shorten:
Ah, the upcoming Queensland election should be fun. The rest of the answer is not anything we haven’t heard before, so let’s move on.
“My question as to the prime minister. Can he confirmed that under his government power prices have never been higher, pensioners will lose their energy supplement, weekend workers lose their penalty rates, low- and middle-income families face a tax hike and the only benefit that anyone can look forward to is a lousy 50 cents a week in three years time?”
Malcolm Turnbull says he has dealt with these issues before.
“But there is one set of statistics that I can confirm. That is in the last 12 months, 371,500 jobs were created in Australia. Of which, 315,900 were full-time. And, Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker, that does compare with another 12 month period. The last 12 months when the leader of the opposition was employment minister. During that time, Mr Speaker, there was 129,000 jobs created of which only 32,900 were full-time. Mr Speaker, nearly three times as many jobs created in the last 12 months as in the last 12 months when he had responsibility for employment.”
The last year of the Labor government, Australia was still recovering from the delayed affects of the global financial crisis. This may need to become a regular reminder, given this is the second time in two weeks the Coalition has used this line.
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05:03
Cathy McGowan has the independents’ question and she uses it ask about detainees on Manus Island:
Back to the opposition questions and Tanya Plibersek moves the agenda to tax:
On the 14 September this year, minister, you told parliament in question time that there will be about 200 asylum seekers found not to be refugees moved into a detention centre in Papua New Guinea. There are eight days now until the Manus Island centre closes. Can you provide an update on how many asylum seekers will be left behind after October 31, what will happen to them, and will the government continued to provide these asylum seekers, in line with UN convention, with appropriate medical and healthcare, torture and torture support-… trauma and torture support and security services.”
Thanks to this legislation being debated today, someone earning $60,000 is guaranteed a tax hike of $300 a year. Yet the prime minister cannot even guarantee they will save a lousy 50 cents a week on their energy bills in three years’ time. One is the only guarantee that this prime minister can make is that thanks to him, working Australians will always have less?
Peter Dutton spends most of his answering time talking about facts and figures – the remaining population is 606 people, there were 141 who were found to be non-genuine refugees and the remaining people can move into another facility which has been set up.
Turnbull, whose voice seems on the brink of disappearing all together, seems to think this question is about energy policy and South Australia. Or something:
McGowan interrupts on a point of order to state her question was about the media, healthcare, torture and trauma services, which Dutton says he was about to get to.
Australians know that Labor governments can be guaranteed to deliver higher energy prices and less reliable energy. The Labor party, the Labor party’s track record, Mr Speaker, whether it comes to border protection, the NBN or energy, reveals astounding incompetence. The Labor party has demonstrated both at the federal level and at the state level, particularly in South Australia, that they cannot be trusted with energy policy, but they are are incompetent, the combination of incompetency and actually results in less reliable energy. The lights do not stay on, the air-conditioners do not stay on, the hospitals do not have their plants running.
That sets off a firestorm of heckling from Labor, which Dutton addresses before getting to his answer:
The Labor party’s failing to look afterAustralia’s energy security. It is one of their great failures in government and it goes hand in hand with all of those examples of Labor incompetence, whether it is failing to protect our borders, failing to defend the integrity of our nation’s orders, whether it is there incompetence with the NBN, wasting billions of dollars in sheer mismanagement or whether it is putting our energy security at risk. The Labor party cannot manage. They are incompetent and it has been proved by them again and again.
I was coming to that point. Nothing was provided by Labor, you put the people there. I will not be lectured by Labor ... The honourable member has a much more distinguished record in this area and has the ability to ask these questions sincerely. The services she speaks off, they will continue to be provided and there will be transport arrangements from the new centres to transport people regularly.
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Back to the NBN and it’s once again Bill Shorten’s turn at the dispatch box:
Kelly O’Dwyer take a dixer on the Neg and economic growth and, well, she does her best to look as though she believes what she is saying.
We are now in the [fifth straight year of a Coalition] government and the prime minister has made a choice, first as communication minister and now as prime minister, to build a second-rate copper NBN instead of the first-rate fibre NBN. When will the prime minister stop blaming everybody else and finally take some responsibility for the system he has been in charge of four years and years?”
Malcolm Turnbull takes this one himself:
The leader of the opposition and his communications spokesman, neither of them understand the technologies for the NBN at all. Now let’s deal with some FAQs … Had the government, had the Coalition continued with fibre to the premises, as proposed by Labor, it would have taken six or eight years longer and $30bn more... The people who had no broadband would have been waiting for many years longer to get it and the cost of providing it would have obviously been much higher because the capital cost would be greater. The only advantage of, the big advantage is that it can carry a higher line speed. That is the deal. That is the proposition.
Mr Speaker, let me make this observation. The NBN now knows what Australians would be prepared to pay for. Seventy-nine per cent of people on fibre to the premises order speeds of 25 megabits per second or less. And they are on fibre to the premises. Eighty-seven per cent of fibre to the node order speeds of 25 megabits or less. Seventy-seven per cent of those on a hybrid car lacks order the same and the same pattern is true with others.
So the whole premise of the fibre-to-the-premises argument by the Labor party has been comprehensively disproved by what the public are prepared to do and use. It was a folly ... The Labor party set it up and we are sorting it out.
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04:17
The government still really wants to talk energy. It sends out Scott Morrison, via a dixer, to link the national energy guarantee to jobs growth.
I’ll just pull out the highlight for you:
Certainty is required for business investment and that’s what the national energy guarantee is providing, the national energy guarantee provides certainty for businesses to invest in greater energy supply to ensure more affordable and reliable energy for Australian businesses so they can continue to invest in their businesses and create even more Australian jobs, Mr Speaker. The national energy guarantee means more and better-paid jobs and Labor remain opposed.
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04:15
Back to Labor’s questions and Michelle Rowland picks up the NBN case:
Today his hand-picked CEO said about the NBN that it is too early to tell whether it’s a success or a failure. In the fifth year of the prime minister’s mismanagement of his second-rate copper NBN where no one else is to blame, is this the best the government can do? Why isn’t the government doing anything to fix the problems that are plaguing the NBN on his watch?
“Why don’t you clean up our mess better,” one Coalition MP yells across the chamber.
Paul Fletcher picks up the answer and starts talking about other lands in an attempt to be funny, to which Anthony Albanese interrupts to state: “None of us are from the land of nitwits.”
I guess that depends on your position in the chamber.
Fletcher picks up from Turnbull’s attack
We are rolling out the NBN as fast as it can be rolled out and just a couple of months later, just a couple of months later, they exited office with their leave 50,000 premises able to connect, barely 50,000 premises able to connect. We now have well over 6 million premises able to connect and over 2 million that actually are connected. When the shadow minister says says and presumes to contrast this government’s record of delivery of the NBN with Labor’s shambolic and hopeless record, I said to her, we didn’t want to start from where we did but we have been getting on with the job, over 6 million premises now able to connect.
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04:09
Sarah Henderson gets the first dixer and gives the prime minister permission to talk more about “affordable and reliable energy”. (Side note: where did “responsible” go?)
Oh wait, I spoke too soon. Malcolm Turnbull has remembered responsibility is meant to be part of the non-three-word-three-word-slogan.
What we have now is a recommendation from the energy security board that will deliver affordable and reliable energy and will enable us to meet our emissions reduction fund obligations, affordability, reliability, responsibility. This is not a political proposal, it’s come from the experts in the business, experts appointed by Coag, chaired by an independent chairman with the energy market operator, the rules make, the regulator all on that board. This is what they’ve recommended – rules maker.
What did the leader of the opposition say in response to that? He called it science fiction. Then he called it nonsense. No respect whatsoever for people whose intellect and experience makes them the best qualified in the industry. It’s no wonder, Mr Speaker, that one group after another is endorsing our national energy guarantee. The head of Bloomberg energy finance solves problems in an incredibly elegant way, that’s what they said. Mr Speaker, we’ve seen from ACCI, AIG, the Minerals Council, the BCA, BlueScope, BHP Billiton, Ryder – across-the-board support for the guarantee and Labor should back it and back the experts.
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04:06
Who had the NBN as the first question?
Bill Shorten jumps straight into it:
My question is to the prime minister, the prime minister’s second-rate copper NBN is creating a digital divide across Australia. With the one side of some streets getting first-rate fibre, while the other side gets second rate copper. How is this fair? Will the prime minister admit his second-rate copper NBN is creating a digital divide across this nation?
Malcolm Turnbull continues his defence of the NBN rollout, which is a matter very close to his heart, given he oversaw it while communications minister. He’s settled on his attack against Labor though, having given it a test run earlier today, and shouting to be heard over Labor’s heckling, he unleashes it:
The Labor party said when they announced they were going to establish a government company to build a national broadband network that it would be the most fantastic commercial opportunity. Kevin Rudd said that mums and dads would be lining up to invest, but, but he said he was stern, he said even though it was going to be the best investment ever, the government would hold 51%. He was going to hold back all of that wall of investment enthusiasm delivered at 49%.
What a train wreck it was. Tens of billions of dollars wasted by the Labor party, leaving us with the biggest corporate train wreck ever undertaken by a federal government. Now, what we’ve done is we’ve get on – on with the job and we’re playing the hand of cards we were dealt with by Labor and we are building it – got on with the job. We are building it for $30m less than under Labor and six to eight years’ less time.
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I’ve headed into the chamber for question time.
Get those QT bingo cards ready!
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03:44
Back to estimates for a moment and George Brandis is back and defending Julie Bishop’s event attendance.
As part of that, he has had a lot of trouble pronouncing “Thor” and jokes about how his pronunciation of names has got him in trouble lately. He’s referring to when he had trouble saying Richard Di Natale’s name, which was corrected after Brandis was referred to as Senator Brand-arse by the Greens in the Senate.
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03:33
And just a few minutes after Michelle Rowland finishes speaking, communications minister Mitch Fifield announces how he will be holding a press conference in the next 10 minutes.
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03:23
Would Labor’s NBN have cost $30bn more?
Michelle Rowland:
This is absolute rubbish coming from a government that said they would deliver the NBN by 2016 $42.95bn. It’s now blown out to $50bn, and 2016 came and went. We know that this government has failed to deliver on every single measure, whether it be increased speed, rolling it out faster and greater reliability – all those factors have failed. So we don’t accept for one minute that this government’s botched copper – based NBN is actually going to deliver dividends for the economy, and is actually what we need in the 21st-century.
