Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has committed an additional $3 billion to “finish” the NBN and improve internet speeds at remaining fibre-to-the node (FTTN) premises should Labor win this year’s federal election.
The equity investment, coupled with a $800 million commitment from the NBN Co, extends the federal government’s existing initiative to upgrade copper-based connections to full fibre optics.
The latest commitment will allow 622,000 additional premises to have their internet speeds upgraded by 2030, with more than 95 per cent expected to have the option of full FTTP.
Additional work to determine the “appropriate upgrade path” for the remaining five per cent of homes is still required, according to NBN Co.
NBN Co chief executive said fast and reliable broadband “boosts industry, creates jobs, sparks innovation and strengthens social and economic participation”.
“The nation relies on the NBN network. It carries more than 80 per cent of the nation’s data and is used by more than 20 million people each day,” Ms Sweeney said.
Labor’s election commitment builds on the $2.4 billion provided in October 2022 to upgrade 1.5 million homes and businesses from FTTN to FTTP, which was also promised before they were voted in.
Communications minister Michelle Rowland said the new commitment, alongside the completion of ongoing upgrades, supports “Labor’s visions of a Future Made in Australia”.
She said it will allow more businesses and consumer to take advantage of cloud computing and artificial intelligence, and make sure that “data driven decision-making is supported by the highest quality infrastructure”.
Instead of finishing the full national FTTP network originally envisioned when the NBN Co was set up in 2009, the Coalition introduced FTTN networks in a bid to reign in cost blowouts and delays. However, the Coalition’s plan also saw costs exceed initial estimates by billions.
Speaking to journalists on Monday, Mr Albanese reiterated his belief that additional funding injections in the NBN were investments and would a return in the long term.
Finance minister Katy Gallagher said that the funding commitment is “necessary and unavoidable to address growing reliability and security issues caused by the opposition’s costly decision to build a sub-standard network reliant on rapidly degrading copper”.
Before the next federal election, which must be held by May 17, the Albanese government is still hoping to pass the National Broadband Network Companies Amendement (Commitment to Public Ownership) Bill 2024.
This aims to remove all provisions that would enable the NBN Co to be privatised, ensuring it remains state-owned.
Maintaining public ownership of the NBN Co would ensure “prices for high speed internet remain affordable for all Australians”, according to the government. On Monday, Mr Albanese said “we know what happens if you leave it to a for-profit business”.
The Coalition is opposed to the bill, which shadow communications minister David Coleman described as “completely farcical” before it passed through the House of Representatives in November.
He pointed out that the provision that enables the privatisation of NBN Co were initially introduced by the Prime Minister when he was communications minister in 2009.
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