Ed Husic
Chifley · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“The tragedy of that poem has befallen generations from then to now—the fact that we enjoy being in the sun so much. In many respects we have paid for that enjoyment, and in many cases we've paid for it with our lives, with the cancers that have emerged, particularly melanoma.”
“It's been that sacrifice that he made combined with the observation that, in so much of what he did, there was an absence of gravitas and ego. Richard was us. He walked amongst us all, containing that special talent and gift that he had, with desire to save others. That, I think, marks him out.”
“A lot has been said about what Richard Scolyer has done in terms of his professional, scientific and research background. But I want to come back, if I may, to the remarks I just reflected on. When we think of the Australian character we think of our ability to overcome with physical attributes.”
“These things include not just our toughness and not just the fact that so often the Australian character is defined by a very heavy physical element, of being able to survive the elements themselves. One of the big things that's helped this nation survive is our know-how and smarts.”
“When I paid my condolences to Richard's wife, Katie—and Katie, Emily, Matt and Lucy were on the floor of the chamber with us yesterday—I expressed the view to Katie that her husband was a national hero. National heroes don't always attain that description of heroism because they've been successful.”
“I don't think any of us would not have been touched by that final letter that he penned, knowing how hard it would have been to write those words—every single letter in those words, every apostrophe and particularly the full stop.”
The complete record
Every one of 336 lines we hold for Ed Husic, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 7.
“If we honour this bloke, if we honour this national hero, in any way—if we are serious about honouring, in faithful regard, what he has done—we will pick up that challenge he set. That is to invest in science and in research, but also to invest in who we are as a country, who we are as a people and what we can do for the rest of the world. I want to honour Richard Scolyer for what he did. I am but one voice, but, like many other voices in this country that wanted to honour him, I want to honour him in awe, in respect and in commitment to fulfilling what he asked of us—to pick up from where he left off and to deliver for others. Richard Scolyer was a national hero. Vale.”
“I don't think any of us would not have been touched by that final letter that he penned, knowing how hard it would have been to write those words—every single letter in those words, every apostrophe and particularly the full stop. When he said we should commit to doing whatever we can to back science and research, he wasn't just saying that from a simple, mechanistic point of view. He was speaking to the Australian character, of which know-how is such a big part, and saying that we can get it done. It's not just about the know-how; it's about having faith in who we are. We are often the underdog and often underestimated, but we often achieve, and he wants to see more of that.”
“It's been that sacrifice that he made combined with the observation that, in so much of what he did, there was an absence of gravitas and ego. Richard was us. He walked amongst us all, containing that special talent and gift that he had, with desire to save others. That, I think, marks him out. He was not successful in the journey he wanted so desperately to be successful in, but what he did and how he did it should mark him out as a national hero. My words to his wife, his widow, I gave from the bottom of my heart because this bloke was a national hero. I think it's right that we recognise that in this chamber—devoid of politics, devoid of division and united in the respect we have for a fellow Australian and what they're prepared to do for others. Richard Scolyer did that in spades.”
“When I paid my condolences to Richard's wife, Katie—and Katie, Emily, Matt and Lucy were on the floor of the chamber with us yesterday—I expressed the view to Katie that her husband was a national hero. National heroes don't always attain that description of heroism because they've been successful. It is the journey and the struggle that they have undertaken that marks them out. In the case of Richard Scolyer, he became, as the member for Bass and others have observed, his own patient. When he had that seizure two years ago and he knew what was going to befall him, he said he did not want to die; he wanted to live. He threw everything into it, including his own body, not just to save himself but to save others.”
“A lot has been said about what Richard Scolyer has done in terms of his professional, scientific and research background. But I want to come back, if I may, to the remarks I just reflected on. When we think of the Australian character we think of our ability to overcome with physical attributes. We also obviously think of our sporting prowess, and we've got a lot to be proud of there. But I think about how most people who've achieved an Order of Australia have come from a science and research background. Rightly, we give accolades for what occurs on the sporting field. But it's not just the physical that has led to heroism; it has also been the fact that Australians have dedicated their smarts and their know-how to helping their fellow Australians.”
“The tragedy of that poem has befallen generations from then to now—the fact that we enjoy being in the sun so much. In many respects we have paid for that enjoyment, and in many cases we've paid for it with our lives, with the cancers that have emerged, particularly melanoma. I think about the contributions by the member for Bass, the member for Kooyong and others who've spoken on this condolence motion today about Professor Richard Scolyer and the fact that he threw himself into trying to ease the burden and the dread that comes with a diagnosis. You are facing one of your most difficult challenges in life. He had spent the bulk of his time thinking about how we could beat melanoma and how we could free people from that death sentence—because, more often than not, that is exactly what it amounts to.”
“These things include not just our toughness and not just the fact that so often the Australian character is defined by a very heavy physical element, of being able to survive the elements themselves. One of the big things that's helped this nation survive is our know-how and smarts. Know-how and smarts is not just something to make people think, 'I do not possess that; that is for someone who is much better than me.' Australians have a view that, whatever our walk of life, we've been able to make it in this country by thinking deeply about what it takes to survive. Again, I say that in the sense that, from First Nations to the First Fleet and beyond, we have had the odds against us. We've had poets write about our sunburnt country.”
“As a nation we are often engaged in an examination of who we are as Australians. We're going through another episode of that right now. I think there are a lot of elements of what it means to be Australian that we reflect on at these times. When I think about this question I think quite often about the respect I have for our forebears, from First Nations to First Fleet, and the fact that when many of us take a moment to think about what our forebears had to do in this nation—with the climate, the environment that was there, to be able to survive when the odds were against them—it is something that should generate profound respect for a number of things.”
“I want to say this to migrant Australians who've made our country their country of choice: we see you, we see all that hard work you did or are doing and, most importantly, thank you for that hard work. You haven't just built a better life; you've actually chipped in to build a better country, and that's deserving of a pat on the back, not a slap-down by a political figures. That's just wrong. If you're in favour of a stronger nation, then surely it's better for our country to get people working together and not against each other. How is the country made stronger by picking fights with each other? The answer is it isn't. We can do better than that for people than those who seek to divide us.”
“It makes them feel bad for who they are, despite doing everything that was expected of them. We need to call this out. I'm the son of migrants. We spoke English and Bosnian at home. I went to school with a lot of students whose migrant parents were the cleaners, the cooks, the mechanics, the bricklayers, the seamstresses, the factory workers, the owners of milk bars who worked crazy hours over seven days a week and the mums leaving for a day's work as the dads were coming home from night shift. They worked their guts out to build a better life for their kids while pushing their kids to do well at school—pushing them to become doctors, lawyers, accountants and engineers, which they then went on to be.”
“If you're a worker killed on the job, should the employer be held accountable for that if it was their fault? One Nation says no. But pay attention to who One Nation is really helping when it votes against workers. One Nation is actually doing the bidding of some of the biggest businesses and billionaires that have fought these changes for years—and there's your trojan horse. If you think politicians should do what they say and say what they'll do, then there's a big old 'please explain' owed by One Nation. There's something else I just can't sit by and be quiet about. I've always known Australia to back the underdog, the person who has the odds stacked against them but makes it through. Yet lately we've had a lot of talk—bad talk, ugly talk—about migrants, banning them for things that they're not responsible for at all.”
“You either don't know how you're going to get things done or you're not prepared to tell people how you're going to do it. Australians deserve a fair dinkum answer. For Australians attracted to One Nation because they think politicians say one thing and do another, I get it. But what should we think about a party that says it's standing up for Australian battlers but votes against them? For example, One Nation has complained you can't sack people, which suggests they're going to want to change that. One Nation has voted against moves to criminalise wage theft. They voted against protecting penalty rates. They're against lifting the minimum wage for battlers on the lowest incomes. What about same pay when contractors and workers are doing the same job? One Nation is against that. This one really gets me.”
“There were the usual suspects: immigration, multiculturalism and people speaking anything other than English, even in their own homes; the ABC, SBS and most other media that aren't Murdoch media; the United Nations; and foreign aid. We've got net zero and wind turbines. Of course, we Muslim Australians got a mention, spoken about in a way that simply could not be done to other faiths. Islamophobia being normalised and tolerated is just wrong. In a modern democracy like ours, Senator Hanson is entitled to have her say. But, as much as she's entitled to have that say, Australians that support her are entitled to know how she'll deliver. We heard time and again 'I'm not making that decision now; that's all on the table'. But Senator Hanson has been in politics in one way or another for 30 years.”
“We may not be able to recite, line and verse, the tale of the Trojan Horse, but we get the gist—a gift that proved not to be a gift at all but a deception aimed at those tired of fighting. These days, you don't need a trojan horse. A private plane gifted to you by Australia's richest person can do the job. Obviously, I'm referring to the gift billionaire Gina Rinehart handed Senator Pauline Hanson, an odd gift to accept considering One Nation has styled itself as sticking up for battlers. Senator Hanson has galvanised supporters around that and a list of grievances including the idea that they want to fix Australian politics by taking a hammer to things. During last week's National Press Club speech, the leader of One Nation gave us a long list of things she doesn't like.”
“For a decade, the foundation has been a steadfast supporter of Chain Reaction and Learning Ground, pouring in so much financial support and backing. Kerr chose to invest in young people who are often overlooked. He came to Australia as an immigrant, built an extraordinary life and career, and exemplified the best traditions of giving back to the country that provided him opportunity. His commitment reflects a belief that success carries with it a responsibility to help others succeed as well. For that generosity, foresight and commitment to the next generation, I thank Kerr and the Neilson Foundation. Together with Chain Reaction and Learning Ground, they're ensuring that more young Australians remain connected to education, opportunity and, importantly, hope.”
“They're exhausted, hungry and emotionally overwhelmed. Learning Ground brings together educators, volunteers, philanthropists and local leaders, and they're rallying around a simple but powerful belief that every young person deserves the chance to succeed. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 11:31 to 11:43 From literacy programs to vocational support, young people get a chance to think about how to reshape their lives. Learning Ground demonstrates the very best of our community. I thank them warmly for what they do. Their work couldn't be done without a lot of support, which is why I also want to pay particular tribute to Kerr Neilson and the Neilson Foundation.”
“It's a big call, and I'm not pointing fingers at schools—it's not an easy decision to make. The bigger test is in how to get those young people re-engaged and to rebuild the trust held by someone who feels they've been given up on. I want to state my deep respect for those people in our community who don't give up on those kids or those teenagers and who work with them. Learning Ground in Bidwill, supported by the Chain Reaction Foundation, have done this for years. The greatest thing they do is rekindle in young people a belief in themselves that they can make a greater life for themselves. Many of the young people at Learning Ground are growing up in environments that are shaped by domestic violence, substance abuse, hardship and families under huge pressure. These young people arrive at school carrying more than most.”
“Growing up, we either saw or were troublemakers at school. Sometimes it's because young people— A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 10:10 to 11:29 Growing up, we either saw or were troublemakers at school. Sometimes it's because young people are doing what young people do, attracting a bit of attention while working out who they are. Sometimes that's read as being a troublemaker, but it masks something deeper. The reality is that young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds are up to five years behind in school compared to their peers, and one in five young people disengage to the point of leaving school early. Sometimes the response to kids' bad behaviour or disengagement is to shut them out or kick them out of school.”
“The coalition deserves to be better, or should be better, than what they are doing, but instead they're into theatrics and overdramatisation.”
“I believe that, regardless of the differences we have, particularly between major parties, we would conduct ourselves responsibly. We're not expected to agree on everything, but we do have to agree on facts—not the notion of alternative facts, as has been described by some in other arenas in different parts of the world, but that facts matter, that the way you put things forward matter and that, importantly, in a pitch for their own survival, the coalition will not become MAGA minor. They will not try to out One Nation, One Nation, and that they will do the right thing. They may even—if I may end with the words of the late senator Ron Boswell—recognise that, if they preference and support a party like One Nation, they are legitimising them and delegitimising themselves.”
“But this coalition frontbencher got support from someone else who has run a social media campaign that has been shown to be grossly misleading, that they even admitted wasn't the truth and that tax accountants said didn't stack up, and they got the great approval of that person for their statements. This discourse is nonsensical. If you want to talk about undermining democracy, you can either see what the coalition—the MAGA minor—are saying in terms of calling for revolts, using lines like 'taxation is legalised theft' and describing what's being done as communist. That's what coalition frontbenchers are doing. If this is the standard by which the coalition's opposition leader believes is acceptable, then that is showing us what is undermining democracy in this country.”
“I don't know if he's going to donate his salary back because he believes that in some way, shape or form these are the proceeds of crime. If he would like to do that, I'd more than welcome him to do that. But this is the kind of out-there mentality that has been used by people like Senator Bragg to try and undermine this budget. He has drawn the support of the same person who ran this campaign that suggested that the government was now going to become an owner in startups, on his post where he said that taxation was legalised theft. This is a coalition frontbencher, mind you, who wants to form a government—unless they are saying that they will no longer tax people at all, which I don't suspect is the case.”
“But not only that—Senator Bragg is a person, by the way, who calls us a communist while also writing a book that wanted to nationalise superannuation and default retirement savings and put them into a government-run investment fund. He calls us communist, but he wants to do that. He's like the Kim Philby double agent of political ideology. On the one hand, he's a mass capitalist; on the next, he's a raving communist in terms of nationalising savings funds. But on Instagram, back on 17 May, Senator Bragg said, 'Just remember—taxation is legalised theft.' This is a frontbencher of the coalition saying that taxation is legalised theft. He draws his salary from Commonwealth revenue that has been generated by that legalised theft.”
“This type of divisive behaviour didn't work well for the former leader of the opposition, and, in a moment of startling logic, it has been decided that the new opposition leader would re-embrace that and use some of that rhetoric in what they're saying. We've also seen people like Senator Bragg. Senator Bragg has described our budget as a communist tax plan by a communist government. Imagine for a moment if I had decided, based on what I had just described to the chamber about some of the deportation mentality that the coalition are trying to unleash on us, to describe them as fascists. If I had used that type of phrasing, I'd be condemned, no doubt. But they feel free to use that.”
“I sat in that chamber and listened to the Leader of the Opposition effectively write a budget-in-reply off the back of a dog whistle, try and target permanent residents and suggest that they had done something wrong by answering the call to come to this country on skilled visas to fill jobs we couldn't find people for. They're apparently now a bad thing under the coalition. The coalition is also talking about ramping up resources to drive these permanent residents out of the country. I think that smacks of the Trump approach—what we've seen on American streets with ICE, the driving out of people based on who they are as permanent residents, believing that they're doing the wrong thing and kicking them out of the country.”
“That's going to be a debate that will be ongoing, but I absolutely want to assure people that I stand for that, and I do think it's a debate that will continue. Earlier, I reflected on some of the debate that we have seen. We have seen some truly off-the-charts behaviour by the coalition—a bit of 'MAGA minor' behaviour too, I might add. We saw one coalition speaker in this chamber call for a revolt, an uprising against the government, and we've seen some other really peculiar rhetoric that's been used, even by coalition frontbenchers who should know better.”
“I do think that we need to see that. I would also love to see some more infrastructure and, for the long-term good of this country, for the long-term benefit of this nation, for us to find a better way for us to get a stronger return from our natural resources. I'm a firm believer that we should be taxing gas exports and using that money to build a stronger economy into the long term to build resilience and sovereign capability and get us standing on our own two feet. We have been ripped off for too long in terms of our natural resources, and I genuinely, with my full heart, believe that we should absolutely get a better deal on our natural resources. It should make us into an energy superpower and confer on us huge economic and commercial strength.”
“The other side of politics have opposed them and have hidden the fact that, during their time in government—all that time that they were in government from 2013 to 2022—they built the grand total of 380-plus homes in this country. That's not good enough. Then they refused to back in what we're doing. I think this has been a really important budget, particularly for my part of north-western Sydney. I have argued rather robustly about the need for us to get more money into New South Wales so we can see infrastructure projects such as, for example, the extension of the Sydney Metro from Tallawong to St Mary's. I think that is an important project. There are people spread across five electorates, both Labor and Liberal electorates, that will benefit from that major infrastructure project that needs to happen.”
“We'll put in more money to help homes be built on top of everything else that we're doing to try to increase housing stock. What previous coalition speakers have failed to talk about and never really reflected on in their tirades against the changes that we've made to make it easier for first home owners or first homebuyers to get into the market is their own record on building homes. They've opposed everything that we have done and put forward in this massive ambition to build 1.2 million homes by 2030. It is a big target and a hard one to reach but one that is absolutely worth pushing for because, as I said, housing is a human right. We should be able to give people the confidence and assurance of a roof over their head, and we should be pushing and working as hard for that as we can. Our side of politics has those plans.”
“We've made permanent Medicare urgent care clinics, like the one we opened up in Rooty Hill in 2023 that has seen nearly 23,000 people out of hours and given them urgent health care, and all people needed to bring to get that help was their Medicare card. It's a terrific development. We have also made sure we're providing cost-of-living relief. Again, our values are to help working Australians. We've provided five tax cuts. There's an instant tax deduction that will be provided for working Australians, a tax offset. The tax cuts that we're putting forward will deliver just over $2,800 of tax relief for people. This is hugely important, particularly in my part of Western Sydney. I'm really happy that we've got a budget that delivers in terms of housing.”
“If I may find some sort of agreement with the member for Gippsland, the previous coalition speaker, I will say this: budgets are a reflection of values and we absolutely in this budget demonstrate values—values of fairness for first home buyers who want to get a foot in the door and values of better health care for people by investing in Medicare. I think Medicare is a great reflection of Australian values—that we all chip in to make sure that, when people need help with their health, they are not dependent on their wallet. We all chip in to provide a quality universal healthcare system. If you compare us to the United States, one of the biggest causes of bankruptcy there is medical costs. We don't have that here. We're providing now, under this budget, cheaper medicines.”
“You can invest in it and build wealth for yourself but also build a new home for the country and, importantly, add to the housing stock. That's the big challenge in this nation. I don't need to tell you this, Deputy Speaker, because you are fully aware of this. We need to build more homes quickly, and we want to be able to do that on top of everything else that we're doing. I've argued for this change. I argued well before the budget that we needed to do this. It is important for us to go through this.”
“We are saying: 'No, we want better for first home buyers. We want them to get a foot into the door.' I will be completely honest to the chamber. Yes, I've absolutely had people contact my office opposed to the budget and opposed to the negative gearing and CGT changes. Why? Because of the whole lot of hot air and misinformation that has been put out by, frankly, the coalition or enabled by elements of the Murdoch press that have decided that they will paint, for example, our Treasurer as a massive communist and mislead people on the stuff that is being done. You have to explain that negative gearing can still happen; it's just going to happen differently. By that I mean, if you want to build a nest egg for yourself and you want to negatively gear, what you can do is buy a new home.”
“Some of the claims that are being put forward—even by some in social media, who even admitted that their claims were misleading and weren't tethered to truth—have had tax accountants say they were misleading and not tied to truth. That is what the member for Gippsland wants. That is what the coalition want. They want two years of misleading claims. We don't want that. We want people to be able to get a roof over their heads. We want to make these changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax so that when a first home buyer, like what I have in my neck of the woods, turns up to an auction they can buy a home. Previously, they would turn up to an auction and face a wall of investors who drive up auction prices for homes in my part of Western Sydney and shut the door on first home buyers who want to buy existing homes.”
“If you listen to the member for Gippsland, if you listen to the coalition, they say it's not important enough that we make those changes now, and that what we should do is put it to an election. And here is the seductive element to it: if we were, in some bizarre world, inclined to accept what he has just put to this chamber, it would mean we would basically have a scare campaign from now until the election of overblown claims that don't actually stack up to reality. From their perspective it would mean this change would never happen if we went to that election with them planning all those falsehoods. They will react, no doubt, to me putting that claim forward, but in the space of just a couple of weeks, boy, have we seen the outrage machine, generated by those opposite, crank up.”
“I had a speech I wanted to roll through, but I've instead decided I'm going to respond with gusto to the previous speaker, the member for Gippsland. I had to sit through his canard of falsehoods and I figure it's important to respond to some of the stuff that he said. It's a very seductive suggestion that has been put forward by him, which is: don't make changes on negative gearing and capital gains tax; go to an election and put those changes; don't listen to the fact that people want to have a roof over their heads. I believe, firmly, housing is a human right. People do a lot better when they are comfortable, assured and confident they have a roof over their heads and they don't have to worry about being homeless. And so we made changes that are particularly for first home buyers so as to give them a chance to buy an existing home.”
“They keep extending promises to us, every single time, and yet we've still got constituents saying it's the same old same-old. They absolutely deserve better.”
“We do have to ask questions about not just the standards but the promises being made by modern telecommunications providers to the people that we represent, from the member for Maranoa's electorate through to mine in metro Sydney, from regional Australia to our town centres. It should not be the case that, in this day and age, these telecommunications companies—regardless of who's in power, mind you—are always having the same complaints. It's notable in this debate how many members of parliament have got up, regardless of the political colour of their background, to complain about the quality of telecommunications. This is sending a massive signal to our telecommunications providers, large and small: clean up your act; do better. The sector should be delivering.”
“Frankly, in this chamber, it's too often the case that, regardless of our politics, we will have representatives from different parts of the country talk about why telecommunications isn't working for them. It's certainly understandable. With the way that our people live on the continent that is as great as ours, where it's spread out and where the distances are great between centres, it's understandable that there will be challenges from time to time. But my question is: why does it continue, and why is the promise of modern communications not being fulfilled? We should not still be having those types of complaints.”
“I just want to end on this point. We have been operating under a promise with telecommunications that it would continually improve. In fact, since the late nineties and the arrival of the internet, we've been told we will get access to communications in a way that moved us beyond that historical relic known as the landline. We have been told every time a new mobile network rolls out that we'll get better service. It started with 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G; 6G is literally around the corner. Even with those great leaps forward, people still complain. Bizarrely, they cannot get a mobile signal in their home. It doesn't matter if you're in an urban area or a regional one.”
“A maximum civil penalty of $250,000 might sound substantial on paper, but, for a lot of companies with billions of dollars in annual turnover, it's unlikely to drive meaningful behavioural change. This is the gap that the bill is designed to close. It significantly strengthens the compliance and enforcement tools available to the regulators. It increases the maximum civil penalties the Federal Court can impose to equivalent of nearly $10 million today and introduces modernised penalty frameworks, allowing the court to set fines based on the benefit gained from the breach or a percentage of the provider's turnover, which is huge. That approach aligns telecommunications with sectors like banking and energy, where we already recognise that stronger penalties are necessary. And it makes the industry codes mandatory and directly enforceable.”
“Optus has told me they're bringing forward the deployment of tower infrastructure at that site. But all of this isn't just happening in my electorate. What's really concerning is that the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman continues to report tens of thousands of complaints every single year about faults, outages, poor customer service and billing disputes. The Australian Communications and Media Authority, or ACMA, repeatedly identifies systemic issues from irresponsible sales practices to unfair disconnection policies and poor information about coverage. At present, the penalties available for breaches of industry codes and standards just don't reflect the scale of telecommunications market failures or the harm that poor practices can cause.”
“Following the town hall, I've raised these issues directly with Telstra and Opticomm, and I've also raised issues with Optus. I've told Telstra and Opticomm that the companies that made promises and didn't deliver should be the ones who stump up the cost of new antennas. I want to be perfectly clear here. Residents were forced to install new antennas that they previously had been told they never needed. Those residents should be compensated. I've sought updates on the outages, pushed for clearer communication protocols during service disruptions and asked for specific responses on compensation, mobile coverage gaps and infrastructure delays, including the long-awaited activation of a mobile tower in Colebee adjacent to the Stonecutters Ridge golf course. I'm pleased to report the following feedback from the town hall.”
“Whilst Opticomm is not obliged to provide television broadcasting services and the government is unable to intervene to stop them, it's the way this situation was handled that bothers me and many in my community. The decision to stop free-to-air signalling unfairly shifts costs for decisions made by both Telstra and Opticomm, in terms of setting up the network and then running it thereafter, to consumers. What the conversations at the town hall made clear to me is that, while technical faults are sometimes unavoidable, the real frustration often lies in the lack of transparency and the absence of meaningful consequences when standards aren't met. Too often, consumers feel they've got absolutely no leverage, no power and nowhere to turn to. Those are entirely reasonable expectations for what is now an essential service.”
“Over 10 years ago in Colebee, residents were instructed not to purchase or install an external TV antenna, assured that free-to-air signalling would be delivered through the then Telstra Velocity network, which was a fibre-to-the-home connection. Around 2020, Telstra sold the network to Opticomm. Then, late last year, Opticomm told customers it would shut down free-to-air access that used fibre networks in the former Telstra Velocity service areas, and that shutdown occurred in February. As Free TV Australia CEO, Bridget Fair, has said, this was a key feature which households were invited—I just want to emphasise that they were invited—to rely upon. Opticomm simply told customers they should install an external antenna or purchase an interior one.”
“The wholesaler then sent him straight back to the retail service provider—a run-around, back and forth. This is a story too common. All he was asking for was the service he was already paying for and has every right to receive under a contract. The constituent recounted that he is so tired of the problem that he's almost given up. He doesn't want the full service he's entitled to; he just wants a stable connection. It's unacceptable that he has to resign himself to poor service. He was promised he'd get the service that he'd paid for, but he is not getting it. Another issue raised at my town hall went beyond outages and spoke to the broader question of how these networks are evolving and how providers are treating customers.”
“One story from that night has stayed with me because it captures the absurdity of the system as people experience it. A constituent told me he'd signed up for a one gigabit per second service, but what he was actually getting was around 450 megabits per second. That 450 might sound fine to someone who hasn't had to rely on that connection for work, study, telehealth and running a household, but that's not what he's paying for, and it's not what he was promised. He did what any consumer should be able to do—he called his provider to get it fixed. Instead of being helped, he was told to contact his wholesaler, Opticomm. The member for McEwen said he has had similar problems with Opticomm in his contribution to this debate. The constituent contacted the wholesaler.”
“One resident told me he's lived in four different homes across Australia over the past 15 years, including in regional centres, and that moving to a new estate in Western Sydney—get this—was the first time he'd experienced such consistently poor service. He said, 'I've never experienced service this bad anywhere else in the country,' in a part of Sydney 45 kilometres away from the CBD. That's a sobering reflection when we consider that these suburbs aren't remote or hard to reach; they're in rapidly growing communities in metropolitan Sydney. My constituents wanted to know why they could be contacted instantly when a bill was due yet somehow couldn't be reached when there was an outage affecting the entire street. They wanted clear, timely information and some sense that someone's going to actually be accountable to fix the problem.”
“Many spent hours on the phone to providers without receiving clear information or reliable timeframes for repair. Residents also told me that, in practice, they're better off relying on updates from neighbours and social media than contacting telcos during service outages. Some told me they'd spend an hour or even more on hold just to get information they should have received in a text message. In our parts of Western Sydney, those outages hit particularly hard because this is one of the fastest growing parts of the country, with new communities filling with young families, first home buyers and small businesses. In this day and age, as I said, getting access to communications isn't just an infrastructure issue; it's also a fairness issue.”
“Some reported outages that lasted up to five days, and, during those outages, many residents contacted my office to raise their concerns about the reliability of mobile coverage, the limited choice of retail service providers and the overall quality of telecommunications services in my area. So, in January, I held a telco town hall with local residents in Colebee to talk about the quality and access of service in their area. I want my community to feel confident that their experiences are absolutely being taken seriously. Over 40 people came along to the town hall that night. Most of them work from home. Their jobs depend on stable, reliable internet. Here's what I heard. Families were told repeatedly that their service would be restored, only for it to drop out again minutes later. The cycle repeated.”