Subjects: NBN customer losses, Gambling advertising
E&OE…
Sharri Markson: Elon Musk is turning the NBN satellite business into a white elephant. Musk’s satellite service, Starlink, is providing better internet service to those in the bush. As many of you watching will know, Starlink’s speed is much faster and it’s more reliable than the NBN satellite business. Starlink now has 200,000 customers, according to figures quoted by the ACCC and in NBN’s latest report, it showed that their satellite customers had crashed by 23% and they were down to just 86,000 customers. It seems they were so embarrassed by being beaten by the tech billionaire that they’ve decided to kill off any notion of transparency. The NBN has stopped its decade-long practice of publishing weekly data on their customers. To discuss this, let’s bring in now Shadow Communications Minister, David Coleman. David, great to see you. Look, what do you make of this new lack of transparency from the NBN?
David Coleman: Oh, it’s a disgrace, Sharri. So the NBN is getting smashed by Elon Musk. It’s creating embarrassing headlines for the NBN and for the Government. You led some of the early reporting on that and that’s been followed up by media outlets right across the board. It’s satellite business is collapsing. It’s also lost about 80,000 customers from traditional homes, what they call the brownfields business. And so, what the NBN has now done is stop publishing a report that has existed for a decade. And this from a government that was supposedly all about transparency and integrity, it is a disgrace and that report has to be reinstated.
Sharri Markson: Why do you think it is, that Elon Musk’s Starlink is able to provide much better service than the NBN?
David Coleman: Well look, he innovated technically, I mean, he has a track record of doing that across many industries, and he’s certainly done that with satellite and related space exploration, no question. The Government’s response, Michelle Rowland’s response, was to organise a roundtable of academics. So, Elon Musk, entrepreneur on one side, government roundtable of academics on the other, who’s going to win? And Elon Musk is winning. But the issue I think for the public Sharri, is that we deserve to know what is going on in the NBN. It’s completely unacceptable for this information to be hidden. This has been around for a decade, and they’ve got to reinstate this. And there’s further steps we can take if they don’t.
Sharri Markson: Look, we have to ask how much the NBN satellite service is continuing to cost taxpayers, given that it’s been so quickly outshone by Elon Musk’s new technology. I mean, what is the cost of this so far to taxpayers?
David Coleman: Yeah it’s huge Sharri. The overall cost of the NBN to taxpayers is increasing. So in the last six months that they reported on, the NBN’s cash loss effectively was $1.1 billion, which was up by more than $400 million on the previous period. They’re losing customers because their prices are going up. So satellite, broadband prices are up about 14% since October alone. So losing customers, losing money and now, not even giving us the information that we deserve.
Sharri Markson: Look he’s far from perfect, Elon Musk and Labor in particular like to paint him as a villain. But you know, to say he’s fixing the problem of internet outages in the bush, which successive Governments haven’t been able to do. And we’ve spoken before about how important it is in times of bushfires or floods or other emergencies. You really do need connectivity. Just quickly before you go. The Albanese Government is, looks like it is going to reject calls for a blanket ban on gambling advertising. Instead, Labor’s pushing forward with a partial ban, so it’ll be during children’s shows and live sports broadcasts. David, do you support, do you think there should be a ban on gambling advertising?
David Coleman: Well look Sharri, back in May last year, Peter Dutton announced in his budget reply speech that we would ban gambling advertising during live sport one hour before, one hour after. We think that’s the right thing to do. Very concerned about the impact of those ads, especially on kids and family viewing. I mean, in terms of what the Government’s doing, I mean, who knows? It’s been going on for so long. We don’t have anything to respond to. Once we do, we’ll review it. But we certainly want to see the ban on live sports advertising. And we’ll see what the Government comes up with and then respond in due course.
Sharri Markson: All right. David Coleman, thank you very much. Great to see you.