Perth Voice Interactive

FEDERAL Labor’s Perth candidate Tim Hammond has promised a Shorten government would roll out a fibre-to-the-premises broadband to the electorate.

Approximately 26,000 homes and businesses would benefit from faster internet speeds in Bayswater, Inglewood, Maylands, Bedford, and parts of Menora and Mt Lawley, he says.

Labor reckons these suburbs have some of the worst internet speeds in the country, relying on an overloaded copper network.

They’re also among the few suburbs not on the three-year rollout plan for the Turnbull government’s fibre-to-the-node NBNs.

“Only Labor will fix Malcolm Turnbull’s NBN mess and deliver the vital infrastructure of the 21st century to the people of Perth,” Mr Hammond says.

An NBN Co map shows fibre-to-the-node is already available in several regions around WA, including a clutch of suburbs just south of Perth, and larger areas across Rockingham, Mandurah and the South-West.

Mr Turnbull has scoffed at Labor’s plans, saying under the model he introduced, more homes have been connected in six months than Labor managed in six years.

“The truth is that Labor completely mismanaged and bungled the NBN,” Mr Turnbull said.

“It was a hopelessly failed project.”

by TRILOKESH CHANMUGAM