The NBN rollout, initially announced by the Rudd government of 2007, has been a source of contention over the last decade in Australia. 

Although it was initially heralded as a good idea, it underwent a lengthy implementation process, and concerns about costs caused the newly-elected Coalition government of 2013 to adjust the roll-out from a primarily fibre-to-premises model to a mixed-technology model, which Mr Jones explained relied more heavily on the Sky Muster satellites. 

“There’s been a massive blowout of the number of peoples and towns that they’ve [the federal government] have put on the NBN satellite,” Mr Jones said. 

“Which means they’ve got to ration the data, and people are paying more for it.” 

Mr Jones also stated that the government’s plan “[doesn’t] treat businesses different from households” , and that there are “a whole heap of problems” arising from ineffective implementation. 

This is particularly pertinent for residents of Yass Valley, who both Mr Kelly and Mr Jones said voiced their frustration at the process and the fact that they were in essence paying more for lower quality internet. 

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor called the allegations from Mr Kelly and Mr Jones “a Labor lie to regional Australia”. 

“While the satellite footprint area remains the same, the Coalition Government has actually doubled capacity by using both of the NBN satellites. Labor’s plan was to only use one of the two satellites,” Mr Taylor said. 

Mr Taylor’s electorate included Yass and Murrumbateman until last year’s election when the boundaries changed. 

He also rubbished the belief that satellite is more expensive, saying that taxpayers would have been the ones to suffer financially under the Labor government’s installation plan. 

“The planned fibre rollout under Labor would have cost at least $30 billion more to complete and hit the hip-pockets of regional Australians by driving up internet bills by $500 a year.”

Despite Mr Taylor’s comments, Mr Kelly described the three ways he intends to rectify the issues he sees with the NBN. 

“One is, the help that we can immediately bring to people through my electorate office in their dealings with NBN and the retail service providers,” Mr Kelly said. 

“Secondly, there’s to raise these issues in parliament to try and get the government to adopt a better policy and a better approach to this. 

“And thirdly, to inform our own policy development to for what we’ll put forward to the community at the next election.”