The Australian Labor Party has hinted at its policy for the nation's national broadband network (NBN), with leader Bill Shorten promising “a first-rate fibre national broadband network” in his Budget in Reply speech.

Shorten's speech declared a “fibre” NBN “the most important piece of infrastructure to any 21st Century economy” but offered no other detail. The party's policy remains non-committal.

The speech signals Labor hopes to make the NBN an election issue. The return of the “NBN defenders” group that in 2012 secured some 270,000 signatories to a petition calling for the network to be built with fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) has emailed its supporters asking them to again press for a change of policy.

The new petition makes the following argument

Australians feel let down by our poor internet access.Last federal election, Malcolm Turnbull ignored the demands of the public for a Fibre to the Home (FTTH) NBN rollout. He instead promised a Fibre to the Node (FTTN) rollout would be quicker and cheaper. He was wrong. We were all meant to have the NBN by now but instead only 14% of Australians have it, plummeting from 30th in the world for fastest internet to 60th. “We want the federal government to commit to fix the epic failure that internet in Australia has become - rolling out FTTH and giving us a shot at becoming a real innovation hub as Turnbull promised!”

Despite amassing many signatories to its online petition, the group had no effect on policy and struggled to mobilise people for “Day of Action” that The Register attended, among perhaps 20 others. ®

Bootnote: El Reg notes that Australia has fallen down world broadband speed league tables while installing predominantly FTTH connections. We're unaware of any evidence suggesting FTTH installations would have proceeded faster than connections made with alternative technologies, but are utterly open to learning of it!