Hundreds of homes in Bendigo are set to receive high-speed broadband after an election eve promise to switch on fixed wireless towers which have long stood idle.

Liberal challenger for the seat of Bendigo, Megan Purcell, today said towers in Eppalock, Huntly North, Ladys Pass and Goornong will be switched on over coming weeks. 

“This is great news for close to 1,000 residents in Eppalock, Huntly North, Ladys Pass and Goornong who will have access to high-speed broadband at the end of June and early July as the towers are switched on,” Ms Purcell said.

“I’m very happy to be able to deliver a positive, good news story for the community – when you’re in an position of opposition its easy to oppose, but people told me they were sick of whinging and complaining and wanted positive action and I’m very happy I could deliver that.”

But the incumbent Labor MP Lisa Chesters said residents of Bendigo had already heard promises which the Coalition had failed to deliver. 

“Malcom Turnbull promised in 2013 that every single house and business in Bendigo would be connected to the NBN by 2016,” Ms Chesters said. 

“Well they’re just starting to roll out fibre-to-the-node in Strathfieldsaye, which is just not good enough. 

“Now on election eve they’re once again saying ‘trust us’ – well I for one won’t believe it until I see it.” 

Last year, NBN was forced to redesign the fixed wireless network across these sites after objectors were successful in stopping the Mount Camel tower going ahead, which was a feeder site for the four additional locations.

Ms Purcell said she had been working with Communications Minister Mitch Fifield to ensure the towers were switched on as quickly as possible following an extended delay caused by local opposition to the main transmission hub at Mount Camel that was upheld by VCAT.

“Over the past 10 months NBN has done considerable planning, design and construction work to achieve the necessary approvals for the network redesign,” Minister Fifield said.

“This has included adding extra transmission capacity at Bendigo South, gaining access to other towers to support extra equipment, and approvals from Parks Victoria.”

The communications minister entered into a hostile debate between two major parties’ candidates vying for Bendigo, with the Liberal minister accusing Ms Chesters of “grandstanding” on the issue. 

“When the Coalition was elected in 2013 there were only 77 premises in the electorate of Bendigo with an active NBN service,” Ms Purcell said. 

“In less than three years the Coalition has turned around Labor’s disastrous NBN rollout, and today more than 11,000 premises in this electorate can order an NBN service – with close to 5,000 premises already online.”

Ms Chesters responded by saying the government was “being clever with statistics” and claiming credit for homes connected to the NBN via infrastructure built and contracted signed under the previous Labor government. 

"All NBN connections across the Bendigo electorate are as a result of decisions made and contracts entered by the former Labor Government,” she said. 

"On coming to Government the Liberals kicked Bendigo off the NBN roll-out plan.

“Three years later we are still waiting.” 

More to come.