Yes, if not for when the Labor (sic) party got into power that one time, we'd all still be stuck on ADSL2 at best, and dialup at worst, depending on how close you live to a major-ish city. The NBN was a government infrastructure initiative. One which got gutted and watered down as soon as the Liberals got back in.

Oh, and I've heard industry insiders claim that the mixed technology stack employed in the "new NBN" -- FTTP for some places that already got it, FTTN for everywhere else in the city, fixed wireless or satellite for rural areas -- is more expensive on an ongoing basis due to complications than just rolling out more fibre would have been in the long run.