Well, I have checked a few articles, and there is total confusion, they certainly contradict each other and your response, King Hazza, confuses me even further.

Some claim you will be able to continue having your phone, others claim it will be so only if you agree to tie-down your phone to the internet (an unacceptable option for me), using VOIP. Some claim that ADSL emulation will be available, others claim not, yet others claim that a different router will be needed (mine is currently heavily programmed to block all advertisement sites).

If I can retain my phone line, with my existing devices, then at least I can still use dial-up for the internet.

Looks like I'm getting myself resigned to the idea of living without a phone. Every now and then I will check my E-mail and do my banking at the local library, of course bye-bye OLO, check my messages at a pay-phone, if there is still any, and it will be interesting to start sending and receiving letters again, with real stamps!

Well Yuyutsu, generally your internet currently runs via your phone line, which would likely be an electric-pulse signal medium (copper axis cable with a fair likelihood)- to install a fiber-optic cable should consist of nothing more than to replace so much length of the copper cable networks with, simply, a different type of cable- along with a signal converter at every point the cable goes back into copper-wire form (if not your house directly).

The line should otherwise work exactly the same as the existing lines we have now.

From a practical point of view (whether or not the Labor Party possesses this aside)- it would be no different than if they were merely replacing the cables with a better kind of cable. Even if the government slack off and refuse to install a signal converter, one could simply purchase one and install it themselves and it should work just fine.

King Hazza, thank you so much for taking the time to explain.

Certainly the issue is not whether the physical cable is made of copper or of optic-fibre: what I am concerned about is the different low-level protocol that will be used along with the change of cable, so just to remove any doubt, let me articulate my worry a bit further:

With most existing phone+ADSL lines, both the phone signals and the internet signals are available at the end-points, with only a small splitter near the phone itself making the difference. This means that everyone (including children) can easily evade the splitter and connect an internet-device to the end of a phone line.

I have gone to great lengths to make sure that no internet signals arrive at the phone end-points in my home. I did so by installing a splitter high in the roof, allowing internet-access only to the office-room and plain phone-access to the other rooms.

My worry is, that if both internet and phone signals use the exact same technology/protocol and are treated as mere "data", then I would not be able to keep blocking the internet to the other rooms, which is unacceptable so I would be forced to lose my phone line.

Could you please clarify whether or not with the NBN there will still be a splittable electric/electronic distinction between phone signals and internet signals?

Alternately, will there be a way to obtain an NBN line WITHOUT access to the internet, completely blocking it - if so, perhaps I could then order 2 separate NBN lines, one with internet and one without. It may be expensive, but at least it would work for me.

I don't see why not, to be honest; as I said, if the NBN plan is merely to replace the fiber optic cables, then you would most definitely be able to keep the same arrangement you have now- the only difference is your splitter and the NBN will need a device to convert the light/electric signals between them in order for you to be able to transmit.
Hence why I point out it truly IS just a matter of replacing the cables- because all it comes down to is every electric digital signal is turned into a pulse of light- and back into electric to be read on the other side.
They work in exactly the same way and send the same type of signals- so if the government are too stingy to give you a converter, you could purchase one of your own and it would work exactly the same.

Well, I would like to believe you that it is all just the physical link, but the more I search I find more conflicting reports, claiming massive changes in the data-link layer (layer 2 of the OSI model) and even mentioning IP multicasts, which belong to Layer 3 (Network).

Some reports speak about forcing users to use VOIP, other reports speak about how difficult it would be to keep the dial-tone going, others mention the use of VPN tunneling for maintaining the security of certain services.

In short, it seems that the end-customer will not have direct access to the fibre-optic cable, and even if they had gained access to the physical cable (illegally), they will not have the knowledge to decode/encode the information.

NBN Co will provide a black-box attached to each house's front wall. On the one side will be fibre, on the other side, a number of interfaces. There are conflicting reports as to what interfaces will be provided, other than the main one: an ethernet socket for the use of computer-systems/routers. Some reports claim that a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) socket will be provided - but others deny it. I wish it was possible to purchase/upgrade-to a black-box with a POTS socket, but none but NBN-Co itself could technically provide such a box. It seems that we are helplessly under their mercy (if we insist on having a phone).

Well it would take quite a bit of screwing to get a fibre-optic system to go faulty- as fiber optic systems are specifically designed to fit immediately into a normal binary signal system (or else companies would never have bought them).
They would specifically be designed to only send a light signal when they receive an electric signal- meaning the signals are ultimately exactly the same.
It shouldn't matter either that the data is encrypted, because in the end it's just sending 1s and 0s over the line.