Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

ABN AMRO have concluded that the Labor Party’s policy ought to be termed ‘broadband dreaming’. They have looked seriously at what is already being provided by the government and looked at the 22-page document produced by the Labor Party. They noted that only one page of that 22-page document is devoted to any sort of detail at all. There is no map of coverage provided, no costing table and no level of technical detail. Labor seems to have fixed its mind that the only way to provide high-speed broadband to all of Australia is via a fixed fibre-to-the-node system. It seems to have quite overlooked the use of other technology, such as high-speed wireless networks, which may be a much more efficient way of providing higher speed broadband connections to many parts of Australia.

If you look at the present situation you will see that the government has been working steadily, assiduously and with competence to provide broadband to those who are in need of it. If we look at the ABS stats we will see that 90 per cent of Australian households are connected to exchanges that are providing speeds of between two megabits per second and eight megabits per second. Many people will say, ‘What does that mean?’ It simply means that that is adequate to download movies, conduct videoconferencing, play games, teleconference and undertake everyday internet and email use. Nearly 50 per cent of the population can—that is, right now—access higher speeds of between 12 and 20 megabits per second from ADSL2 and broadband and pay TV cable networks. In other words, we are penetrating the market according to its need.

Australia’s take-up of broadband grew at a faster rate than that of any other OECD country except Denmark in the 12 months to 30 June 2006. To put more statistics to explain how many people that translates to: 3.9 million broadband subscribers are already in existence; around one-third of Australian homes have broadband. We have put into place policies that ensure that we are up there with the best in the world. We are the second fastest in the world for take-up of broadband—as I just said, with the exception of Denmark.

I think it is important that we look very much at the question of small business and the use that small business makes of broadband. If you define, as the ABS does, a small business as a business with fewer than 20 employees, you will find that an estimated 39 per cent of Australia’s economic production is generated out of that small business sector. It employs 3.7 million people, which accounts for almost half of private sector employment. If you look at use of broadband, you will find that small businesses are taking advantage of the faster speeds to the extent that 20 per cent of online small businesses use connections of 20 megabits or greater.

Fixed wireless networks provide speeds of two megabits per second to almost 6.5 million premises in Australia, including 800,000 that cannot access ADSL broadband. There are now four third-generation mobile phone networks operating in Australia, all of which offer broadband services. Since March 2005, the number of broadband subscribers on 1.5 megabit speed connections or greater has doubled to 1.1 million.

What I have described is a situation where the private sector has entered the area of providing broadband for subscribers who need it and want to use it. Where is the evidence in Labor’s plan to address the problem of the interaction between the rollout of a government owned network and the private sector network? Will heavy-handed legislation be required to compulsorily acquire parts of the Telstra’s network?

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