Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia entered the resources boom as one of the fastest growing economies in the world with productivity growth of 2.6 per cent per annum. Now, 10 years later, despite extraordinary growth around the world, it is dragging us with it and the government is quietly downgrading Australia’s forecast productivity growth over the forward estimates period to 1.75 per cent. One has to ask how that could happen. The answer is quite simple: the Howard government has been coasting on the back of the resources boom.

When the government talks about the future, it sometimes—particularly in the last couple of days—refers to saving for the future, but it does not talk about building for the future. That is what governments do in boom times: they make sure that circumstances are right for families and businesses to grow and flourish. It means making sure that families and businesses do not find themselves bumping up against unnecessary constraints. For business, those constraints have been apparent for a number of years: they are infrastructure, skills and excessive red tape. If the government gets it wrong, there comes a point at which business finds it more and more difficult to get it right. Businesses in my area have well and truly reached that point.

That is one of the reasons I am so pleased to be associated with Labor’s commitment to ensuring that 98 per cent of Australians have access to high-speed broadband, which will allow them to compete with their international counterparts. Broadband is an enabling technology that drives substantial productivity gains around the world. Broadband infrastructure represents the new growth platform for productivity and business development. The federal government’s own broadband advisory group stated that next generation broadband could produce economic benefits of $12 billion to $30 billion per year.

Even though we know how important broadband is and even though we have known for some time that we were falling behind the rest of the world, where do we find Australia in broadband performance? The answer is pretty much nowhere. Australia is ranked 17 out of 30 countries surveyed by the OECD for take-up of entry-level broadband. Despite the growth in take-up, Australia’s relative position has not improved in the past two years. The World Economic Forum has ranked Australia 25th in the world for available internet bandwidth and 15th for network readiness—and slipping. Similarly, the WEF ranks the Australian government’s success in the promotion of information communications technology as just 53rd in the world. This poor performance is occurring at a time when communications is one of the most important drivers for future prosperity. I am proud to be associated with Labor’s commitment to broadband and I urge those opposite to consider coming on board and supporting investing in Australia’s future.

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