Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Here he is over in the corner! We’ve got the member for O’Connor. We really have the heavyweights here. It is very interesting to note that when this government says its legislation is designed to do something it gives it a title that suggests it will do the exact opposite. Mr Deputy Speaker, you might remember that the title of the GST legislation stated that it would lead to a fairer tax system. It did anything but. The industrial relations reform legislation was called Work Choices, but it allowed no choice—in fact, the only choice is to sign a contract or to be sacked. The government has now introduced the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill, which will prevent regions getting world-class telecommunications services. The government has not been content to demonstrate its incompetence; it has now introduced legislation that has no purpose other than to block Labor’s plan. The government’s solution to its incapacity and incompetence is to block something. Because it is not a doer, it becomes a spoiler. That is what this legislation represents.

Labor’s plan is to use the $2 billion Communications Fund to help build world-class telecommunications services for the entire country. However, this bill attempts to prevent Labor from using that $2-billion fund to implement its plan. It quarantines that money for the government to use if left to its own devices. The government’s plan is to use the interest on that $2 billion for telecommunications services. However, it still has not said how that interest will be invested; none of that has been disclosed despite the previous speaker’s assertions. How did this fund come about? It was the buy-off to get Senator Barnaby Joyce’s vote in the Senate for the further sale of Telstra. The government champions the fact that it has established a $2 billion fund, but it can access only the interest earned from it—that is, a little over $100 million a year. What will that achieve in connecting the nation? It will not have any significant impact. It is no wonder that the system is failing. The government wants the kudos of saying it has a $2 billion fund, but it is not allocating that money for its stated purpose.

The Treasurer’s response has been to say that there should be no government investment in telecommunications. He says that the private sector will provide the services all on its own and asks why the government should intervene. He says that Labor is pouring money into an area in which the private sector should invest. The fact is that the private sector will invest only where it can get an economic return. It will not invest in the regions because it is not economic unless it charges exorbitant prices. That is market failure and it is the reason that in the past this parliament has made a bipartisan commitment to providing universal access to standard telephone lines. We must make a commitment today that everyone in Australia, regardless of where they live, will have access to world-class broadband services. This government will mouth the words, but it will not make the commitment.

If the Treasurer is right that the government does not have to invest any money, why is it making commitments to do so? Just recently, it had to increase the funding available to the successful bidder, OPEL, in a contract that had previously been put out at $650 million. The government upped it to almost $1 billion. The winning consortium was OPEL, but Telstra is now suing the government because it was not advised of the increase that the government was putting into play. And the previous member was talking about transparency and openness and about the government coming clean! If we are talking about openness, where is that extra $350 million being funded from? I have heard no mention of the interest from the Communications Fund going into it, and the government still has not explained where the additional $350 million is coming from. On top of that fiasco, this government has also bragged on other occasions about how it has already invested $4 billion to try and improve telecommunications. We know this has not improved it. That has been a dismal failure. How can the government have the hypocrisy to come into this place and attack Labor’s plan on the basis of putting in money when it has put in money and wasted it?

Labor’s plan is to commit $4.7 billion, of which $2 billion is to come from the Communications Fund. This is not just from the interest on it but from an allocation as an investment in the future of this country. The additional $2.7 billion is to come from the further sale of the Telstra share, which the government will put into the Future Fund. Understand that this is the sale of a government asset that the whole of Australia owned. The government’s solution is to put it into the Future Fund, which does what? It meets the unfunded superannuation liabilities of who? Commonwealth public servants. Why should the nation’s savings be used for such a limited purpose? If, in fact, we are realising the savings of that which the nation made from a great investment in the past, why shouldn’t those savings be reinvested in our future? That is what Labor says we should do.

What we are talking about in terms of this Telstra component is the remaining 17 per cent of Telstra. Labor’s proposal will not even have to draw on that full amount. But I make this point: this is a government that has failed to connect the nation, having sold 83 per cent of Telstra already. Labor will do more with the remaining 17 per cent to connect the nation than this government has done by selling 83 per cent. That is how incompetent and uncommitted this government is in addressing this problem. Labor’s plan is costed, it is funded and it is comprehensive. It will see 98 per cent of the country covered by fibre-to-the-node technology. The remaining two per cent that cannot be covered by fibre to the node will be covered by technologies that aim to achieve the equivalent speed of it. That is our commitment. That is where wireless technologies, satellites and any other technologies can be used, but fibre to the node has to provide the essential base.

If anyone doubts the importance of achieving this agenda, let me explain why rolling out broadband to the whole of the nation is so essential. In the 19th century, railways were important to connect the nation; in the 21st century, connecting to the information superhighway is the imperative—particularly for the regions, because their capacity to develop economic opportunities is critically linked to their ability to access fast-speed broadband. They cannot compete in the marketplace in accessing information, in tendering documents, in operating from home—especially those living in more remote locations—and in participating in electronic commerce if they cannot access the speed that the cities take for granted. They will not have a chance.

It is very interesting that the Australian Local Government Association found in its State of the regions report—I had the pleasure of speaking at their conference on this last year—that the cost of inferior broadband in 2006—just one year—was $2.7 billion in forgone gross domestic product and 30,000 regional jobs. Just think of that in terms of the regions. We talk about regional development but, if we get this right, this technology will provide an economic underpinning. The simple fact from that report is that regions that have access to broadband are doing well; those that do not have access are the ones that are being left behind.

But the benefits of broadband are not just economic. For individuals, businesses and regions broadband is the great enabling infrastructure of our age. It offers our children the opportunity to secure educational outcomes regardless of where they live. It enables them to connect with a world of learning that they would not otherwise have. It is also about giving Australians access to an advanced range of services, including e-health and e-education—not to mention the vital capacity for Australians to be able to communicate more effectively from wherever they are so that they are able to remain in touch with their loved ones, their community groups and their friends. This technology also has the ability to deliver quality entertainment and recreational facilities. That is why it is important. It has economic but also cultural and social benefits. These are the sorts of things that are good public goods and why governments must make the investment where the market fails in its economic coverage.

It is only Labor that is committed to build such a network. I have said before how we intend to fund our commitment to the plan. Why should the Future Fund be used to pay only the superannuation liabilities of Commonwealth public servants? Why should the proceeds of Telstra not be reinvested in the telecommunications network of this nation? Why should the Communications Fund be restricted to an interest-only payment? Labor will not stand for that, and neither, I believe, will the Australian public. Labor acted in relation to the ALGA report. Labor understands the importance of connecting the nation, and we put our proposal into the public domain.

The government’s plan will hold the regions and the nation back. As more details emerge about the government’s broadband pre-election bandaid, more evidence is emerging that the regions will not only be consigned to a second-rate system but will be slugged for the privilege. Country residents could be slugged with internet installation bills of up to $1,000 as they will have to install satellite-dish-like antennas. This cost will not only be an additional burden but provide them with an inferior system which will duplicate existing services, including exchanges which have already been upgraded and Telstra’s Next G network.

It is not just our word that I ask people to take note of in relation to this. Leading academics and the OECD have found wireless inferior to fibre for speed and reliability. Fibre is the Labor solution. The WiMAX wireless solution, the inferior solution, is what the government proposes. Wireless does have a place, I accept that, but only as a complementary technology to the fixed-line network. It is what we would use, for example, as part of the solution to address the two per cent that we cannot connect with fibre to the node.

We have to aim for the biggest capacity, but a number of important telecommunications experts confirmed, when the government’s report came out in June, that wireless technologies would always be slower than fibre and would suffer from interference and low quality and that fibre provides the largest bandwidth. Neil Weste from Macquarie University has said so. Andrew Parfitt from the University of South Australia has said so. Eryk Dutkiewicz from the University of Wollongong has said so. But what does the government do? It ignores the experts. It trots out the incompetent Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. At a press conference on 27 June, she claimed:

The network design and rollout has addressed topography and local weather conditions …

That is what the minister said on the public record. But that is not what her department’s own website says. That website features maps of Australia from OPEL, the consortium that won the bid, showing what it seeks to cover. They look impressive and seem to show that the whole of the nation is being covered. But at the top it says:

Users should note the disclaimer on these maps.

You have to click the link to find the disclaimer, but when you do, the disclaimer says:

… these maps do not take into account local topographic features.

Hang on—didn’t the minister tell us that they did? Didn’t the minister say that on 27 June?

Why is it important to take account of those sorts of things? Because, if you do not, you do not understand whether the network is going to be effectively connected. If the maps do not take account of the topographical features, they are rendered useless. For example, line of sight problems mean the signal will not transmit through mountains, hills, trees or buildings. In addition, because OPEL will transmit the WiMAX signal in the shared spectrum frequency, it will not be permitted to transmit at powers greater than four watts. This means that the signal will not transmit over 20 kilometres, even in flat terrain. Industry experts consider five to 10 kilometres more likely.

The disclaimer goes on to say that the existence of technical impediments to service provision in the existing copper network is not taken into account. And, finally, it says that the minister’s own department:

… makes no guarantee about the suitability of these maps for any purpose by any person whatsoever.

What is the point of putting out maps like that? The minister goes to the Press Club, rants on about how effective this is going to be, and her own department is bagging her. Her own department says it will not give any guarantee about the maps’ suitability for any purpose by any person.

This government has again shown its incompetence in this area. It is not committed to regional Australia. It is not committed to connecting the nation. It believes that the private sector should do it and everyone should pay the price. We believe the government has a responsibility to make the investment. We have the plan to do it. We should be able to get on with it and not have this legislation block it. (Time expired)

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