Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the House on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008, because it is a very important bill for this country. We have only 0.3 per cent of the world’s population living on some 5.1 per cent of the world’s landmass. Australians live and work in communities scattered right around the country. The tyranny of distance and isolation presents a set of unique challenges for regional and remote Australia. Today I rise to speak of the challenges facing regional Australia in the area of telecommunications and to highlight the danger that this bill poses to the future of telecommunications in regional areas.

When it undertook to privatise Telstra, the coalition government realised that private enterprise would struggle to provide viable telecommunications services in many regional areas. We needed to allow for additional funding to protect the interests of the people who lived in those areas where it was not commercially viable to provide many of the services which people in the city take for granted. As a result, the coalition announced a $1.1 billion plan for direct capital investment into regional telecommunications through the Connect Australia scheme. Connect Australia aimed to improve broadband to people living in regional, rural and remote areas; extend mobile phone coverage; build new regional communications networks; and set up telecommunications services for remote Indigenous communities. All of these, members would have to agree, are worthy ends.

In addition, the previous government fought for and delivered a $2 billion Communications Fund, with interest gained from this investment to be used to deliver First World communications services to remote and regional Australia—areas in which, as I said, these particular services would not be commercially viable. It was interesting that this particular program aimed not only to deliver the services that we know and take for granted today but also to deliver services that are yet to be invented. I found it quite curious that the member for New England, being the intellectual giant that we all know he is, could not contemplate services that he could not imagine. I am sorry to say that the member for New England is living in the past. The member for New England perhaps cannot imagine services in the future, but the former government could. The former government very clearly realised that there would be technologies coming on stream that are either in the very early stages of development now or yet to be developed. The former government also realised that if regional Australia was going to compete and continue to be competitive in world markets then it would have to have access to those types of technologies and that perhaps those technologies would not be commercially viable in remote areas. That was just one of the reasons why this fund was set up.

Income from the fund was earmarked to finance the government’s response to independent reviews of regional telecommunications services. This would include the development of infrastructure for regional communities, such as additional mobile towers, the provision of broadband and backhaul fibre capabilities. The Communications Fund was not a one-off exercise; it was a visionary plan to protect regional telecommunications services well into the future. If the past two decades are anything to go by, the next two decades will be a time of great advancement and great development in technology. Who would have imagined 15 years ago the progress of the internet today? Who would have imagined that young students in an isolated area would be receiving their lessons via satellite? It is not that long ago that we were experimenting with the pedal wireless for the flying doctor. Telecommunications is moving at a fast pace. Who would have imagined the growth in mobile phone use?

Labor anticipated future developments in telecommunications so well that just four years ago they wanted to extend dial-up internet to every Australian. Dial-up was apparently the answer four years ago to our communication needs. What happened? Their policy changed. They went from having a policy where Australia would be left behind to looking at something different. They said: ‘What’s trendy in the area of telecommunications? Fibre is trendy. We’ll roll out fibre everywhere—where it is viable, where it is not viable and where it is needed.’ It is really quite ridiculous.

The previous government had a very balanced stance. They had a program in place that would basically use a range of technologies to provide the very best telecommunications services for the circumstances in which they were to be delivered. Labor, on the other hand, is purely using hype to talk about the fibre optic backbone that will not be delivered for many years to come. As technology develops, it is vitally important that our businesspeople, educators, students and medical professionals in regional areas have access to the very best in telecommunications services—and the previous government was working to deliver that. The previous government knew that medical services needed quality telecommunications and that business, if it was to compete, needed exactly the same—and we were delivering that.

This legislation is paving the way for the current government to effectively turn the clock back on regional Australia. This legislation will not take us forward; it will turn the clock back. Labor’s broadband policy was released 11 months ago, and we still have no details about the network, who will build it, how much it will cost, how it will be accessed, who can access it and where it can be accessed from. We do not know those facts at this late stage, and regional Australia is rightfully concerned about this. It is quite clearly another example of Labor policy on the run. It is quite clearly another area in which Labor has looked at the trendy solutions to make a good sound bite and then proposed to roll it out, regardless of what that means for the future of telecommunications in regional areas.

The Prime Minister announced that Labor would build a broadband network, but then there was silence. There have been no details of costings and no consultation. So far, all we have heard is a notion that one day, off in the future, at least 98 per cent of Australians will have access to high-speed broadband. I see problems with this lack of a plan. The first is that the government’s plan will be rolled out over the next five years. Presumably, regional areas will receive their network much later. If you are in a metropolitan area where services could have been provided commercially and there was no need for taxpayer funded investment, you will get your fibre-optic rollout quickly. If you are in a regional area that is absolutely dependent on telecommunications to remain competitive, you will have to wait an indeterminate time for it. You will have to wait for a service that you do not know how, when, where and by whom it will be delivered. All these things are unknown. It is quite right that there is concern among people in regional areas about this. We have seen Labor’s form in telecommunications. We have seen them in the past turn off the analog phone network. What did they put in its place? They put nothing in its place. They turned off the analog network, sold off the licences and put nothing in its place. That is the way that Labor dealt with the telecommunications needs of regional consumers in the past. I would say that current regional consumers do not trust Labor anymore and that they are very concerned.

The Australian reported on 1 February that both Telstra and the G9 group were privately saying that the government’s plan to reach 98 per cent of the population with fibre to the node may be unviable and that a mix of technologies would be a better outcome. A mix of technologies sounds very much like the OPEL consortium that the previous government proposed to deliver quality broadband service through a range of technologies. We live in a very large land, with very difficult conditions in which to deliver telecommunications services. It demands a range of technical solutions to provide the best service at the best cost. Anybody in this room could probably design a bridge that would stand up, but it takes a skilled engineer to design a bridge that provides a maximum strength at the least cost—and it is the same with a telecommunications network. You can design a network by press release, or you can design a network by using the best possible technologies for the applications required.

The OPEL consortium was in stark contrast to Labor’s telecommunications policy by press release. It planned to deliver broadband strategy to 99 per cent of the population by 2009—not years off into the future, but by 2009—and achieve network speeds of 10 megabits by June 2009. What is going to happen to the government’s proposal by June 2009? There will probably be a lot more press releases, probably a lot more hype, probably a lot more hot air but probably a lot fewer services to people in regional areas.

Another problem that I see with this plan is that the very companies the government expects to build the network have already told Labor that they will build it themselves. As I said, this is investment in communications infrastructure by the taxpayer that would have been provided commercially at commercial rates of return. Is it good use of taxpayers’ money to invest in a service that the private sector was going to deliver anyway? I think not. It is a woeful use of taxpayers’ money. We should, as the previous government did, invest in telecommunications services where it would not have been commercially viable. That is a far better use of public money. It is far more logical and far more responsible than telecommunications services by press release. The whole purpose of the telecommunications fund—the fund that this government is proposing to take away—was to invest in those very technologies that would not be provided commercially.

On top of the fact that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy wants to use taxpayers’ funds to build a network that would almost certainly be commercially viable without funding, the government’s plan still has no detail. The minister is apparently confused about his own plan. He is apparently not sure whether he wants fibre to the node or fibre to the home. They are very basic concepts but there seems to be a degree of confusion on the part of the good senator. Senator Conroy seems to be confusing the two concepts—fibre to the node or fibre to the home. Which is it going to be, Minister?

During the election campaign, he passed through a small town in my electorate—the town of Lowanna—spruiking Labor’s broadband plan. The problem is that he could not then and cannot now tell the people of Lowanna whether they will get high-speed fibre under the government’s plan. Will Lowanna be in the two per cent who miss out, or will it be serviced by its very own fibre optic network? I am not sure. The minister is not sure. People are not sure what they will get out of the government’s plan. I would suggest that the only thing they can be certain to get from the government’s plan is years of neglect. The people in regional Australia are all too used to the Labor Party’s endless neglect. It will be just like the time when Labor turned off the analog network—an unconscionable move. Labor does not aim to deliver better services; instead, it turns off services and puts nothing in their place.

Considering that the government has introduced a bill that deals with more than $2 billion that belongs to the people of Australia, I believe it would be appropriate for the people of regional Australia to know what was going to happen to the $2 billion that was previously earmarked to provide them with the services that they rightly deserve. I contend that they are not going to be receiving value for that money, which could be invested in Sydney or Melbourne. I think that the people of regional Australia are being ripped off by the proposed government bill. In opposing this bill, I have another major objection. As I mentioned, the Communications Fund is intended to address the ongoing needs of regional Australians.

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