Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008 because I am one of many members of this parliament who represent rural and regional people. Whether those members representing rural and regional constituents are aligned with the Labor, Liberal, National, Green, or Democrat parties or are Independents, they should all oppose this bill. As the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government said in his second reading speech:

The intent of the Communications Fund is to address the telecommunications needs of regional, rural and remote Australians.

These needs are not likely to be met forever with one solution for all time. In fact, the Communications Fund was set up to meet the likely ongoing need of regional, rural and remote Australians to gain access to the latest communications technology.

As everyone knows, it can be less than profitable in regional, rural and remote areas to provide the most up-to-date communication services where the full infrastructure must be provided for a small number of consumers. The coalition government quarantined $2 billion in a fund so that there would always be money to ensure that people in the bush got a fair deal when it came to communication services. The expected $400 million in interest and investment earnings from this fund would provide any government with an opportunity to maintain and improve communication services in regional, rural and remote areas.

This Labor government not only wants to take the interest for its own purposes but also wants to be able to take the whole $2 billion fund as well. While Labor says it may spend this on telecommunications infrastructure, it also may not. Even if the government takes all the money and spends it on rolling out telecommunications infrastructure, there remain two more questions. The first is: what happens next time there is a need to upgrade, maintain or replace communication technology in regional, rural and remote areas? Having taken the fund, where will the money to fund any subsequent works come from? The second question is: if this infrastructure rollout is likely to cost $4.7 billion in total, why is the bush being asked to fund almost 43 per cent of it?

The Communications Fund was quarantined specifically to serve the interests of the roughly 30 per cent of people who live in the hardest to serve areas. Why would you use this money to help build infrastructure in the most profitable areas of Australia? Labor governments have demonstrated over and over again how good they are at coming in, spending all our savings on the quick, popular projects and leaving no money and all the hard work for another coalition government. With an expected $308 billion budget surplus, the Rudd Labor government could not possibly need to touch the Communications Fund to build its national broadband network, which it tells us will cost less than $5 billion. Raiding this fund would be tantamount to the Rudd government confirming that it is just not interested in people in regional, rural and remote areas.

Already Labor is missing the point with this national rollout. Labor says it wants to improve the minimum broadband speed for 98 per cent of homes and businesses. Improving the speed means assisting homes and businesses that already have access to broadband. Labor intends to use the Communications Fund to assist everyone but people in regional, rural and remote areas, or, as the minister intimated, Labor might well do something completely different with the money. People in regional, rural and remote areas still do not have adequate phone coverage. Labor is about to snatch their funding for improvements to available communication technology in the long-term future.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, every member representing rural and regional constituents should oppose this bill. This bill seeks to give the Rudd Labor government permission to raid the Communications Fund and ignore the long-term needs of people trying to run international agribusinesses from regional, rural and remote areas of Australia. With a $30 billion plus surplus, wouldn’t you think Labor could improve the offering to the bush, not rip the guts out of it?

Mr Deputy Speaker, you may ask why it is so important for governments to make sure that rural and regional Australians have access to good quality, fast communications. People in these areas have to travel further than city folk to get to most places, even the local shop. With the cost of living increasing, the price of items like petrol will change people’s way of doing business—for example, instead of getting in the car and driving to see a customer or a buyer, the internet will provide different ways of conducting business. Instead of the vet visiting a sick animal, the farmer might send video footage of the animal and upload results of electronic testing devices. Rising prices will force many in rural and remote areas to rethink their methods of operating so as to maintain the viability of small businesses specifically.

The attitude of major telcos like Telstra is to ignore sections of the community who are unable to access commercially viable services. Commercial viability is the prerequisite to delivering profits to telco shareholders, but it works directly against providing services to where regional, rural and remote Australians live, work and travel. The 98 per cent of Australian homes and businesses are not in areas that do not include many paddocks, many roads between towns or even many towns and villages, let alone isolated homesteads. What about the other two per cent of homes and businesses? The Communications Fund is specifically aimed at meeting the communication needs of those who fall into the commercially too hard basket. So why should two per cent miss out? The money is there, in the Communications Fund, to make sure that they get their fair share of access to any national communications network. It is definitely not okay to leave them off any national communications network. This is one of the differences between Labor and the coalition.

Labor are happy to forget about the two per cent of homes and businesses in the bush; we are not. In fact, we set up this fund specifically to look after them because we knew commercially driven telcos could not. We have already experienced this in rural and regional areas, where one man died of bee stings at Merriwagga while trying to call his friends to bring his medication. In my own electorate, a man received wasp stings to which he was allergic. His friends called triple 0 from a landline in the township of Tuena, put him in the car and headed towards the ambulance. When he deteriorated, the man’s friends tried to get advice by mobile phone from the ambulance, but their mobile phones would not work. They stopped a survey vehicle on the road and asked the occupants whether they could use their mobile phones, but they did not work either. Luckily, there was a farmhouse nearby and they did make contact on that landline. The ambulance arrived and stabilised the man, who had stopped breathing but had not gone into cardiac arrest. He was then airlifted to Wollongong Hospital and survived.

Labor would blithely say that coverage to 98 per cent of homes and businesses is enough. But we have people with their lives dependent on communications systems, so it is not okay to leave out two per cent. Rather than doctors visiting people, or specialists visiting hospitals and clinics, they can use remote monitoring via the internet—as you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker Washer, being a doctor yourself. This can be life and death stuff. City people often get into trouble when travelling, especially when, in their retirement, they make extended trips. I bet they would not like to become part of the two per cent who do not matter or who are not worth worrying about.

Of course, telecommunications can do much more than save lives. Country people need to do business. They often run international businesses, exporting products all over the world from their rural based business establishments. Many grow, breed or create products that are affected by global markets, international price structures, politics and even the weather on the other side of the world. They are often across, and contributing to, leading-edge research being undertaken in distant laboratories. I regularly hear from city people that they are surprised and in awe to find that our farmers are so in touch with world affairs related to their industry.

Every person and every business in Australia needs access to fast, high-quality communications. This need will continue long into the future and through many advances in technology. With every change will come the need to make sure that the commercially too hard locations are well served. The Communications Fund was set up by the coalition government to do just that.

Labor, already with their hands on a $30 billion surplus, want to raid this fund for a one-off something now. There will be no guarantee of continuing to support the needs of remote, rural and regional areas into the future as technologies change. As usual, Labor in government want to grab the money, spend it all now and forget about the future. They are also happy to forget about two per cent of the population they are supposed to represent and serve.

I condemn the bill before the House, and I ask the Labor members representing rural, regional and remote communities to cross the floor at the vote and join me in properly representing our communities’ interests. In case they do not know who they are, or choose to try and hide, let me list them: the members for Lyons, Dawson, Cunningham, Bass, Wakefield, Corangamite, Charlton, Macquarie, Richmond, Hunter, Throsby, Bendigo, Brand, Shortland, Eden-Monaro, Ballarat, Capricornia, Corio, Robertson, Blair, Forde, Page, Braddon, Lingiari, Longman, Dobell, Flynn and Leichhardt. They are the people on the government side of politics today who purport to represent rural, regional and remote communities. Let us see whether they have the intestinal fortitude to make sure that those rural, regional and remote communities have telecommunications and continue to have access to money to ensure they have telecommunications into the future.

I also ask the Independents, the members for New England and Kennedy, to join me on the side of good sense and good governance of people and their businesses in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia in coming over to this side of the House when we take the vote. I ask them to vote against the introduction of this terrible bill, which is going to affect rural and regional constituents of mine and the constituents of every other rural, regional and remote member from across this great country of ours in this chamber.

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