Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Broadband communications is the infrastructure of this century. There has been a lot of talk today about this century, last century and the century before. This is the infrastructure that all of Australia requires for this century, so I endorse what the current government are attempting to do. I realise they are a little bit behind schedule and I hope that they hurry it along, but the concept of quality, high-speed internet broadband services, particularly to country areas, or fibre-to-the-node services, is something that we should all get behind. There has been some discussion about the quality of previous services. There have been advancements made, and I do not think anyone can suggest that the previous government did not do anything. But we do have world-first technologies that can be introduced and country people, in my view, should have equity of access to those services. The only way that that can really be achieved is through fibre-to-the-node delivery.

Mr Deputy Speaker, this form of infrastructure, as you would be well aware, is the one thing that negates distance being a disadvantage of living in the country. It actually equalises the equation and in fact puts country people in front of their city cousins in terms of many of the advantages that broadband can deliver, particularly in terms of both national and international business services. If we can achieve equity of access and equity of price right across Australia then we will deliver a means to decentralise some of our cities. We have had a continual movement towards our major cities, not because people particularly want to live there but because of their economies of size and scale, which mean people feel they have to go there to find work. This technology in this century can release us from that equation and from having to pack people into cities. So I think this issue should be looked at in terms of the climate change debate as well and the need for people to move—to have to leave their country communities to go to the big cities for health and educational reasons, for instance. These sorts of infrastructure services can actually assist not only the business community but also in health, education and many other ways. They actually remove distance as being a disadvantage, as I said, of living in the country.

The other issue that has been in the news of late is the bid that is currently taking place in relation to the national broadband network and the antics of Telstra in particular. I publicly encourage Senator Conroy to ignore the bullyboy tactics of some of the Telstra board and the CEO in relation to their demands that the government not implement a structural separation arrangement between the network itself and the providers of the service. I would encourage the minister to ignore them. If they do not put in a bid then so be it, because in terms of getting equity of access to these services there will need to be structural separation. That does not mean Telstra’s service delivery of mobile and other services has to be structurally separated; but if this is to be a truly national broadband network where other telcos can actually access the network in a competitive sense then the provider of the network cannot be the major player. We have made that mistake in the past. The provider of the network cannot be the major player and wipe out the competitors. It has been shown time and time again—and the member for Oxley talked about it a moment ago—that competition will not deliver in a lot of country areas. Since the privatisation of Telstra there has been very little activity in terms of mobile towers in country areas, for instance, because they do not have to do it any more. In fact they say, ‘It’s not our business to deliver services into these areas that we do not believe are profit making in a four-year capital return cycle.’ There are many of these issues out there.

In conclusion, I would encourage Senator Conroy not to be bullied by these belligerent people just because they run a private operation now and they have a number of shareholders. Not every Australian is a shareholder in Telstra anymore—but the minister is the representative of all Australians. (Time expired)

See this speech in context