Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures No. 1) Bill 2009, I back up my colleague the member for New England. I was reading my original speech on this bill, and I quoted with very great regret the senator from Queensland Barnaby Joyce, who said that he would oppose the bill. I deeply regret that my National colleagues seem to now represent the city interests. If Barnaby Joyce sells us out and votes against this, it will probably be the last gasp for the National Party, one that was set on 16 August 2005.

There are only three members now who represent the National Party in this House. The LNP is a formal affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia, so it is actually the Liberal Party now. I deeply regret it—I do not criticise the honourable senator from Queensland for voting for it but in a sense I also very much criticise him for voting for it! But when you live in a party you have got to toe the party line and not do simply what it pleases you to do. At some stage you have to eventually make a decision as to whether you sell your soul or whether you sell your party. It is very regrettable that one has to say that in this place, but that is the situation as far as any member representing rural Australia goes.

The proposal to roll out broadband, giving access to virtually all Australians, is a wonderful proposal. It is like the bitumen roads which took people from the outback. It used to take us three days to go on our annual holidays to Brisbane from Cloncurry, a journey that can be done in a single day now because of the building of bitumen roads. We did not think it was possible that bitumen roads could be built out to our areas. When that very great man John McEwan instituted his beef roads scheme, as it was originally called, and later on the developmental roads scheme, one did not think it was possible to create this great network infrastructure of communication for Australia called sealed roads. But that is exactly what he did. I did not think that in my lifetime I would ever see the road sealed from Cloncurry to Brisbane—that seemed inconceivable. I thought that if we fought really hard we could get it sealed from Cloncurry to Townsville but we would never get it sealed the back way straight to Brisbane. But we did thanks to that very great man.

The people of Australia have been the beneficiaries of that. Great minds have opened up in the Mount Isa-Cloncurry area. The cattle industry has increased its numbers dramatically throughout those areas as a result. We took a survey when I was a minister in the Queensland government—and I think this is very relevant to the bill before the House—on what was the most important thing that had happened or that could happen for people in rural Australia. We were hoping that the survey would say the most important thing was water development and irrigation, but that was not what came back. What came back was bitumen roads that enabled our cattle to move from an area that was dry, because people have a concept of drought that all of New South Wales would be in drought or all of Queensland would be in drought. That rarely happens. There are areas where we have had excessive rainfall and there will be areas where we have drought. That is a condition that we have to live with. But we were not able to move our cattle previously, except at very great expense, on the dirt roads, until the coming of the beef road scheme, which put some 2,000 kilometres of sealed road into North Queensland.

I remember the most famous man in American political history and the most popular man in American political history, Huey Long. When there were just 11 bridges in Louisiana, he built 300 bridges. When there were 300 kilometres of sealed road, he built 2,500 kilometres of sealed road. The people loved Huey. It was in the time of the Great Depression, when people loved having a job. They greatly revered a man who had given them a job and an opportunity to buy a decent feed while most of the rest of the country was on the ropes.

Broadband is a very similar concept. There are problems that we can address, and I thank a member of my staff, Anthony Lagana, publicly in this place. One: the main problem is distance from exchange. Two: if no exchange exists, then we have to use wireless mobile coverage, and the cost is almost triple, with a reduction in speed and download volumes. Three: where there is no exchange and no wireless we have to use satellite. Again, the price is triple, with very low speeds and very low download volumes.

Four: people who cannot use landline broadband are disadvantaged by the cost of using wireless and satellite. Five: wireless is only as good as the reception from the phone towers, and that can be very iffy in areas that I represent, where we have the great mountain ranges of North Queensland—Mount Bartle Frere towers 5½ thousand feet above sea level and, unlike the Snowy Mountains, where you have high country, this is not high country; these are just spectacular mountains that rise off a coastal plain and go straight up into the clouds. In that situation we have enormous difficulties getting reception. Six: satellite is good until there is cloud cover. Those of us who live in country areas know that problem only too well. Speeds of downloads are limited. Seven: when there is a problem with satellite it can take one or two months to get a repair person out, because of the remoteness.

Dennis Faye is a grazier from Torrens Creek with a gifted intellect who has been without coverage for over two months. I think it is now into its third month. When Telstra’s sale was discussed in this place, we were told in our party room again and again that there would be a universal service obligation. Two or three of us—that was all—had the temerity to speak up. We said: ‘What ridiculous rubbish. Do you really think that a government is going to enforce a universal service obligation on some poor person working and living in Julia Creek or, even worse, living outside Julia Creek? That is not going to happen.’ And here is the proof positive. They are not going to pay for a repairman to go out to a single consumer who lives 70 or 80 kilometres south of Prairie or Torrens Creek. That is not the real world. That is not going to happen. Here is a specific example that it is not happening and is not going to happen. We have had something like seven centres that have been out for two and three days since Telstra was sold off.

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