Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his somewhat remarkable question. If the member does not like seeing cables, then he should support the NBN. Through the NBN you get NBN Co. rolling out the cable for the country rather than multiple providers rolling out multiples cables in a repetition of the kind of problems we saw with the original rollout of pay TV. Yes, we need to cable the country with fibre. If you want to have fibre there is no alternative than laying the cables—that is absolutely right. The reason for a wholesale provider like NBN Co. providing that fibre backbone is that it should be provided once, it should be provided right and there should be retail competition on the basis of it.

Without NBN Co., which is presumably the vision the member who asked the question has for the country, there would be multiple cable providers laying those multiple cables in parts of the country where they thought business was profitable but entirely ignoring parts of the country, like regional Australia, that did not fit in with their business plans. The member’s question begs for more cables in some parts of the country and further neglect of regional Australia.

The coalition might believe in neglecting regional Australia, the coalition might be in denial about the future, the coalition might not want to see superfast broadband, but I can tell this parliament one thing very clearly: Australians do not want to miss out on the opportunities of the future. They want the National Broadband Network. Responsible members from regional Australia know that their communities want the National Broadband Network to shatter the tyranny of distance that regional Australia has suffered under for far too long. In order to do that, we need to lay the very cable that the member for Cowper seems to object to. We will provide that technology for the future, despite this relentless negativity.

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