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

As I was saying to the member for Wentworth and to the House, competition obviously gives us the benefits of the greatest competition on price, the greatest competition on service and the greatest number of options for consumers, and of course superfast broadband gives us the benefit of speed. The member for Wentworth has raised with me the digital divide and I say to him, yes, I am desperately concerned by the digital divide, and one of the reasons we have gone down the path of creating NBN Co. to bring superfast broadband around the country is that, if we had allowed the private sector to simply respond, it would have responded in limited parts of the country, the upper income areas where there were most likely to be the greatest returns, and there would have been large parts of the country—in regional Australia but also on outer urban fringes—where people would not have the benefits of this technology. Being very familiar with the nonprovision of broadband in my own electorate in Melbourne's west, I tell him that we would not have seen the kind of provision of broadband to those areas which is necessary to close the digital divide.

If you cared about equity and you cared about Australians getting fair access to broadband, you would endorse the government's plan for the National Broadband Network. If you cared about equity and cared about the tyranny of distance suffered by people who live in regional Australia, you would endorse the government's plan for the National Broadband Network. If you cared about lower prices, faster speeds, greater competition and more choice, you would endorse the government's plan for the National Broadband Network. I think the member for Wentworth is trying to inch his way towards actually endorsing the government's plan in his public statements, but he has been told by the Leader of the Opposition to destroy the NBN as part of the opposition's relentless negativity. I know the member is uncomfortable with that position, but with the current Leader of the Opposition that is the position he finds himself in.

See this speech in context