Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moncrieff for his contribution. I was in his electorate last night at the National Awards for Excellence in School Music Education at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, which I think is in his electorate. It was quite a wonderful affair, handing out some awards on behalf of the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, Mr Garrett. It is amazing to see how young musicians and music teachers can all link up around the world and take advantage of this emerging technology. I was glad to see that he was accepting of the advances that will come with technology.

The legislation before us, the Telecommunications Legislation (Fibre Deployment) Bill 2011, as you well know Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, is all about a common-sense approach to what goes on in new residential developments. I know there have been many new residential develop­ments on the Gold Coast strip, between my electorate and the Gold Coast—I see them when I drive down there. We are making sure that the nation is fibre-ready, that each of these new developments gets it right in terms of the ducts, the pits and the pipe—getting our ducts in a row, I guess—from one development to the next development.

This is a good, common-sense economic policy which is what underpins the entire NBN in the first place. It is all about making sure our future productivity is in an interconnected nation—beyond the major urban centres, beyond the Gold Coast and the glittering lights, and into the regions. While the member for Moncrieff can say, 'Yes, on the Gold Coast we are doing okay; we've got 4G', a good government governs for the entire nation. Obviously, there are some problems whenever you get a few people on the 4G system. It goes slower and the technologies of the future will be hamstrung—that is why we need to have these complementing each other. We need to look beyond the conurbations to the rural and regional areas and look at the opportunities that will come for all of Australia.

This is a practical measure that we have before us. Basically, all we are saying is that if any developers who are constitutional corporations—able to be controlled by the government—are building some infrast­ructure, they make sure it is fibre-ready. It is easier to do the pits and the pipe at the start of the development process rather than retrofitting something to a development, ripping up footpaths and all those sorts of things. These are an inconvenience and part of the burden that comes with an NBN program which is such a visionary scheme. It does make more sense to do it at the onset rather than later on.

This allows the carriers to access the fibre-ready passive infrastructure that is owned by the noncarriers and provides for the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to have a role as the default arbiter. It applies to new real estate develop­ments because the fibre will be rolled out across the nation to 93 per cent of premises. It is important that we get it right in these new developments. There has been extensive consultation with the development industry about these reforms. It is not something that has been sprung on them; it has been able to be built into the price. As I said, this keeps the cost as low as possible for the ultimate consumer of the National Broadband Network.

Rather than just saying, 'Let the market rip', which seemed to be the approach by the member for Moncrieff, this is a common-sense approach with the gentle guiding hand of government saying, 'Why don't you do it early on, rather than just wait for the market to decide.' As we all know, with anything it is best to do it upfront rather than retrofitting. Even in a building such as this, which is only 21 or 22 years old, in the last year there have been problems in meeting the technology needs of a modern parliamentarian. Things change quite quickly, so it is best to have the capacity to deal with each new develop­ment—they need to be lined up so that the pipes and pits are ready to enable the NBN to be rolled out. This is a very practical response to rolling out the NBN.

I saw that the member for Moncrieff was quite overheated. Maybe he was a bit riled because of what we saw two weeks ago, with the NBN Co. representative standing alongside the Telstra and Optus represen­tatives, indicating that this is happening and that this is real. This is the biggest investment in infrastructure since the Snowy Mountains scheme—it is beyond the Snowy Mountains scheme. It is being rolled out now. I understand, Mr Deputy Speaker Sidebottom, that Braddon has benefited greatly from this. The benefits are more than just within the nation. The NBN is able to link the regions, link the cities, link them with the world and create business opportunities overseas.

We have seen a lot of signs and symbols lately. When I open my paper or when I watch the news at night, I see the Leader of the Opposition in a hard hat, stalking a manufacturing business—turning up and spreading his big fear campaign about the carbon tax. That is an important symbol, a visual symbol. It seems to be what the media is interested in. I assume there are people out there now stalking the retailers or manufact­urers of Queanbeyan and looking for an opportunity to say, 'We need the opposition leader to come along like he does in so many of these places.' I think it was the Ford Motor Company factory in Geelong where he turned up. He does not actually go in and talk to the workers; he just turns up, talks to middle management, puts the hard hat on and then off he goes. We get what he sees as the sign and symbol and then off he goes. It does not matter that the opposition's plan is actually to rip $500 million out of the car industry. He does not want to go in and talk about that; he just wants to run with a bit of a fear campaign.

While I am talking about signs and symbols, I note that where the NBN will be very useful is in schools. As a former teacher, I know how much things have moved on. I can remember the internet first coming into the classroom when I was in my last few years of teaching. Now you go to classrooms where the kids in grade 1 and even kids in prep are using computers in a way that is unbelievable. That is why you have to be prepared. Obviously, the NBN will complement our education policy—over $65 billion invested in education. Symbols are important when it comes to education. We have debates in here about education; we had one today. Over the years of the Howard government, we had those wonderful—more than 2,000—flagpoles rolled out throughout Australia. It is important that we give our flags a space; we all know how important a symbol that is. But compare that with the 2,000 libraries that the Labor Party rolled out or with the other investments in school halls, language centres, science laboratories—all those things are obviously much more than just symbols.

I have been following the broadband shenanigans opposite for quite a while. I know it is hard to get it right because the technology changes so quickly, but I think there were about 20 failed experiments. They kept having problems. I think one of the problems was that one of the rollouts was based on the planning assumption that Australia was as flat as the Netherlands, but then someone pointed out that there were some mountains and valleys and a few things like that in the Australian landscape. Even though we are the flattest continent, we do have some hills, especially in places like Brisbane.

I particularly remember when, some 12 or 18 months back, the Leader of the Opposition had an interview with Kerry O'Brien—it might actually have been the last interview he had with Kerry O'Brien—talking about the NBN. What was the Leader of the Opposition's major grasp of what the NBN would be used for? For sending e-mails, I think. I am sure he has moved on a little bit since then and does see the business opportunities, the productivity opportunities and the employment opportunities for rural areas, regional areas and our cities. It would be nice for him to go back to our national broadcaster and engage with people about the NBN. We hear that his instructions to his shadow spokesperson were very simple—to rip up the process, to just say no. It is funny—today I saw the Leader of the Opposition talk about having an $85 million plebiscite because he wants to consult with the people, but he will not talk to our national broadcaster about any topic, it seems.

Anyone who has been in this game long enough knows that the Australian economy faces challenges. We have a high dollar at the moment, so that makes it hard for our manufacturers to compete on the world market. Our labour costs are high compared with those of most of our near neighbours, so it is hard. There are pressures out there; pressures on manufacturing businesses, pressures on lots of sectors of the economy, even labour shortages in certain sectors. However, those opposite are basically suggesting that we go down the low road. Their answer to the question of how to bring those costs down is to attack wages. This is a short-term fix and will not provide any great productivity boost. The smarter way to approach the problem is the high road—to try and boost productivity. Obviously the NBN will provide a massive number of opportunities to boost productivity.

As a Queenslander, as someone from the most decentralised state in Australia, it would be ridiculous for me to stand here and say, 'My electorate is in inner-city Brisbane, so I will be all right. The bush can be forgotten.' That seemed to be basically what the member for Moncrieff was saying—let the market rip, and they will be right. The markets are there in the bigger cities, but obviously a good government looks after the country. I am from country Queensland myself, and apart from the NBN no-one is in any great rush to roll out to the country areas. I can understand why the Leader of the Opposition found it hard to consult with the member for New England and the member for Lyne about the advantages that the NBN would bring to them when he did not have an understanding of it. Anyone with a connec­tion to rural areas would understand the benefits that will flow.

I note that there was a dissenting report to the report presented by the member for Lyne. This dissenting report is 5,096 words—we could have saved a lot of time and effort if the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull had just said no. It would have been as simple as that. That was obviously going to be the tactic—just say no, do not go into any great detail. The dissenting report was basically 5,096 different ways to say no. Thankfully the committee has taken a bit more time to look over the issue and see the advantages and, as we see the NBN rolled out to the 93 per cent of premises that are preparing to take advantage of this massive piece of infras­tructure, I think this dissenting report will be seen in the proper light.

The bill basically contains four key measures in proposed part 20A. It enables the minister to specify new developments or classes of new development in which the fixed lines that are installed must be optical fibre lines. So there is the capacity there to take advantage of the local situation. Also, the bill provides that when fixed line facilities are being installed in a develop­ment, these facilities must be fibre-ready. That is a common-sense approach—do it up front and it is cheaper. It is a case of a stitch in time will save nine, rather than having all the problems that go with retrofitting and ripping up concrete. Third, the bill will have the effect of basically requiring constit­utional corporations to install fibre-ready facilities on or in close proximity to their developments. We do not want to have the rail lines all over again where we have different sizes and they do not match. This is the 21st century and we want to make sure that they all fit together for the benefit of the nation. (Time expired)

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