Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the findings and recommendations of the report Broadening the debate: Inquiry into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network. I am very proud to be standing here supporting this government that has decided to invest in Australians, to invest in our potential, by investing in the NBN, which is absolutely aligned with our long-term economic prosperity. The NBN represents, in our time, the most significant nationbuilding initiative that will set us on the right path at the start of the 21st century.

I make note of point 1.115 in the dissenting report which emphasised a quote by the CSIRO:

The future transformative impact of broadband communications, including internet access, is, to some extent, unknown.

That they see this as a negative is, I find, a little incredible, because the enablement of quality infrastructure is exactly about a belief in the future generations that follow us and a belief in the innovative capacity of Australians. And we are absolutely innovative. I was thinking this morning, before I left my accommodation, that I am very lucky to have my husband and son visiting me this week. My son has taken two days off school to come and see how the parliament works. As I left him this morning he was watching a movie on a very small iPod. Apparently he was doing the same in the car on the way down, and my husband was quite incredulous that such a thing could be happening in the car on a small device. It was not so long ago that the big television set in the middle of a lounge room, which was an immovable object and in black and white, was something that we thought was a wonderful new piece of technology. It has continued to develop. As our understanding of the potential of technology develops, we have come to have a completely different belief in and understanding of the possibility of NBN—that is, if you have an enlightened view of the future and you are not wanting to revert to some Abbottville of the 1950s.

We need to make sure that we give the young people that I have had the pleasure of teaching for nearly three decades the opportunity to advance to the future. We need to give them the vehicles to get there. The NBN is a critical vehicle. I have got absolutely no concern that they will not know what to do with it when they get their hands on it. I am absolutely confident that they will envision incredible things, and they will make them happen not only in their self-interest or in the economic interest of the nation but for the benefit of so many people in the community.

I want to address a few points: infrastructure, health, business, education and social, and the local impacts of this for my particular area. For any nationbuilding investment that this country has undertaken there have always been benefits that would have been unknown when that infrastructure was built. I am mindful that at the time I was born my father was driving a D9 bulldozer and making way for the Warringah freeway coming off the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I can remember his delight and engagement with infrastructure everywhere around the state. I remember driving up to the Central Coast for the first time and seeing the roadworks. The celebration of our vision for a future and of what infrastructure has enabled is absolutely in my DNA. Irish families digging trenches—it is kind of the way a lot of Australian-Irish people made their way. I believe in the vision we saw with the Sydney Harbour Bridge; when we look at it today it brings national pride. It is an icon because it was a vision of a bright and positive future. It was an investment in infrastructure that gave people work and it was an investment in infrastructure that gave a city possibilities in a completely new and different way. That is exactly the sort of thing that the NBN is going to offer.

In terms of health, we have been fortunate this week in the parliament to have a display about e-health applications. What an amazing display that was for anybody who got to go and see it. There is the capacity to have e-health records, the capacity for me to be on holidays up on the Gold Coast and to give permission to a doctor who might be seeing me to open a file and check if I have had a chest X-ray or a heart test recently, to find out what my medication is, to make sure that I get it. This is technology that is available to some in some places, and I am very mindful of the criticism that has been put here by the member for Chifley of this sense that we seem to have from many in the Liberal Party: 'It is okay in my city and I am quite happy with my Bentley, thanks very much, but the rest of you have to put up with your Commodore and I really don't care about it.' There could not be a better definition of the difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party than that sort of expression. We believe in access to the best opportunities for all Australians, not just some Australians. And when it comes to our health I believe Australians absolutely believe in total equity of access, equity of service and the capacity for equity of outcomes.

In terms of the massive change that this offers the health professionals, who want to do their very best, this is the best chance they have had in a long time to get on board with their city counterparts, to continue their own professional development and to give their patients the best advice, best access and best guidance. That is without going anywhere near the applications for health benefits for, particularly in a region like mine, aged people who want to stay in their own home. Monitoring of health can happen when we have high-quality, stable internet access that the NBN will provide tapped right into their home and applications that they can carry around in their iPod as they go for a golfing session, for example, away from home and still stay connected back to the security at home. These are visionary applications for NBN technology. They are things that enable hope and they are things that enable freedom for people in the community. But those opposite would have us lower our sights, diminish our capacity and lose our hope for the great things for the future that the NBN can offer.

With regard to business, obviously there have been some very powerful points made by the member for Throsby and the member for Chifley in terms of the application of this to our economic outlook, our economic capacity, our job-building capacity. But I want to talk on a small-business scale. I want to particularly commend some local business men and women who have a great vision for what is possible with the business applications the NBN offers on the Central Coast. I particularly want to name Paul Budde, a man who is a leader in his field internationally who we were very lucky to have at a forum that was held at Kariong at the Youth Connection site. It was hosted by Dave Abrahams, who has been a long-term champion of great things that the internet can offer us—not in an uncritical way; in a way that is very mindful and socially aware of what the NBN can offer but also in the sense of what it offers businesses and young entrepreneurs who can see a path to the future that is only available to them once we get this to their homes where they live. Then they can start their business at the kitchen table on their laptop rather than having to go through all the sorts of barriers that are currently there, including incredible dropout rates, degrading copper network and incapacity to lift their visions to reality and to make happen their dreams of businesses that link them into a greater world.

In our push for the NBN for our region, which deeply understands the benefits which come to regions such as mine, I want to commend Peter Wilson and Michael Whittaker as the CEOs of their two councils, the Wyong Council and the Gosford Council. I also want to acknowledge the leadership in recent times of Councillor Doug Eaton, from Wyong, who is the mayor there, and also Councillor Laurie Maher, the Mayor of Gosford. They get what this opportunity is to regional Australia. When all of us see people getting on trains at five o'clock in the morning to get to Sydney to a job, we yearn for the NBN to come to our electorates to allow businesses and creative people with a bit of ingenuity and endeavour to get on and make the businesses that they know they can make on the coast and employ the people that they want to employ on the coast. I spoke recently with an architect who has changed the type of work he is doing. He wants to do high-end private developments overseas. He cannot employ the three or four people he would like to employ because he cannot get a fast enough speed to be able to upload his plans and engineering to move it into an international environment. A global economy awaits his initiative and endeavour. He cannot get there without the NBN.

I could go on forever and ever about education and what the possibilities of the NBN are, but I just want to tell one brief story. Last week, I was very happy to have the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government come to my electorate. One of the great educational institutions that we have on the coast is NAISDA, which is the national institute for Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal dance. It is a great cultural learning centre as well as a great dance enabler. Many of the graduates have gone on to perform in the Sydney Dance Company and Bangarra and also to develop confidence in themselves and their culture to take back to their communities.

One of the things that happens is an exchange. Recently the whole school went up to the Torres Strait Islands and they learned a dance up there. They connected to that community. Now, back on the Central Coast, they are able in some way to have some communication with that community that they went to visit. With the NBN, with its capacity for constant interaction, the educational outcomes and the connectivity across barriers is something we can only possibly imagine at this point in time. But I know that those two communities would be far better enhanced by regular, stable conversations that were able to be offered through the NBN.

My own daughter has an opportunity to study at a fine institution, the University of Newcastle—one of the top 10 universities in the country. Sadly, for her to get there and back is a three-hour round trip. Great things have happened in being able to get things online and to watch videos online, but she cannot participate because we have not got the kind of internet access that would enable her to upload and have a conversation. That is where the future of education becomes real, where we can actually engage connectively with other people in other spaces at other times. For too long, people in remote and rural Australia have been marginalised. They have had to leave their families, their jobs and their emotional support and move away. There are so many adult women and men who want to re-engage in education. They are connected into their communities. They have kids in schools. They cannot up and move. They want to stay living where they live. The NBN will give them the possibility to do that and to further their education and develop their skills.

In terms of social matters, I want to turn particularly to a couple of experts who gave some advice to the committee. This is about Australians in rural and remote areas. I do not live in a remote area and part of my seat is rural. It really should be those opposite who are making these points but for reasons of mindless, small political point scoring they have decided to dissent from the findings of the NBN and continue to have their litany of whingeing and negativity about what is really is a nation-building project.

We have Mr Mark Needham from the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review telling us that the inadequacy of stopgap, second-rate, second-class services is really impacting on the psyche of Australians in remote Australia. His point is that, from a social inclusion perspective, people feel isolated. People feel they are not part of the whole. They cannot do the things that they see some people doing on television or that they hear about. The effect of not having equitable service is that they do not feel part of the whole. What a shame for this country that we have allowed such a divide to continue when this technology really was available. Those opposite had 19 goes at redressing this. They must have known it was a problem, but they were incapable of delivering. That is unlike this government, which is getting on with the job—and not just in this area.

What do the National Farmers Federation, a friend of the National Party, have to say about it? Let us put it on the record, because those opposite will not do it:

The NBN is also likely to provide opportunities to link groups within the community across regional Australia and provide social services and support. Opportunities range from—

listen to this list—

connecting industry members (for example Dairy Australia's web forum); to providing mental health support to individuals (for example the e-headspace counselling service)—

which is well supported and encouraged by this Labor government—

to forums which connect and support individuals who may be isolated by circumstance or geography.

There is more from Robert Walker, Chief Executive Officer of AgForce Queensland, and the McKinlay Shire Council. Time is running out, so I am going to come to a close with comments from the McKinlay Shire Council, because I think they sum it up. The McKinlay Shire Council said:

… the NBN will supply faster connections for residents wishing to communicate visually—

Who with? They went on:

… family and friends, through media sources such as Skype. Although McKinley Shire's physical location may place large distances between loved ones, the NBN will assist in eliminating this void. Irrespective of our remote location, residents of McKinley Shire deserve equity of service.

It is not only the people in the McKinlay shire who deserve equity of service; all Australians deserve equity of service. It is not okay for some to have a Bentley and some to have a Commodore.

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