Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

The picture that I am unfolding and looking at is the state of the copper network. This happens to be in the Hunter Valley, but it could have been in any place throughout the country. You ask yourself why the Prime Minister and his fibre to the node is spending so much on copper? It is because this is the state of the network. This is a guy who spent close to half a billion dollars on copper—last century's technology to deliver this century's National Broadband Network.

In the old days education, health and welfare were the big levers that you pulled down upon to deliver more equity in this country. In this century it is going to be broadband. It is in regional Australia where the Prime Minister and this government are failing so much. We have seen study after study showing the failure of the government to deliver basic services such as the National Broadband Network and basic infrastructure services. That is leading to growing inequality in this country, and this government has absolutely no plan to do anything about it. We have seen only last month a study from the Swinburne Institute for Social Research, which compared the digital inclusion of people living right around the country. It showed huge gaps between people living in the regions and people living in the cities. (Time expired)

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