Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, I am bringing up an issue that you, as the member for Canning, will be well familiar with in your electorate. It has been nearly a year since the Prime Minister launched his innovation statement—the National Innovation and Science Agenda—with a view to creating a 'modern, dynamic, 21st-century economy' for Australia. It has been three years since the Prime Minister scrapped Labor's world-class fibre-to-the-premises NBN, an innovative infrastructure project which would have delivered the fibre-optic technology needed to provide our businesses, entrepreneurs and students with the tools necessary to compete in the 21st century global economy. It will likely be another six long years before the government's second-rate copper NBN is delivered to this country in an infrastructure failing that makes a mockery of any national innovation agenda.

In the meantime, many residents living in Baldivis are left without a guaranteed internet connection—that is, businesses, entrepreneurs, students and families are all living the absurd 21st century reality that comes from the Turnbull government's outdated and obsolete copper NBN. Added to the shameful lack of internet connectivity is the often non-existent mobile coverage in one of the fastest-growing suburbs in the country only 30 minutes from the Perth CBD. It is no wonder that Baldivis residents feel as though they are living in a communications black hole, even though they have bought into some of the newest housing developments in the country, with new schools, shops and transport links. These residents could not have foreseen that they would not count in the Prime Minister's innovation agenda, that their business, education and social needs were to be confined to a buffering backwater of substandard infrastructure—that is, if they are lucky enough to connect online at all.

The lack of investment in communications infrastructure at Baldivis is impacting on people's lives. Mr Dewald Pretorius is one local resident, an engineer, who works from home and relies on the internet to do so. By all accounts, he is striving to be part of a 21st century modern economy. But, as he has told me, he had better internet connection in South Africa than he does in Baldivis. How on earth is he supposed to be part of an innovative future and how is he supposed to compete?

While waiting on the NBN to be delivered, residents in Baldivis are left with old infrastructure without ADSL ports to connect to. The delay in delivering the NBN means that outdated infrastructure is struggling to cope with a population that has grown from 16½ thousand people in 2011 to 31½ thousand residents in 2016. In another five years, the population is expected to reach 44,000 residents. The government needs to address the communications issues facing Baldivis now. Baldivis residents deserve internet and mobile phone connectivity to be part of a modern Australia.

I pay tribute to the representatives of the Baldivis community who have continually raised this, including Reece Whitby, the Labor candidate for the upcoming state election in the seat of Baldivis, and also Roger Cook and Paul Papalia, who have represented the community of Baldivis in their existing electorates for many years.

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