Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

I'm a big fan of libraries and of the Yarra Plenty Regional Library network in particular. Through the pandemic, they have been sorely tested in the work that they do. I think we know that libraries are much more than places where people go to borrow books; they're places of community connection. The network has been sorely tested but never found wanting. Indeed, how critical these libraries are to community has been revealed. I want to thank Stephanie Convery from the Guardian for highlighting the great work of the Thomastown branch and that of its manager, Coralie Kouvelas, who noticed cars in the car park, and the same cars with children sitting in them:

"I thought, this is really unusual,' Kouvelas says. So she said hello to the people in one of the cars and found out they were there so the children could do their homework—

using the library's wireless network. The City of Whittlesea and the library recognised that this was a real issue in our community and answered it by providing wi-fi dongles for use so kids could participate in remote learning. I give a big shout-out to the City of Whittlesea and Thomastown and Lalor libraries.

But, of course, this really shouldn't have happened. We shouldn't have this digital divide in Australia in 2021. And that's why I am so proud that my friend the member for Greenway, the shadow minister for communications, has announced that Labor will provide 30,000 families with free broadband so that they will never be cut out from online learning when the fact is that the internet is a necessity of modern life.

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