Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister agree with findings of a government report entitled Forecasting productivity growth 2004 to 2024 that:

Broadband will help to raise business productivity through wider diffusion and better quality services in e-commerce, e-banking, e-government, e-education and e-health.

Prime Minister, isn’t high-speed broadband needed to lift Australia’s productivity growth and our economic growth?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I think the first part of that question was asking for an opinion, but I call the Prime Minister.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that broadband is a good idea and it will make a contribution to future economic growth. I do not have any argument with that proposition. I might remind the Leader of the Opposition that the last national accounts figures showed a very significant lift in productivity. While I am on my feet, I want to quote from something which is not generic to the issue of broadband but is specific to what was announced yesterday. It is the economic advice tendered on Wednesday, 21 March, which was yesterday, by ABN AMRO, under the title of Broadband dreaming. What the report says is as follows:

The ALP has proposed a Broadband PPP to build a ... network with a minimum 12 Mbps to 98% of households. We think it is an impractical proposal on many levels and is unlikely to be implemented.

It then goes on to say:

We think the proposal for a regulated access monopoly with a guaranteed return takes the industry back 20 years to Government provision, gold-plating and restricted rollout. It is productively and allocatively inefficient. It does not resolve access regulation issues but entrenches them and adds new inefficiencies. It re-establishes a conflict between Government as owner, whose dividends rely on access prices, and as regulator of access. It draws on funding it may not have legitimate right to.

Let me say in relation to that last sentence that I do not think any government in this country has the right to take the savings of future generations to fund today’s aspirations.