Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008. This bill is a small but highly significant step forward for telecommunications in this nation. The bill represents the first step in the Rudd government’s rollout of high-speed broadband to 98 per cent of the population. Of course, the first stage of the broadband rollout is to appropriate funding for that purpose. This bill will amend part 9C of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999, removing the requirement for the balance of the Communications Fund to remain above $2 billion. This will enable government to access the $2 billion in the Communications Fund to part-fund the rollout of Labor’s national broadband plan.

Labor’s national broadband network will transform communications in this country. With applications in e-medicine, education, commerce and entertainment, Labor’s network will be a revolution for those people in our community who cannot access high-speed broadband, let alone at an affordable price. Labor made it very, very clear in the lead-up to the election campaign what its policies were in the area of broadband. It was a policy area of very stark contrast between our policies for the future and those of the coalition, who I believe had a backward view and were trying to play catch-up in this area. Labor’s national broadband plan will provide speeds of up to 12 megabits per second—40 times faster than is currently available to many households and businesses. The Rudd government understands that access to high-speed broadband is highly beneficial to business, to communities and to individuals. It is vital for the long-term productivity and prosperity of our nation. That is why we announced, prior to the election, that we would invest up to $4.7 billion to build a national broadband network. This major investment in infrastructure will provide the basis for ongoing economic growth for decades to come. As my colleague the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the member for Grayndler, pointed out in his second reading speech, under the previous government’s snail pace, residents and business throughout Australia would be waiting 35 years to reach the same level of investment that Labor is now prepared to make. Given that the internet was not available those 35 years ago, imagine where we could be in 35 years time when you consider where we are starting now with Labor’s broadband network. The Communications Fund was established by the former government to fund, albeit very slowly, the telecommunications needs of residents and businesses in rural, remote and regional areas, and this is exactly the purpose for which we will use the $2 billion in the fund. But we will invest in infrastructure much, much faster than had been intended by those opposite. Australians are tired of waiting for high-speed internet access. They know that we are a broadband backwater, thanks to the inaction and the slow progress of the former government.

I know that here in my own electorate of Canberra there is a great need for improved broadband access—even in the national capital. I think that many people believe that difficulties in accessing broadband are predominantly a problem in rural and regional areas, but this is not so. I would like to share with the House some of the experiences from my electorate. Approximately 10 kilometres from Parliament House is the suburb of Chifley in the Woden Valley—and a lovely suburb it is too. I know of one apartment block in Chifley called The Hermitage, right on the main road, which cannot get access to broadband. There are 75 units in the complex. Telstra tells the residents that they are too far away from the exchange. My office has been contacted by one lady there who is semi-retired. She uses the internet to keep in touch with family and friends, as well as it making a major contribution to the professional society in which she is very active. My office has made representations to Telstra on her behalf, and for the possible benefit of all of the other residents in The Hermitage or elsewhere in that region, but unfortunately so far without success. She is forced to rely on dial-up internet or she has to pay thousands of dollars for a satellite dish to be installed on the roof of her apartment block. They are the suggestions. That is no small cost when you consider her apartment is on the ground floor. I would like the people opposite to explain to this lovely lady why she cannot access ADSL in the national capital, only 10 kilometres from this very building. After almost 12 years in government, I really think that the ball was dropped in relation to broadband and the extension of communications at a new-world level here in Australia.

I would like to share another experience from my electorate which highlights the economic and environmental benefits of Labor’s rollout of high-speed broadband. Some months ago my office was contacted by a gentleman who lives in the suburb of Bonython, a little bit further south than Chifley. It is about 20 kilometres south of Parliament House. He works in computer programming for a large multinational technology company. He cannot get ADSL at home, let alone anything faster such as ADSL2. The lack of high-speed broadband is directly limiting his productivity and that of the company he works for. This means that instead of working from home, which was his preferred option—which his employer was very happy for him to do—he has to commute to work each day. That means of course another car on the road, more cost and so on. I know that his case is not unique. I know that this is happening in other parts of the country—in many, many parts of the country—and we really do need to do something about it to move us forward into the digital age.

Prior to the election, I had the opportunity to visit the Canberra Hospital with the then Leader of the Opposition, the now Prime Minister. Amongst other things, we met senior medical staff who told us of the huge benefits high-speed broadband can deliver to patients of that hospital. For those who do not know, the local Canberra Hospital services a very large part of southern New South Wales. It is a regional centre, in many ways, for medicine. The introduction of e-medicine via high-speed broadband will have massive benefits to patients and hospital staff. Doctors will be able to conduct interviews with patients over the internet and it will allow the transmission of complex case documents and the results of medical testing and diagnosis procedures to be sent over the internet. This is only one area where we could stand to benefit from high-speed broadband here in my local community.

I can remember, at an earlier time in this place, an inquiry by a parliamentary committee into telemedicine. My recollection of that inquiry is that the faster the speed, the better the connection for broadband and IT connections generally, and the possibilities were almost limitless for diagnosis of a range of issues, transfer of X-rays and transfer of data. I know that in some parts of the country we were already able to do that and do it well, but we have not reached our potential. There is far more that we can do, but we must have very good, high-quality, high-speed data transmission to really reach the potential of what we can do in the area of e-medicine or telemedicine, as we called it then. That would also, of course, help us with some of our regional neighbours.

I hope that, through the examples I have given today, people begin to understand the breadth of the problems with the current telecommunications networks. They are simply not sufficient and we as a nation cannot afford to sit back and wait for industry to get around to making the required investments. Government really must take a lead in the debate in this country, and that is exactly what the Rudd Labor government said it would do and it is exactly what the Rudd Labor government is doing.

As I said at the outset, the bill represents a very significant first step in bringing the Australian community and economy into the digital age. The Australian public wants a high-speed broadband network and our economy needs it sooner rather than later. I am very proud to speak on this bill today, as it represents the first step in a quantum leap forward for all Australians. Can I conclude by referring to the large number of consultations I have been involved in, particularly over the last 12 months, around the region on this very question. You could not go anywhere without people saying: ‘One of the best things that the Rudd opposition is proposing is to do the broadband thing—to pick up this policy and run with it. Do everything in your power to offer as many people as possible good, high-quality, high-speed data connection.’ We are talking about individuals, families and small business particularly around the different parts of this region. I am very pleased to think that we are moving forward. We are determined to get this policy up and running, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the improvements that I know we can offer to the majority, 98 per cent, of Australians over the coming years in respect of broadband connection in Australia.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Paradise, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker! It is almost like being a Western Australian. Member for Canberra, have I got a deal for you in relation to the units in Chifley that you mentioned in your speech. You said that 75 units had no access to broadband. Tomorrow, Member for Canberra, I can get all of those residents connected to a broadband system faster than ADSL—and it is not satellite. If you would like me to tell you the way to do it after this speech, I am happy to do that. It is available now, tonight. You basically misled parliament tonight when you indicated that those people in those units cannot get broadband. They can get broadband, and I will explain how it is possible. That is one of the problems—getting everyone to understand the technology and how things can be done. I have good news for you.

For those who are listening to this broadcast tonight—wherever you are across this big, brown land of ours; from the north to the south, from the east to the west—I want you to know what this Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008 in the parliament tonight is about. The bill is giving the parliament the licence to steal from the Australian taxpayers. They are pretty emotive words, but that is effectively what the Labor Party is asking the parliament for tonight. The former government set aside $2 billion, partially out of the sale of the proceeds of Telstra—

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Shame.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Member for New England. Haven’t you noticed that telecommunications have got much better in this country since that was done? Of course, you would want to stay in the past. Now I have been thrown off track. Two billion dollars was set aside from the sale of Telstra to be used as a perpetual fund to improve telecommunications progressively in rural and regional Australia. I unashamedly and proudly stand here tonight as a representative from regional Australia, and I am being forced to defend the Labor Party’s decision to effectively transfer this money back into metropolitan Australia. How dare they do that. How dare they put that to the parliament. How dare they treat rural and regional residents in such a way. How they propose to do it is in fact to take the money out of the Communications Fund and basically spend it on broadband infrastructure in metropolitan Australia, an area where services are already being provided at no cost to the government, through private providers. It just does not make sense. It concerns me very much that rural and regional Australia is being treated in this way.

Why does it surprise me that the Labor Party would be proposing to steal money out of this fund, to steal thousands of millions of dollars? I remember, and the defence community continues to remind me, that initially defence superannuation was fully funded. That means that money was put aside every year to pay the entitlements of defence members when they fell due. So what happened in the Whitlam years? Mr Whitlam, his cabinet and his Labor government raided the superannuation fund of Defence Force members. What did they do? They spent the lot. Here we are again, 30 years later, with a communications fund that is locked up for the purpose of providing faster, more appropriate services to rural and regional Australia. What are Labor up to? They are raiding the fund. That should not be allowed to happen. Surely my colleagues on the other side—like the member for Lowe—are sensible enough to understand that this is wrong. It is not what should be done.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can assure you I am very sensitive.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lowe for his support for me, and I hope that he stands up in his party room tomorrow and says, ‘I object to this.’

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a nonsensical proposition.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps the member for New England would like to support me in this as well. It is wrong. What is Labor’s position on broadband? Summed up in a nutshell: it is to spend public money providing broadband speeds to everybody in Australia. If that means running a fibre-optic cable up every gum tree in the country, that is what Labor will do. That is Labor’s commitment, but it is a nonsense. Telecommunications is expanding and changing so rapidly these days that new technologies are constantly becoming available. I remind you that it was only four years ago that Labor was pushing 40 kilobytes per second dial-up internet as the way of the future. By the time we get around to doing the things that this bill is proposed to fund, things will have changed yet again. These days, dial-up internet is a dinosaur. They do not even have a computer anymore that will perform the dial-up function. That is the way of the world as things move faster and faster with new technology.

We have seen the advent of wireless technology, where large areas can be serviced from a single-base station cell. That wireless technology can be WiMAX or it can be Next G. Already Next G is available in 98 per cent of the country. You can get fast broadband speeds now. The only place that you cannot service with this technology—perhaps two per cent of the country—is the back of Bourke.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish!

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said ‘the back of Bourke’. I did not say ‘Bourke’, Member for New England. Lord Howe Island has difficulty. The way to solve that is through the former government’s and the current government’s broadband guarantee, which allows a subsidy for satellite services so that no Australian is disadvantaged. And that is the way it should be.

Labor’s fixed broadband proposal comes at a time when broadband delivery through wireless and other mixed technologies is rapidly gaining momentum. You now see people all over the place with their laptops, wherever they are, with their little cards plugged into the side of their laptops. They are on the net, surfing and doing their business. Of course, this is the way that the member for Canberra can solve her problem in respect of the 75 units in Chifley. It works at high speed—faster than ADSL—it is reliable and it works wherever you are. Labor wants to roll out broadband across the country over the next five years. It will slowly bleed the Communications Fund dry and have little to show for it at the end of the day.

The private providers in the metropolitan areas should be providing the capital to do all of this, because they are the people who will take the benefit, the dividend and the profit. In the metro areas it is quite lucrative for the private providers to provide these services, yet Labor wants to spend rural and regional Australia’s money on metro services that would be provided anyway by the private providers. That is just not sensible. That is why this bill should be voted down.

I started off by saying that this bill was effectively a licence to steal—to steal from regional and rural Australia. The previous government’s—now the alternative government of this country—attempt to future-proof regional Australia from falling behind metro centres in accessing improved communications technology is now very much under threat. And it should not be. This fund was set up for the ongoing benefit of households in rural and regional Australia, and they should be protected. It is wrong; it is stealing. Income from the fund was specifically and exclusively mandated to support communications services outside the metro area but, if this fund is run down, there will be no income. It therefore follows that there will be no support. Those in rural and regional Australia who are listening to the parliament tonight will be quite angry to know that Labor is stealing their money. This is not just rhetoric—it is not about my standing up at the dispatch box—it is what is happening. A fund that was set up for the benefit of rural and regional Australia—thousands of millions of dollars—will now be snaffled up by the Labor Party and spent in metropolitan Australia. I think there will be a revolt when people in rural and regional Australia understand what the Labor Party is doing.

The Prime Minister and the Labor Party went to the electorate promising that they would do something about petrol prices, grocery prices and mortgage rates. It was part of the central plank of the Labor Party’s campaign. The electorate trusted the Labor Party and expected this to happen, but the government is now taking away the money earmarked for rural and regional Australia. We will see telecommunications prices, petrol prices, grocery prices and mortgage rates go up. People will realise by the time of the next election that they have been sold a pup, just as this bill is a pup in relation to rural and regional Australia. I absolutely reject and oppose the legislation before the parliament tonight.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened with some degree of interest to the member for Herbert’s contribution to this debate on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008. I noted that he was having some difficulty determining whether it was Lord Howe Island or Norfolk Island; having listened to his contribution, I think he has had a visit to Fantasy Island. I can assure the member for Herbert that he is very much out of touch with the service levels that a lot of country Australians are getting. And he stood up as a proponent of regional telecommunications. I would invite him to come to an electorate which is not at the back of Bourke but within 350 kilometres of Sydney and spend some time looking at some of the issues that happen in the real world.

In the community of Yetman, on the Queensland border, for instance, they are still having difficulty getting mobile phones. The so-called Communications Fund that the member for Herbert was talking about allowed $100 million a year. Many of those communities, like Acacia Plateau, closer to Brisbane, have had proposals put to them by Telstra Country Wide—the company that the former Liberal government was more than happy to sell and where competition was going to deliver outcomes to people—whereby if they provide the land, the electricity to the land, the road to the land and the tower on the land, Telstra will look at putting an antenna on the tower. That is what this has come to: all of the promises, commitments and rubbish that were peddled about the sale of Telstra and the guarantees that were given time and time again as to what would happen, and it would all be all right. I have attended meetings at the Yetmans and the Acacia Plateaus, and I have not seen all the private providers gathered there in a competitive process to provide modern technology to country people.

The $100 million that the member for Herbert has spent time talking about tonight—and no doubt others will as well—is a pittance and was a pittance. The member for Herbert and others who were in government at the time would have known that our Constitution does not allow for one parliament to bind another parliament. They knew exactly what they were doing when this compromise—a $2 billion Communications Fund to future-proof country Australia—was put in place. More times than not they forgot to add that it was actually the interest on the $2 billion, which is probably about $100 million annually, to future-proof country Australia. The first bit of future that came along was Next G; and we have this absurd scenario being played out at the moment where people have been sold product not fit for purpose. Where has this future-proofing been in the last 12 months? What has it been doing for those people who have been sold dodgy phones, who have been sold a pup in terms of the technology that they were told would be an improvement on the technology that they had before? If there was ever a reason for the demise of the National Party, this is a classic example of it. This whole scenario really encapsulates the reason that people have walked away. Even some of the elderly, retired members and some of those who have more recently retired are walking away and agreeing to a merger with the Liberal Party.

Ninety to 95 per cent of country Australians did not want Telstra sold. So what did the National Party do? They sold it. The Page Research Centre did a survey about what would be the price of the sale. What would we need to adequately ensure that country Australians had an equitable service? It came up with $7 billion. Then the saviour of the country, Senator Barnaby Joyce, called for a $5 billion future-proofing arrangement. Eventually they settled on the interest on $2 billion, which was back to $100 million annually—or 20 years to get to the $2 billion, for something that the people they represented did not want sold in the first place. Out of a $57.7 billion asset, Australia has enjoyed the benefits of about $1.1 billion. And the member for Herbert describes what is happening today as a disgraceful thing. I think the disgrace occurred some time back.

I was at the Senate doors on the day the then President of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Corish, came out of a meeting with some of the government ministers—Mark Vaile, John Anderson and a few others—and endorsed the sale. And the National Farmers Federation wonder why they have absolutely no regard in this building! He endorsed the sale of Telstra, even though their membership, their constituency, had said no—as was the case with the National Party constituency. The reason he gave was the reason that Senator Joyce eventually gave in his support in the Senate debate at the time. The President of the National Farmers Federation, Peter Corish, said: ‘We are about delivering equity of access to country Australians, and the government has guaranteed us that it will be enshrined in legislation that there be equity of access to broadband and telephone services.’ Some hours later, the ‘champion of the bush’, Senator Barnaby Joyce, supported the sale—on the back of that promise.

That was when the damage was done, Member for Herbert. That is when the sell-out, the theft, occurred. That is when country Australians were sold out by their so-called representatives. That was the last opportunity that the National Party and, in my view, the National Farmers Federation had to purport to actually represent a constituency. Polls done in a number of electorates, including many of the then government electorates, showed opposition to the sale. In Gwydir, 81 per cent were opposed; in Parkes, 88 per cent were opposed; in Riverina, 85 per cent were opposed; in Farrer, 82 per cent were opposed; in Page, 81 per cent were opposed; in Richmond, 73 per cent were opposed; and in Cowper, 91 per cent were opposed.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who was the member for Gwydir?

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you would recall who the member for Gwydir was, Member for Lowe. The New South Wales Farmers Federation, an organisation that I was proud to be a member of, sold out their constituency—absolutely sold out. They are now running around the countryside complaining about Next G and how they are going to champion those people who cannot receive modern technology, when they supported the sale of the vehicle that was producing enormous dividends. They sold not only a vehicle that was producing enormous dividends but also the political capacity to influence the debate into the future—and that is the great tragedy of this.

For people to suggest that the yearly interest on the $2 billion Communications Fund would future-proof country Australia is absurd. It is an absurd proposition. How are you going to guarantee technology that has not yet been invented? It is absurd to think that a fund such as the Communications Fund would carry so much weight that private entrepreneurs, including Telstra, and private businesses would capitulate and deliver technologies that have not even been thought of yet into the marketplace when they know full well that they are not going to get a financial return, a shareholder return, on delivering into communities like Yetman and Acacia Plateau or even into pockets of some bigger communities as well. The former government sold the political leverage that was required to deliver an essential service to country Australians.

We have had a lot of talk in this place about infrastructure—and we passed the Infrastructure Australia Bill only about an hour ago. The most important piece of infrastructure for this nation this century is not a road and it is not a railway line; it is telecommunications. Telecommunications is the one thing that negates distance as a disadvantage of being a country resident. In fact, it is the one piece of infrastructure that has the potential to reverse the slide. People are able to enjoy a lifestyle in the country and still perform at full capacity, productively et cetera, by way of modern telecommunications, if they can get access to that at equitable prices and if they can get an equitable quality of service. The former government sold out country Australians by selling the capacity to make sure that that happens through the political process.

A private company would not have been bound by the Communications Fund to provide telecommunications technology that has not yet been invented. Obviously its marketing would be driven by the size of the market and the potential to make money. If you do not believe that, have a look at what is happening in the airline business, where it costs nearly $1,000 to fly from Tamworth to Canberra and back when you can nearly go around the world for the same price. That is what we sold out on when the former government sold Telstra.

A number of issues have been raised here tonight, but there are two that I would like to bring up. I congratulate the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Conroy, for deferring the switch-off of CDMA to Next G.. There are still enormous problems there. I am actually in the process of surveying my electorate to find out where those problems are and what should be happening. There have been a number of mixed messages. One thing that came out of Senator Conroy’s decision is that he still maintains some degree of political leverage on Telstra. Once he says that CDMA can be turned off, any political pressure that can be leveraged against Telstra will be removed. The minister still has the capacity to influence the outcome of that particular issue.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member for New England is not speaking to the bill, as he is required to, and I ask you to bring him back to the content of the bill, please.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for New England will address the bill.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: the member for New England is making a lot of sense and a very valuable contribution to the debate.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Lowe. As I said, I congratulate Senator Conroy. If the member for Herbert had missed the connection with telecommunications, I note that Senator Conroy is the minister for communications and the minister in charge of this legislation, apparently. I congratulate him for the deferment of the switch-off.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on the point of order: the standing orders of the parliament require the member speaking to address the content of the bill. This is not the content of the bill, Member for New England, and you must address it, under the standing orders.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: with great respect to my colleague the member for Herbert, this is a wide-ranging debate and many issues have been canvassed by previous speakers. I think the member for New England is being very relevant and he should be allowed to continue.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On the point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: if you accept that it is a wide-ranging debate, the member for New England should speak about the OPEL proposal, which the former government signed and which delivers the telecommunications that he says are not being delivered.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! This is not a matter for debate. The member for New England is to address the bill, please.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The issue that the member for Herbert raises in terms of OPEL is an absolutely fascinating issue. I would like to spend a couple of minutes on it because it shows some of the ineptitude of the former government on this issue—probably more so than most other things. A contract was let. People tendered, including Telstra—and I have been critical of Telstra. From memory, I think they were asked to quote on $600 million. The contract that was finally let out to OPEL was for nearly $1 billion. Companies were asked to quote on providing a service for $600 million, but all of a sudden another $358 million, I think, was added when the contract was let.

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For your constituents.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes—have a look at the WiMAX technology! I congratulate Senator Conroy, who is in charge of this particular piece of legislation, for not turning off the CDMA service until the handsets particularly—but also some of the towers for reception in country areas—are brought up to scratch. I would urge him not to switch off CDMA on 28 April either, because we need to make sure that at this particular time in our history, with the former government having sold out a public instrumentality and with us converting to a new technology—that of Next G, access to which country Australians are not up to scratch with—we do not lose this piece of political leverage. The former government said—and I would have thought that the member for Herbert would be supportive of this—that they would enshrine in legislation equity of access, in terms of quality and cost, to broadband and telephone services. If the member for Herbert wants to address these issues with respect to fairness, maybe he could elaborate as to where that particular guarantee was enshrined. Where was it enshrined in legislation? The answer is that it was not. Country people and members of parliament who were here then know they were duped into selling an asset that was not only a valuable commodity but far more valuable in terms of its capacity to deliver services to people. The role of government is to provide those sorts of services into the future. Providing those services—which may or may not be economic in terms of size, scale and magnitude of delivery—is what the role of government is supposed to be about, I would have thought. They sold out. For the National Party to be part and parcel of it and actually carry the coffin to the grave really encapsulates why the credibility of that party has diminished and why it will fade away, and deserves to fade away, into the sunset. (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Ageing and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008 as I believe it is a raid on rural Australia and its telecommunications future, but I cannot leave the comments from the previous speaker, the member for New England, unanswered. I was not in this House last year; I am a new member. But last year I was the mayor of a shire that was partly inside the member for New England’s area. Part of my role as a mayor was to encourage businesspeople and skilled tradespeople to come to fill particular skills shortages in my electorate and to move and build up our population. We went to a function in Sydney called Country Week, to which medical professionals, builders, plumbers and small business people came. They asked me where I was from. I said that I came from the Gwydir shire, which is in the New England region of New South Wales. Someone said, ‘We can’t go there; the phones don’t work. I run a business and I need to have a mobile phone. If our family is going to be away, we need broadband.’ But the member for New England did not say in his speech that all the towns in his electorate have broadband and mobile phone coverage and that most of the rural areas in between do as well. We hear a lot of half-truths in this debate about the rollout of telecommunications in regional Australia. Later on I will get on to how we have some holes to fill and how we will have problems in the future.

I think that the negative argument that has been led by the member for New England has done irreparable damage to the growth of that electorate. I am wondering, as the representative of that area for over 20 years, what sort of a contribution he has made to the growth of that area. He spoke of 95 per cent of the people in his electorate opposing the sale of Telstra. What he did not say was that it was 95 per cent of the five per cent of the people that responded to his survey. He spoke about Next G not being up to scratch. I can remember hearing him on ABC radio late last year, having spent all day with a Telstra crew in a car, commenting that the Next G coverage that he was experiencing as he drove from Tamworth through the electorate, ending up at Wallangra and Yetman, was actually better than CDMA. While I acknowledge that we do have problems, I think the idea of taking a debate and focusing on the negatives is doing enormous damage to rural Australia, and I take particular offence that it is affecting my area as well.

The interest from the Communications Fund, as the member for New England stated, was to fund upgrades of regional telecommunications. People living outside metropolitan areas need reliable access to telecommunications services. The days of having mobile coverage are no longer a luxury; they are part of doing business in Australia. If you listen to the arguments of the member for New England, you would think that phones did not work. He mentioned the town of Yetman. Yetman is in need of a phone tower because there are areas where phones do not work. I pass through Yetman on a regular basis. I used to cart cattle through there on a weekly basis and I have memories of making phone calls in that same area on my mobile phone.

In the 12 years of the previous government we saw an enormous rollout of mobile phone coverage and towers right across regional Australia, but there are still some holes. In areas of my electorate we still have some holes in mobile phone coverage. The Mudgee-Goolma area has poor mobile phone coverage, as do the towns of Pilliga and Collie and a few other places like those. This fund was vitally important to keep that upgrade going. The Next G network is having major problems, but the issue is with the handsets. I have spent considerable time testing the network. I am convinced that the network is up to scratch, but Telstra has sold many handsets that are not up to scratch. I think that it needs to address that problem.

John Murphy (Lowe, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is it in Dunedoo?

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Ageing and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I actually spoke on my mobile phone in Dunedoo the week before last. I can hold a conversation from Dubbo through Dunedoo and Coolah right up Mullaley into Gunnedah and it does not drop out. This is one of the falsehoods that has been put around. I am not denying that we have problems with telecommunications. That is why I am speaking to this bill and that is why I think it is appalling that the new government is taking away this infrastructure fund and putting it into the cities. This telecommunications debate is doing enormous harm to regional Australia because it is actually slanting the real picture. We have farmers right across the electorate now doing business as they sit on their tractors. In my last harvest, I was dealing with three or four grain traders interstate and I was keeping up to date with the latest cargo prices on my satellite broadband under the HiBIS scheme that was brought in by the previous government, even though I was living in a remote area. I might add that, upon complaints from our local areas, Telstra spent over $1 million on my local remote exchange and the people where I formerly lived had their issues addressed. I think we need to keep a balance in this debate.

The issue of telecommunications involves more than mobile phones; it also involves broadband. Some of the areas where my electorate is deficient in broadband might surprise you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Dubbo is the largest town in my electorate and large areas of Dubbo do not have broadband access. They do have access to broadband on the Next G network, but it is dearer than ADSL. It is causing enormous problems. I was speaking to a teacher who is doing a masters degree and was frustrated at not having ADSL connected to his house whereas the people on the other side of the street did. The proposal by the previous government, with the OPEL consortium, to install WiMAX would have solved this problem in Dubbo in a very short time. I know that the people of Dubbo cannot wait for a fibre-to-the-node system to be delivered by 2013. They need a reliable broadband service now. They were waiting with great anticipation for the rollout of the OPEL network and have been disappointed that that has not happened. The other issue with broadband is that with ADSL we have good coverage in the towns but we need to continue the HiBIS scheme with satellite connections in regional areas. Broadband is vitally important for people in regional Australia. Due to their isolation, many children are now doing their lessons by broadband on satellite. Many people undertaking tertiary education are doing remote courses using broadband. We need to make sure that people in regional Australia are kept up to date with the latest technology when it comes out.

With the overall debate on the proposal to raid the infrastructure fund, I think that the government should reconsider. Rural Australia is on the verge of growth. The quality of life in city areas has got to the stage now where people are looking inland. It is important that we keep that infrastructure rolled out so that people can do business in regional areas. I know with transport, it is important that companies can keep track of their trucks and, for safety, drivers need to be in touch with home bases all the time, so we need to fill in these holes in mobile coverage. The bill takes away the measures that were put in place by the previous government to protect the people of rural and regional Australia. I think that the warning bells should probably be ringing, because one of the first bills introduced by the new government into this House is attacking rural and regional Australia. We in regional Australia are not looking for a superior service to that of the cities, but we are looking for an equal service.

I think fibre to the node is an ill-conceived proposal. It is estimated that it will take until 2013 to roll out and it is supposedly going to achieve 98 per cent coverage, but I can guess where that other two per cent will be. The other issue with fibre to the node is that it is replicating a network and giving the opportunity for monopoly control over broadband. It will take broadband away from the system and out of the exchanges we have now. A parallel network will be set up which will give the opportunity for monopoly control over future broadband. I think that the government needs to consider this aspect of the rollout. If this bill is passed then the money that should be spent on ensuring that regional areas get the telecommunications upgrade they need will be diverted back in Labor’s city based policies. This bill comes at a time when money needs to be spent on improving telecommunications in rural and regional Australia. This bill is not in the best interest of rural and regional Australians and I strongly oppose it.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in the House on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008, because it is a very important bill for this country. We have only 0.3 per cent of the world’s population living on some 5.1 per cent of the world’s landmass. Australians live and work in communities scattered right around the country. The tyranny of distance and isolation presents a set of unique challenges for regional and remote Australia. Today I rise to speak of the challenges facing regional Australia in the area of telecommunications and to highlight the danger that this bill poses to the future of telecommunications in regional areas.

When it undertook to privatise Telstra, the coalition government realised that private enterprise would struggle to provide viable telecommunications services in many regional areas. We needed to allow for additional funding to protect the interests of the people who lived in those areas where it was not commercially viable to provide many of the services which people in the city take for granted. As a result, the coalition announced a $1.1 billion plan for direct capital investment into regional telecommunications through the Connect Australia scheme. Connect Australia aimed to improve broadband to people living in regional, rural and remote areas; extend mobile phone coverage; build new regional communications networks; and set up telecommunications services for remote Indigenous communities. All of these, members would have to agree, are worthy ends.

In addition, the previous government fought for and delivered a $2 billion Communications Fund, with interest gained from this investment to be used to deliver First World communications services to remote and regional Australia—areas in which, as I said, these particular services would not be commercially viable. It was interesting that this particular program aimed not only to deliver the services that we know and take for granted today but also to deliver services that are yet to be invented. I found it quite curious that the member for New England, being the intellectual giant that we all know he is, could not contemplate services that he could not imagine. I am sorry to say that the member for New England is living in the past. The member for New England perhaps cannot imagine services in the future, but the former government could. The former government very clearly realised that there would be technologies coming on stream that are either in the very early stages of development now or yet to be developed. The former government also realised that if regional Australia was going to compete and continue to be competitive in world markets then it would have to have access to those types of technologies and that perhaps those technologies would not be commercially viable in remote areas. That was just one of the reasons why this fund was set up.

Income from the fund was earmarked to finance the government’s response to independent reviews of regional telecommunications services. This would include the development of infrastructure for regional communities, such as additional mobile towers, the provision of broadband and backhaul fibre capabilities. The Communications Fund was not a one-off exercise; it was a visionary plan to protect regional telecommunications services well into the future. If the past two decades are anything to go by, the next two decades will be a time of great advancement and great development in technology. Who would have imagined 15 years ago the progress of the internet today? Who would have imagined that young students in an isolated area would be receiving their lessons via satellite? It is not that long ago that we were experimenting with the pedal wireless for the flying doctor. Telecommunications is moving at a fast pace. Who would have imagined the growth in mobile phone use?

Labor anticipated future developments in telecommunications so well that just four years ago they wanted to extend dial-up internet to every Australian. Dial-up was apparently the answer four years ago to our communication needs. What happened? Their policy changed. They went from having a policy where Australia would be left behind to looking at something different. They said: ‘What’s trendy in the area of telecommunications? Fibre is trendy. We’ll roll out fibre everywhere—where it is viable, where it is not viable and where it is needed.’ It is really quite ridiculous.

The previous government had a very balanced stance. They had a program in place that would basically use a range of technologies to provide the very best telecommunications services for the circumstances in which they were to be delivered. Labor, on the other hand, is purely using hype to talk about the fibre optic backbone that will not be delivered for many years to come. As technology develops, it is vitally important that our businesspeople, educators, students and medical professionals in regional areas have access to the very best in telecommunications services—and the previous government was working to deliver that. The previous government knew that medical services needed quality telecommunications and that business, if it was to compete, needed exactly the same—and we were delivering that.

This legislation is paving the way for the current government to effectively turn the clock back on regional Australia. This legislation will not take us forward; it will turn the clock back. Labor’s broadband policy was released 11 months ago, and we still have no details about the network, who will build it, how much it will cost, how it will be accessed, who can access it and where it can be accessed from. We do not know those facts at this late stage, and regional Australia is rightfully concerned about this. It is quite clearly another example of Labor policy on the run. It is quite clearly another area in which Labor has looked at the trendy solutions to make a good sound bite and then proposed to roll it out, regardless of what that means for the future of telecommunications in regional areas.

The Prime Minister announced that Labor would build a broadband network, but then there was silence. There have been no details of costings and no consultation. So far, all we have heard is a notion that one day, off in the future, at least 98 per cent of Australians will have access to high-speed broadband. I see problems with this lack of a plan. The first is that the government’s plan will be rolled out over the next five years. Presumably, regional areas will receive their network much later. If you are in a metropolitan area where services could have been provided commercially and there was no need for taxpayer funded investment, you will get your fibre-optic rollout quickly. If you are in a regional area that is absolutely dependent on telecommunications to remain competitive, you will have to wait an indeterminate time for it. You will have to wait for a service that you do not know how, when, where and by whom it will be delivered. All these things are unknown. It is quite right that there is concern among people in regional areas about this. We have seen Labor’s form in telecommunications. We have seen them in the past turn off the analog phone network. What did they put in its place? They put nothing in its place. They turned off the analog network, sold off the licences and put nothing in its place. That is the way that Labor dealt with the telecommunications needs of regional consumers in the past. I would say that current regional consumers do not trust Labor anymore and that they are very concerned.

The Australian reported on 1 February that both Telstra and the G9 group were privately saying that the government’s plan to reach 98 per cent of the population with fibre to the node may be unviable and that a mix of technologies would be a better outcome. A mix of technologies sounds very much like the OPEL consortium that the previous government proposed to deliver quality broadband service through a range of technologies. We live in a very large land, with very difficult conditions in which to deliver telecommunications services. It demands a range of technical solutions to provide the best service at the best cost. Anybody in this room could probably design a bridge that would stand up, but it takes a skilled engineer to design a bridge that provides a maximum strength at the least cost—and it is the same with a telecommunications network. You can design a network by press release, or you can design a network by using the best possible technologies for the applications required.

The OPEL consortium was in stark contrast to Labor’s telecommunications policy by press release. It planned to deliver broadband strategy to 99 per cent of the population by 2009—not years off into the future, but by 2009—and achieve network speeds of 10 megabits by June 2009. What is going to happen to the government’s proposal by June 2009? There will probably be a lot more press releases, probably a lot more hype, probably a lot more hot air but probably a lot fewer services to people in regional areas.

Another problem that I see with this plan is that the very companies the government expects to build the network have already told Labor that they will build it themselves. As I said, this is investment in communications infrastructure by the taxpayer that would have been provided commercially at commercial rates of return. Is it good use of taxpayers’ money to invest in a service that the private sector was going to deliver anyway? I think not. It is a woeful use of taxpayers’ money. We should, as the previous government did, invest in telecommunications services where it would not have been commercially viable. That is a far better use of public money. It is far more logical and far more responsible than telecommunications services by press release. The whole purpose of the telecommunications fund—the fund that this government is proposing to take away—was to invest in those very technologies that would not be provided commercially.

On top of the fact that the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy wants to use taxpayers’ funds to build a network that would almost certainly be commercially viable without funding, the government’s plan still has no detail. The minister is apparently confused about his own plan. He is apparently not sure whether he wants fibre to the node or fibre to the home. They are very basic concepts but there seems to be a degree of confusion on the part of the good senator. Senator Conroy seems to be confusing the two concepts—fibre to the node or fibre to the home. Which is it going to be, Minister?

During the election campaign, he passed through a small town in my electorate—the town of Lowanna—spruiking Labor’s broadband plan. The problem is that he could not then and cannot now tell the people of Lowanna whether they will get high-speed fibre under the government’s plan. Will Lowanna be in the two per cent who miss out, or will it be serviced by its very own fibre optic network? I am not sure. The minister is not sure. People are not sure what they will get out of the government’s plan. I would suggest that the only thing they can be certain to get from the government’s plan is years of neglect. The people in regional Australia are all too used to the Labor Party’s endless neglect. It will be just like the time when Labor turned off the analog network—an unconscionable move. Labor does not aim to deliver better services; instead, it turns off services and puts nothing in their place.

Considering that the government has introduced a bill that deals with more than $2 billion that belongs to the people of Australia, I believe it would be appropriate for the people of regional Australia to know what was going to happen to the $2 billion that was previously earmarked to provide them with the services that they rightly deserve. I contend that they are not going to be receiving value for that money, which could be invested in Sydney or Melbourne. I think that the people of regional Australia are being ripped off by the proposed government bill. In opposing this bill, I have another major objection. As I mentioned, the Communications Fund is intended to address the ongoing needs of regional Australians.

Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 8.30 pm the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The debate is adjourned, and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.