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 continuation on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008. It is interesting to see that we are now getting on with the real business of this House, and that is discussing matters of interest to the people of this country. Telecommunications is, as I said in my earlier contribution, vitally important to the people of regional and rural Australia.

We saw many services expanded and improved by the Howard government—services in the areas of health, education, telecommunications and infrastructure. The coalition government was a government which looked to regional Australia and its needs and delivered on those needs. What we have seen from Labor in their brief few moments in office is that they have already begun to roll back the level of services in regional and rural Australia, roll back the degree of support for the people of regional and rural Australia.

We know that regional areas are strong drivers of economic growth. But, in order to continue to deliver jobs and wealth, not only for regional areas but for the nation generally, we need the support of good infrastructure—both physical infrastructure and telecommunications infrastructure. This bill strikes at the heart of the improvements that have been made in recent times. One of the drivers of growth, particularly in my electorate, has been the ability of businesses to access ever-improving telecommunications services. This allows businesses to relocate and operate effectively in a regional area. It allows them to compete effectively from regional locations, and in some cases remote locations, against metropolitan and international competitors.

The government are going to roll back the support that is being offered. What does this bill do? This bill potentially takes away the opportunity for regional businesses and regional telecommunications consumers to access future technology. Not only do we have to make allowances for the technologies that exist today; we have to ensure that there is equity in the delivery of future technologies. What we are seeing today is just like when Labor slammed the door on the analog network and put nothing in its place. They turned off a communications lifeline that was necessary not only for business but also for safety out in regional areas. They closed it down and put nothing in its place. I guess that really is what the Labor Party offer regional Australia: nothing. In winding back this potential access to future technologies, they are continuing to stay true to form.

We see Dr Bill Glasson, a man I respect greatly, conducting the review into telecommunications in regional areas—travelling the countryside, having hearings with people in regional areas and assessing their needs—but the concern for regional consumers, on the findings that he delivers, is where the money is going to come from to finance those improvements and where the money is going to come from for those new technologies that are going to be needed by business. I think it is an absolute disgrace that the return from that fund, the $2 billion invested at a return, will not be dedicated solely to regional and rural telecommunications. Regional areas are being ripped off. Regional areas are again, under Labor, going to become a poor cousin. That has some very dramatic effects. I have seen unemployment plummet in my electorate in recent times due to the good economic policies of the previous government. We have seen a strong economy generate jobs. What we know is that it is an ever more competitive economy, that businesses have to become smarter at what they do just to stay level with their competitors and that they have to become a lot smarter at what they do to grow and get ahead.

The way in which this government is neglecting regional areas and the way in which this government is taking away access to future technology are going to mean higher unemployment in regional areas, lower incomes in regional areas and a lack of ability of regional areas to compete. It will be on the heads of the Australian Labor Party when, in a few years time, they wake up to the fact that regional areas are no longer progressing and that they are losing their competitive advantage. I think they will have to appoint another inquiry. They will probably have to have an inquiry into why regional areas are falling behind and perhaps appoint a telecommunications commissioner to make a lot of meaningless gestures about the future of telecommunications in regional areas. We do not need another inquiry. We do not need another commissioner. What we need is a commitment by this government not to political stunts like we saw in the House this morning but to supporting regional telecommunications and to ensuring that the funds that were to be dedicated to future technologies remain for the benefit of regional Australia.

The coalition government, as I said, supported regional telecommunications, and Labor is taking it away. What is the Labor Party going to say to young people in my electorate when they can no longer get a job as a result of lack of business competitiveness in regional areas? What is it going to say? What is its telecommunications commissioner going to do—make a few grandiose statements? Are we going to have a long, involved inquiry into why regional areas are not keeping up? This is where symbolism needs to stop and good policy needs to develop. We have seen endless symbolism from this government. Regional Australia has a symbolism of its own. It is a symbol of what can be achieved with good support. The successes we have achieved in regional areas are a symbol of what can be achieved outside of our metropolitan areas. It is a symbol of what can be achieved when business works together with the support of government to deliver jobs and to improve the lot of people in regional areas.

We see many of our metropolitan areas struggling to cope under the stresses of their large populations, yet we have huge opportunities to provide employment in regional areas, taking pressure off metropolitan areas and giving people a lifestyle choice—whether they want to pursue a rewarding career in a regional location as opposed to pursuing a career in a metropolitan location. If you take away the telecommunications backup, the system will fall down. The Labor Party knows it, but it does not care about people in regional areas. It has contempt for people in regional areas. It has got form on this. I do not commend the bill to the House. I register my strong objection to the contents of this bill.

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008. By way of background, it is important to note the significant record of assistance given by the former coalition government in upgrading telecommunications infrastructure over the past decade. The crowning glory of these achievements was the $2 billion Communications Fund created by the former government, which is under threat by this bill. We know the Labor Party never liked the fund. They wanted to get rid of it, just like they wanted to raid the Future Fund, to suit their own partisan political motives. The former government, of course, reinforced the integrity of the Communications Fund by passing the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill 2007, which augmented the effectiveness of this fund through making it a perpetual fund and requiring it to maintain a minimum principal of $2 billion. Sadly, as my colleagues have noted, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008, among other things, essentially reverses this important mechanism.

This is yet another example of what we can expect under Labor. They are going to raid the coalition’s Communications Fund for their own purposes, leaving many thousands of consumers and telecommunications users in the lurch. It is clear that the Communications Fund is of critical importance to some of the potentially more disadvantaged consumers—namely, those in rural and regional areas. Here we have another prime example of Labor’s disdain for those living in the country. It is nothing new to people in my electorate—they are used to Labor Party saying one thing and doing another—but the very legislation we debate today removes an inherent and ingrained aspect of the former government’s legislation that proudly protects the people in rural and regional areas, those who rely so heavily on telecommunications and access to quality services. All throughout the recent election campaign, the coalition challenged the Labor Party to provide the costings, coverage maps and technical information about their broadband proposal for the full scrutiny of the Australian public. It became quite clear that the Labor Party did not have a genuine broadband strategy for Australians beyond the major capital cities. Their plan continues to be light on detail with no technical backing. The Labor Party’s city focused plan is to build fibre-to-the-node services that will cost taxpayers around five times more, yet deliver speeds that are no faster than ADSL2 or WiMax. It will not provide for fibre to every isolated farmhouse, unlike the satellite subsidy that was the coalition government’s policy.

Over the last few years, Labor has failed to keep up with the coalition in having a policy for bringing telecommunications to rural areas. Does anyone genuinely believe that Labor will now install new fibre to the node to every isolated farmhouse? Of course not, and that is why a wireless service is far more practical and affordable for rural internet users and for the taxpayer. At the recent election, my Labor opponent in the electorate of Indi blundered badly when she said:

Labor’s broadband plan is to connect all exchanges to broadband, so if you’re connected to a telephone exchange, you’ll have access.

This confession, that fibre will only be laid to the exchange, was a major blow for the Labor Party’s rural broadband credentials. It means that the so-called ‘last mile’ between telephone exchanges and residences will not be upgraded. This is where the bottlenecks currently exist—between the exchanges and the users. This is exactly what the coalition government’s clear plan for using innovative wireless technology was all about. Further, the technology advocated by the Labor Party is only accessible by users who are within four kilometres of an exchange. This means that anyone who is currently unable to access broadband services will remain unable to access broadband services under Labor’s plan, which some wits have described as ‘fraudband’. Clearly, the Labor candidate in my electorate did not realise that the current hurdle to high-speed broadband services is copper cabling between a telephone exchange and a residence. This is due to the physical properties of copper cabling, not due to any government or telecommunications company policy. It is simply not physically possible to send data at broadband speeds down copper cabling that is more than about four kilometres long. This left a huge hole in Labor’s claim that their broadband service would serve people in rural areas of north-east Victoria.

I believe this bill represents a sneaky raid on important future-proofing measures that were implemented by the former coalition government and that readily protected the interests of consumers in rural and regional Australia. Labor has now turned its back on these consumers so that it can raid the fund to pay for its half-baked policy. The communications minister was said to have been grumpy with his department recently when wanting to implement Labor’s so-called broadband plans. He will have to do better than that if he wants Australians to believe his utopian promise—that they are somehow going to be better off as a result of Labor’s plot to raid the Communications Fund.

I hold grave reservations for the future state of telecommunications facilities and standards in rural and regional areas as a result of the measures contained in this bill. Together with my coalition colleagues I will oppose this bill, which is an assault on the very viability of businesses and an assault on the very viability of social infrastructure in rural and regional Australia. If we want people to live outside the capital cities, we have to be honest with ourselves. And governments have to be honest and ask the question: do we want people to live outside capital cities? If the answer is yes, there is an absolute obligation to provide minimum infrastructure services—whether that is roads and bridges or whether that is telecommunications infrastructure and social infrastructure, such as schools. These services are an integral part of maintaining viable communities outside capital cities. This short-sighted, ill conceived, technologically flawed proposal by the Labor Party will put telecommunications in non-metropolitan parts of Australia way behind the eight ball. Sadly, it will disappoint many who believed that Labor would deliver. I condemn this bill and look forward to fighting for access to telecommunications for those living in rural and regional Australia, including and particularly those living in my electorate in north-east Victoria.

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is necessary to make a few brief comments on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008, particularly given that it is going to have a profound impact on those consumers in rural and regional Australia who look to government to guarantee an appropriate level of service. As the previous government, we did that by establishing the perpetual Communications Fund. Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you would recall the exact circumstances of that decision being taken, given the critical role that a particular conference in Queensland played in putting together a set of guidelines that the government of the day ultimately adopted not only for the sale of the third tranche of Telstra but also to address the remaining issues as far as communications across regional Australia were concerned.

In the minister’s second reading speech he indicated that this bill will enable money in the Communications Fund to be used for purposes relating to the creation or development of a broadband telecommunication network, if required. The final decision on the use of the fund will be made in the context of the government’s overall fiscal strategy. That gives a blank cheque to the department of finance and to the minister for finance as he frames the budget this year to pick up the $2 billion that has been set aside and invested as a capital based fund to generate revenue streams to be used for the betterment of consumers in rural and regional Australia. I understand the government saying that it may be used. It is at the discretion of the overall fiscal strategy. But the Australian Labor Party in the lead-up to the last election made no bones about the fact that they were going to attack this fund, to steal $2 billion from the bush and spend it elsewhere on their flawed broadband plan—a plan that is purported to cost about $4.7 billion and a plan that should be funded by the marketplace. It should be funded by the companies that are going to benefit from the network.

The reason this $2 billion fund exists is to ensure that there is a flow of revenue in perpetuity to provide services and new technology in remote parts of Australia that the market might not provide—because we know that the market is not strong enough in those areas. The whole rationale at the time was based on our move to privatise the balance of Telstra—T3, as it became known—and our concern for the future. We were able to secure confidence in what was to be done and we ultimately set in place arrangements with the OPEL group to spend $1.8 billion, I think the figure was, to establish a wireless broadband network across those parts of Australia that were not covered by the mainstream carriers with their own networks. That is being rolled out now.

We needed to be able to give certainty about the future to consumers in rural and regional Australia. We needed to be able to future-proof the bush. That was what this fund was all about. When new technology becomes available and the market provides it to consumers in metropolitan areas and major provincial cities, the market might not provide it to consumers in rural and remote Australia. So this perpetual Communications Fund was set up as an investment body to accrue interest on an annual basis, with an independent review to be undertaken every three years—and there is one underway now, chaired by Dr Bill Glasson, former president of the AMA—to find the gaps in the system in rural and remote Australia so the revenue stream from this fund can be deployed. That is why it was called a ‘perpetual’ Communications Fund, because the capital base, the $2 billion, was never to be touched. It was to be invested, because we could afford to invest it. It was to be invested, because the nation had become very prosperous.

We put a significant amount of money in the Future Fund. We put $2 billion in the perpetual Communications Fund to future-proof the bush. We put a significant amount of money in the higher education fund. These were all investments for the future, so that the community did not have to come to each annual expenditure review committee—or the razor gang, as the current government calls it—with their begging bowl out seeking fundamental services that everybody else in the country often takes for granted. That is the reason that we put this fund in place. It is the reason that the National Party argued so vigorously at the time that it should be part of the response as far as telecommunications in Australia is concerned.

We know that the Australian Labor Party have form as far as their attitude toward communications in rural and regional Australia is concerned. We should never forget, and the people of regional Australia should not forget—and I do not think they ever will—what happened in the latter years of the Hawke-Keating government when they were going to unilaterally turn off the analog phone system and they had no replacement. You will recall the dilemma that that caused in rural and remote Australia. They were going to turn it off and they had no replacement. Fortunately, at the time, the communities of regional Australia were able to voice their concerns loudly enough so that a CDMA system was introduced, and that has been in existence for 12 or so years since then.

Last year, Telstra announced that they were going to switch off the CDMA system and replace it with the Next G network. That is fine, but we said, ‘Telstra, you do that but you have to reassure your customers and the government of the day that the service provided by the Next G network is equal to or better than the CDMA system to be turned off.’ Of course, the designated date for the switch-off of CDMA was reached and the community was not satisfied with the replacement technology, and a lot of work had to be done. I have nothing against the Next G network. It actually enabled many people in rural and remote Australia who could not get access to a broadband connection to be able to access broadband. I just happen to be one of them. I live in a coastal seat in New South Wales where the Next G network enabled me to connect to the broadband network at home.

In government, we see the Australian Labor Party being very careless with their decision making and neglectful towards the people of rural and regional Australia as far as communications are concerned. There is no guarantee that the people who were going to benefit from the perpetual Communications Fund and the revenue stream that flowed from it are going to be looked after in the new regime of the Labor government. I raise in this parliament today my concerns about the government moving so quickly on this legislation and giving themselves the ability, through the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, who is now in the chamber, to quickly grab hold of another $2 billion and load it back into the budget surplus and say: ‘What a great government we are. We are going to produce a $17 billion or $18 billion budget surplus this year’—but it will be done to the detriment of consumers and communications services in regional Australia.

This fund was put in place to give certainty about the provision of new technology in remote Australia well into the future. It was put in place to future-proof the bush as far as telecommunications into the future—not today, not tomorrow but for years and decades into the future. The government aims to take that ability away. Therefore, we will be back to the bad old days when consumers had to band together in lobby groups and lobby the minister for communications and the government of the day to get much-needed funding spent in their area to ensure they had access to telecommunications systems that every other Australian takes very much for granted today. Obviously, I oppose this move by the government. I supported and continue to support the establishment and maintenance of this perpetual Communications Fund because we believe it is the only way to future-proof telecommunications services to consumers in rural and remote Australia.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 2.00 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 97. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.