Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To keep the Tasmanian theme going, my question is to the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. Why is the agreement between Telstra and the National Broadband Network Company an important step in telecommunications sector reform with major benefits for the Australian economy and, of course, Tasmania?

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lyons for his question and I acknowledge his longstanding commitment to improve broadband access for his constituents. In fact, I recall meeting with his constituents on the very issue on a number of occasions. The agreement that was announced yesterday is a very important step for the telecommunications sector in Australia for microeconomic reform and for the Australian economy, and indeed the Tasmanian economy where the Broadband Network is being rolled out first. I understand that it is supported by none other than the Tasmanian Liberal Party. It is good to see that progress is occurring in Tasmania and in Australia on this vital area of microeconomic reform that is crucial for kick starting productivity growth in the economy and also for reform in our health and education sectors.

It is a crucial reform. In particular, this agreement is critical because of the need to transition from copper to fibre and to ensure that we have a genuinely structurally separated industry where no one telecommunications retailer controls the infrastructure. I first raised the issue of structural separation as shadow minister for communications back in 2002, with the active support of the then Leader of the Opposition, now Minister for Trade. Since that time the Labor Party has been committed to solving what was one of the great public policy disasters imposed on this nation by the Howard government, and that was privatising Telstra without reforming the structure of the telecommunications industry, which therefore left Australia with a totally dominant player, a privately owned monopoly player, in a sector that is rapidly becoming as important to the economy as the financial services sector. Since that time Labor has been committed to ensuring that we have a genuinely productive, efficient, competitive telecommunications industry sector that delivers world class broadband to all Australians and ensures that we have a truly productive, competitive infrastructure and do not have an industry structure that impedes that.

The problem with the stalemate that emerged from the former government is that we had massively complex regulatory arrangements that delivered incentives to Telstra to gain the regulation and to delay innovation and to delay competition and, as a result, Australia progressively fell further and further behind comparable countries in the quality, the speed and the access of broadband that was being made available to our citizens and our businesses. In that scenario, in that stalemate, there was no legitimate prospect of anybody—private or public player—building a universal national broadband network. We had over that period 17 different Howard government broadband plans—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am now told it is 18, so maybe I missed one, but we had dozens of different plans, all window-dressing and all designed to cover up the stalemate that was put in place by the Howard government on broadband. The Rudd government is in the process of breaking that stalemate and yesterday’s agreement was a landmark step in breaking that stalemate. It means that the government is now working in partnership with the entire telecommunications sector to deliver world-class broadband throughout Australia, to kick-start productivity in our economy and to kick-start reform of sectors like health and education.

Not only is this agreement good for our economy, not only is it good for Tasmania and for the rest of Australia but also, in my view, it will be good for Telstra shareholders. As broadband unfolds, more and more of our business activity will shift into the digital world and, as the single biggest player by far in the telecommunications sector in Australia, Telstra is superbly positioned to benefit from the improved opportunities that that will provide to all telecommunications providers. We as a government are also providing a range of compensation to Telstra, for the customers being transitioned by Telstra to the new network, for the infrastructure that Telstra owns that the NBN will now be able to use and, of course, for the government taking on board the heavy lifting of the universal service obligation that has previously been dealt with by Telstra.

All of these things are opening up new opportunities for our economy, for Telstra, for our education sector, for our health sector and for other parts of the Australian economy. But this does raise one big question: where now, in the wake of this agreement, does this leave the opposition? With the entire telecommunications sector now working cooperatively and constructively with the government to deliver world-class broadband across Australia to kick-start our productivity for the future, where does this leave the opposition? At this point, it is still blocking in the Senate, still opposing and still proposing to put forward John Howard’s program No. 18 or No. 19—yet another rinky-dink, you-beaut, acme broadband proposal that is all about window-dressing, all about pretending to tackle the problem but is in fact doing nothing. It is time the opposition reconsidered its position, got with the strength and understood that the entire sector now is working hand in hand with the government to improve broadband for the future of Australia and for the future of Tasmania and for delivering the productivity gains that we need to improve our economy and for delivering long-term sustainable growth for all Australians.