Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the recent report of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications concerning the role and potential of the National Broadband Network, a report which rejoiced under the title Broadening the debate but which could have been better entitled Sticking to the line, because that is what government members sought to do in the conduct of this inquiry. When you consider the matter, it is a remarkable proposition that an inquiry into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network should have commenced in late 2010, after the government announced its decision in April 2009, over 18 months earlier, to spend $43 billion on a national fibre-to-the-home network. It is really quite remarkable that so little detailed work had been done in advance of that April 2009 decision and that it took until the end of 2010 for the government to think it was worth while to establish an inquiry into the things that might actually be done over this $43 billion network.

One of the very clear conclusions that emerged from this inquiry is that very little work had been done by the major departments of government in advance of that decision being taken in April 2009—a decision that represented a complete reversal of the Labor government's previous broadband policy, which, as members would no doubt recollect, was to spend not $43 billion but $4.7 billion and to have not a fibre-to-the-premises network but a fibre-to-the-node network. I was therefore interested to ask witnesses from a number of departments about the nature of the advice they must surely have given this government in the first part of 2009 in advance of that dramatic change in policy. Remarkably, very few of them were able to provide any compelling evidence that they had even been consulted, let alone given detailed and compelling evidence. It was interesting to note that the Australasian Telehealth Society gave evidence that they had not been consulted at all in advance of that decision, although we are repeatedly told that telemedicine is a justification for the National Broadband Network.

This report was the wrong kind of inquiry at the wrong time. It was a highly political exercise designed to generate a feelgood report offering support for the rollout of the National Broadband Network. As I have already indicated, it occurred after the decision to spend the money rather than before, and it was not structured to be an effective analytical exercise. It should have been structured as a cost-benefit analysis. Instead, it was merely a shopping list of benefits without any consideration of cost.

It is certainly the case that there were a number of extremely interesting and impressive examples of the way in which broadband can deliver benefits in health, in education and in other sectors. But this has never been in dispute. What is in dispute is the right way to secure those benefits—what kind of networks are required to deliver them and who should own and operate them? One of the standout conclusions from this inquiry, which went around the country and heard from a significant number of witnesses, is that there were very few persuasive examples given of applications which actually require the speeds that the National Broadband Network is being engineered to deliver. If 100 megabits per second is something that is of such vital importance that we should spend $43 billion—or, in reality, a number which now looks likely to exceed $50 billion—then what is to be delivered that requires these speeds as opposed to, for example, five megabits per second or 10 megabits per second or 15 megabits per second?

What is remarkable is that the examples that were repeatedly given did not require NBN type speeds. At paragraph 3.53 of the majority report there is a discussion of the remote home monitoring application, developed by Intel and GE Care and used in the Hunter nursing trial last year. This is an impressive application. It is a very sensible use of broadband—to put remote monitoring devices in patient's homes so that rather than requiring a visit from the nurse every day instead the patient's condition can be monitored remotely. There is no dispute that that is a sensible thing to do. What is in dispute is whether you need 100 megabits per second to deliver that application. In fact, what we were told, is that you need 512 kilobits per second, Mr Deputy Speaker, and you, I am sure, would not need my assistance to do the maths. That is 1/200th of the speed that the NBN is going to deliver.

At paragraph 5.28 of the majority report there is a discussion of smart grids—that is to say, electricity distribution networks which contain smart meters at the customer end which feedback data about electricity usage in real time. Again, it is a very sensible application. There is no dispute about that. But is there any discussion at all of the fact that smart meters in fact use quite limited bandwidth? There is only the most cursory discussion with language buried deep in paragraph 5.28: 'Individual smart meters do not require high bandwidth in themselves.' That is absolutely right, they do not, so why are they being rolled out as a justification for building a 100 megabit per second network using taxpayers' money?

I could cite—indeed, I will cite—the discussion of agricultural sensors at paragraph 5.35 and following in the majority report, which fails to disclose that the data requirements for such sensors are quite low, as the witness, Mr Robert Walker of AgForce agreed readily when he was asked, 'Isn't it the case that the bandwidth requirements for agricultural sensing is quite low?' 'Indeed, it is.'

After all this exercise what we have found is, unsurprisingly, there are many good things that broadband can do. That is not in dispute. But there was very little persuasive evidence given of the applications that in fact require 100 megabits per second or anything like it at this point. What was also extremely troubling was that the central premise of the National Broadband Network policy that there is overwhelming and immediate demand for fibre to the home is clearly wrong. It is evident from the poor early take-up, from the relatively poor response to the inquiry, from the relatively limited number of submissions and from extensive evidence that we received that many stakeholders are not that interested or engaged.

Again, let us be clear: there is no dispute on this side of the parliament that upgrading Australia's broadband infrastructure is a worthwhile thing to do. But what we have not seen is the evidence that this enormously expensive network configuration, involving 100 megabits per second fibre direct to the home to some 10 million premises, can be justified, as opposed to the many available options which would be substantially less expensive.

On a related point, we heard a lot of evidence about the value which may be achieved from connecting, for example, all schools, all hospitals, all libraries or all clinics. But I merely make the point that there are only 10,000 schools in Australia; there are fewer hospitals. The numbers involved to connect selected categories of institutions, as opposed to this government's enormously expensive policy of connecting 10 million premises, would be fewer and very much more cost effective.

The final point I wish to highlight to the parliament in the brief time available to me is that we were, again, struck by some of the very nasty side effects of this government's National Broadband Network policy through the establishment of a government owned monopoly. This policy will suppress competition and hand enormous power to the management team of the National Broadband Network Company, and that is not in anybody's interest.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to make a more extensive contribution to the debate than that which I was able to do in presenting the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communication entitled Broadening the debate: inquiry into the role and potential of the National Broadband Network . I acknowledge the member for Bradfield's contribution, addressing the dissenting report. Personally, I think it is a pretty sad dissenting report that will not stand the test of time. I think if those who submitted the report were standing here 20 years ago, they would be saying, 'Who needs 512k speeds? What would you use that for? You could pick up the phone. Why would you send an email?' That would have been the whole context of their contributions to the debate. And the member for Bradfield, as much as anybody, knows the speed and rapidity with which people take up technological developments when the infrastructure is available. So in 20 years time, when his son or daughter is reading in Hansard his contribution on this debate, I suggest they will be saying, 'Dad, what on earth were you thinking? How limited was your imagination in looking at what that technology would deliver to this nation?'

I merely say to those who are looking at the dissenting report that it is a valiant effort to maintain the political debate on this issue, but I am sure those who have signed it will be hoping that it gets buried in the dust of time and that generations that follow them never look at it and see what they actually had to say about fast, ubiquitous and symmetrical broadband extension in this country.

I would also make the point that some contributions of members reflect a very city-centric view that presumes that people have access to 512k, let alone ADSL2. In fact, there was significant evidence that even the rollout of those technologies is far from satisfactory in regions and, indeed, in suburbs of cities around our nation.

In my contribution today I want to take us through a couple of the points in this report that I think are really exciting. I would certainly encourage people to have a look at this report in detail, because a lot of people put in a lot of time and effort to indicate to us why they feel this is transformative infrastructure that will make a significant difference to the way we live, work and indeed play. But the important thing as a national government is how we live and work.

The member for Bradfield referred to some of the health initiatives in his contribution. He did make the point that some of them indeed do not require the speeds which will be available under the NBN. But I will tell you what they do require, and that is symmetry. They require good upload capacity, as well as download capacity, and these sorts of service delivery models will be delivered under fibre based technologies. In particular, I want to take three issues, if I can get them done in a few minutes. The first one is the health sector which, indeed, indicated not only important improvements but significant improvements in the delivery of services, particularly to people in more remote areas, people with disabilities who have trouble accessing health services and young people who are more likely to access, in particular, mental health services online. The report goes through many examples. In particular, I would refer people to the section on mental health and the evidence, provided by, in particular, Helen Pepper, who is the youth ambassador for Inspire Foundation, about the importance of good-quality online mental health services for young people. The Inspire Foundation indicated their desire to expand their model, which they would be able to do if they could get high-quality, synchronised video based services available online, which would enable them to have more group interactions and better quality service delivery.

Another point that is made about health delivery, which I would remind people is an important aspect of our consideration, is the Access Economics study in 2010 that found that the benefits to Australia from extensive implementation of telehealth could be in the order of $2 billion to $4 billion per annum. The delivery of telehealth is only one area which would result in significant cost savings to us as a nation. So when those who oppose this model talk about a cost-benefit analysis, they quite significantly ignore the evidence that is available on some of the significant improvements, efficiencies and savings that we could make.

I also want to take people to some of the excellent evidence that was given to us about the education sector— obviously something that I am very passionate about—and the capacity for these sorts of high-quality, high-speed and synchronised services to provide a new and richer variety of online services in education. In particular, we had some excellent evidence from people such as the National Library of Australia, the National Film and Sound Archives and the National Archives of Australia about some of the digitisation initiatives that have enabled young people to get much better quality information and to interact with it in far more effective ways when you have got this level of technological support to deliver that.

I also would encourage people to look at some of the information provided by the Open Universities Australia about things like their 3D animated virtual world where students can go on an archaeological dig in a 3D simulated place, ancient Kashgar in Western China, and the students get a real sense through a second-life experience what it is like to actually be on a dig. There is no way that that sort of thing can be delivered over existing services and technology. It requires this level of technology to support that. Importantly, we have heard of examples like the YouTube symphony orchestra and the capacity for students to be at master classes in music with experts in their field, linked up around the world, and to participate in that in a way that allows them to form an orchestra and actually participate in a group, again, requires this level of technology.

Many of these examples that are throughout the section on education particularly make the point that many students now seek to do these extracurricular activities from home, whether it be music, learning a second language and so forth. So we need to provide these sorts of expanded educational experiences for students, school students and university students. Indeed, there are articles in the paper today about the importance of online post-graduate courses for students.

Many students are participating in education online and, indeed, even mature age members of our community are looking to engage by watching uni TV and participating in guest specialist lectures, an excellent example of where people will be able to be part of the community from home. And these things do require us to lay down the infrastructure of the future for this to happen.

Finally, in the few minutes left to me, I want to draw people's attention to the section in the report on economic development and diversification. I think it is very important for us to acknowledge the extensive evidence we received from regions around the country about the capacity of videoconferencing, teleworking, cloud computing and voice-over-internet protocols to completely expand the capacity of regions to engage in not only the national economy but indeed the international economy. Videoconferencing capacity is to enable professional development and professional connections and to support staff in our regional and remote parts of the country. Indeed, Mr Tony De Liseo, from my own area of the Illawarra, was talking about his business. He indicated that they are a staff development and training business and that about 30 per cent of their non-project billable hours are currently done online. This is an expanding model for businesses. He said that the problem they hit up against, of course, is the technological support that people have to enable them to participate, but it has a significant cost difference for businesses. They can participate in staff development and training in a more effective way and, if it is a half-day course, it does not require them to take three days because they have to have the staff member off travelling to a capital city or major centre in order to participate.

Also, obviously, the big capacity for regions is the capacity to telework. We had excellent evidence from people like Rising Sun Pictures, who won a technical Academy Award for their model of how they are able to access their creative people from around the country. Where otherwise the musician who would do the music for them, who lives in Byron Bay, would have had to go and live in Adelaide for three months while they were doing the project, now that they have him fibred up he can do all the work, interacting with them, and stay at home, so there is not a drain of these people out of our regions. It enables them to stay in the regions and expand the life of our regions as well.

Finally, I want to touch on tremendous evidence from Townsville about 'mumpreneurs', the expanding role of women participating in our economy by running home based businesses and how this will enable them to do that so much more effectively into the future. I commend people having a good look at this report and the wonderful story it paints about the hopes that people in regional and rural areas of our nation and the suburbs of our cities have for this infrastructure.

Debate adjourned.