Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to mention some of the fantastic developments that have been occurring over the past few months in my electorate of Greenway thanks to this government's investment in the National Broadband Network and the positive reaction to these initiatives in my local community. Greenway is located in Sydney's west to north-west, extending from the established areas of Pendle Hill and Blacktown to the brand-new suburbs of The Ponds and Stanhope Gardens on Sydney's urban fringe.

For decades Greenway has been stuck in a broadband lacuna. For years the market failed to invest in my community. Time and again I have had constituents ask me, 'How can new suburbs be allowed to flourish with deficient connectivity, without such basic things as communications infrastructure?' So it is with great anticipation of the benefits that are going to come with the NBN that people are asking not why we are constructing the NBN but when they are going to get it. Indeed, the rollouts in my local area have been continuing. Thanks to this government, the Greenway community will now have access to the high-speed affordable broadband that has long been overdue. And thanks to this government we are seeing the trend of infrastructure deficit, and particularly broadband infrastructure deficit, reversed.

Riverstone in my electorate has suffered from a lack of infrastructure investment for a long time. One of those infrastructure deficits has related to a market failure and decades and decades of policy failure—a failure to realise that this is a growing area of the north-west sector. Governments and the market have simply failed to keep up. It is by recognising this market failure that our government is rectifying this situation and why Riverstone is the site of the first Sydney metro rollout of the National Broadband Network.

As of 1 April this year construction started in Riverstone, rolling out fibre to some 2,800 homes and businesses. In neighbouring Blacktown fibre is currently being rolled out to 11,200 homes and businesses. The three-year plan for the rollout of the NBN will see fibre construction being rolled out to 51,400 businesses and households in my electorate and its surrounds by 2015.

On 28 and 29 June I had the pleasure of joining with two of my local schools who will benefit from the NBN, Mitchell High School in Blacktown and St John's Primary in Riverstone, to tour the NBN Co. Discovery Truck. This was a great opportunity for these students, for businesses and for members of the community more generally to come and see what the NBN is exactly, what it is capable of, how it will work and what opportunities it will open up. There was enormous interest from local residents. High-speed broadband will change the way schools such as Mitchell High and St John's access information and communicate with each other. It will transform education and is the key driver of productivity in our economy in the future. I was also very pleased to host Minister Conroy in Riverstone. He made it out on Monday, 23 February to St John's to look at the fantastic use of technology in learning by the students at St John's. I want to thank the principal, Marion Bell, and Greg Whitby from the Catholic Education Office for taking the time to have that demonstration with us.

On 22 May, I was invited to address the Blacktown Regional Economic and Employment Development Taskforce Inc at Nirimba TAFE in Quakers Hill on the opportunities with the NBN that exist for businesses. I provided my perspective about what is happening around the world and about how businesses can harness high-speed broadband. I had the opportunity to speak to around 60 small business owners from Blacktown communities, focusing in particular on the entrepreneurialism that exists in my local area. Again, there was huge interest arising not only from those who participated but also from the media afterwards.

Increased speed is essential to enabling our small—and big—businesses to be truly innovative, in areas from health applications to education and consumer transactions. Many of these applications and ideas are in their infancy but, as I discussed, there are certainly markets and things that we had not dreamed of even five years ago in terms of broadband development and what can be offered by it. I am sure we are going to see an enormous boom in innovation and creativity, and I am confident that we are going to see that in Western Sydney.

I also had the pleasure a few weeks ago of opening a new photographic studio in Riverstone, The Good Egg Studio, which I think deserves its own adjournment debate speech, but suffice to say that the owners specifically chose to open in Riverstone because they wanted access to the best high-speed broadband. They took advantage of Riverstone being that site by opening the studio there. It is a great thing for Western Sydney and I commend everything that has been done in this area to the House. (Time expired)