Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Minchin has joined in there, and I hope we can get his singing on the record. I have been to these places and the cry is the same: how can we be living in a modern economy when we have no broadband? I met with a lady who was trying to contact her husband using Skype, a voice over internet application. She needed broadband to speak to her husband, who is one of those brave Australian policemen on duty for Australia helping to stabilise the Solomon Islands. She could not get to talk to him. His children wanted to talk to him. Funnily enough, he could get reception in the Solomon Islands, but she could not get reception in Tweed Heads. That is how farcical our position on broadband is. You can go all over the country, Senator Minchin, and find stories like this.

If Senator Coonan would get out of Sydney and out of the government VIP jet that she uses to tour around the country and meet with people other than at stage-managed media photo opportunities, she would discover that the state of broadband is not as she recently stated on national television when asked: nobody in metropolitan Australia is complaining about their broadband speed? My office computer went into meltdown. The Fairfax website went into meltdown. The ABC website—Senator Coonan was appearing on The 7.30 Report when she said that—went into meltdown. People could not believe that such words were coming from the person responsible—the minister—for enabling this country.

Broadband is an enabling technology. If only the National Party and Senator Nash had had the courage to stick to their guns when that National Party think tank—I know it is an oxymoron—said that we need a fibre-optic network in this country. If only you had had the courage to win the fight—not just go for the cheap $2 billion slush fund, as Barnaby called it—this country would be better off. If only you had had the courage to win the fight, to stick to your guns. You were a signatory to that, Senator Nash. If only you had stuck to your guns— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.