Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

access fast internet and broadband services that they need and that they want. The investment that the market undertakes in metropolitan areas is something that is incentivised by competition and by the current regulatory environment. It provides an arrangement that will enable anticipatory exemptions to be made for any company at all that wishes to invest in a high-speed network. The regulatory environment that is currently provided is sufficiently flexible to deal with the issues that have been brought to government both by Telstra and by the current G9 proposals.

What is very interesting is that even Senator Conroy, in his statement today, was totally clueless as to what arrangements he might make for adjusting any of the regulatory arrangements that currently apply under the Trade Practices Act to the telecommunications sector. His best offer was, ‘Oh well, we will ask people who want to invest in this to come to us and tell us what regulatory changes they would like.’ That is the best that Senator Conroy could do after nearly three years in the portfolio. He had not a clue as to what he would do with potential overbills or with potential inefficient investments; and for anyone who wants to come and build one of these proposals, all they have to do is to tell Senator Conroy what they would like to do and somehow or other he is going to make regulatory adjustments that will adjudicate on the competing claims that they all have.

What is very important is that this government have invested in competition because we understand that the market is best placed to make the investments that are risky and that will deliver the services in metropolitan areas. Not only is the government’s job to ensure that that framework is robust and flexible and will enable those who invest in new infrastructure to get a proper and sensible return for that investment but we as a government are obliged to ensure that those who live in underserved areas who otherwise would not get services will be able to do so. That is why the government has invested over $2 billion in ensuring that these subsidised services and a new open access network will be able to be built to service rural and regional Australia. But it is at serious risk. If the Labor Party get hold of the telecommunications fund, the communications fund, and if they raid that, there will be nothing for these very important services in rural and regional Australia. And if they get hold of the Future Fund, the country will be compromised and future generations will suffer from Labor’s spendthrift ways.