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

I thank Senator Eggleston for the question. I do recognise his outstanding efforts as the Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Fast, affordable broadband access will become an immediate reality for all Australians thanks to an initiative that I announced with the Prime Minister early this morning in the country New South Wales town of Goulburn. Australia Connected is a world-first initiative that ensures all Australians will now have access to high-speed broadband at affordable metro-comparable prices. You have heard, over the last few weeks that we have been talking about this matter, that a one-size-fits-all technology option simply does not suit the whole of Australia. We need to look both here and overseas for the best, cutting-edge solutions to ensure equitable broadband access for all Australians. Using the best mix of technologies, the government is now ensuring that 99 per cent of Australians will have access to a minimum service of 12 megabits within two years—that is, by mid-2009—and that the service is unscaleable thereafter.

The centrepiece of Australia Connected is the immediate rollout of a new, independent, competitive, state-of-the-art national broadband network to be constructed by OPEL, a joint venture between Optus and Elders. OPEL has been awarded a total $958 million in funding from Broadband Connect and an additional funding allocation. The government will have met our commitment to ensure affordability and metro-comparable pricing for all Australians regardless of where they live, and—this is the important bit—retail prices for both the new WiMAX and ADSL2+ broadband services will range from $35 to $60 per month, depending on the speed selected by the consumer. We will also be establishing Broadband Now, a one-stop shop which will provide help and support for consumers to ensure that they get ready access to the best information to enable them to locate the broadband solution for their family, for the farm or for other business.

On any view, Australia Connected is a groundbreaking initiative which comes on the back of very hard policy work by the Howard government which has seen more than 4.3 million homes and small businesses connected to broadband across Australia. In parallel with the deployment of this new network, a new commercial fibre-optic network will be built via a competitive bids process and subsequent enabling legislation. There will be an expert task force to ensure an open and transparent process for assessment of bids to build a fibre-to-the-node network. My expectation is that this process will move forward expeditiously, and I expect the task force to hold its first meeting this week.

With two commercial proposals on the table to build a fibre network, there should be no delay in getting this underway and we will have a solution as soon as possible without wasting $5 billion of taxpayers’ money. Australians simply cannot wait until 2013 for fast broadband services under my plan, and they will not. The government remains firmly committed to investing taxpayers’ dollars where the market does not invest, and we will ensure that high-speed broadband will be available to all Australians regardless of where they live. That is not a claim that any other political party can make.