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

I actually enjoy Tasmania very much, and when I go to Tasmania I am going to be able to access first-class telecommunications from any part of Tasmania, because Tasmania is obviously to be covered by the new high-speed network that will provide a minimum speed of 12 megabits to 99 per cent of the Australian population. Unless I am very much mistaken, Tasmanians definitely belong to the whole of the Australian population, and they are so included. The government is strongly committed to the proposition that all Australians, regardless of where they live, should have access to high-speed broadband.

It is a very brave person who would say that they know all the technological answers for Australia over the next five years. Just a couple of years ago we had Labor’s foray into dial-up internet, urging the government to splurge $5 billion of taxpayers’ money on mandating dial-up. The reality is that a mix of technologies will be the most effective means to deliver the services that Australia needs. The WiMAX broadband technology is a wireless broadband technology that can provide a lower cost alternative to wireline broadband in regional and rural areas. I am not telling those opposite anything they do not know already, particularly if they listen to their shadow spokesperson, Senator Conroy, who seems to be absent today. This is a bit of a killer: in 2005 Senator Conroy told a Connecting Up conference:

With access to a wireless broadband virtual private network, a farmer could design a farm that is completely ‘connected up’—