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

It has been minimised because you cannot push out to 99 per cent of the population without having some minimal duplication of coverage. Duplication, to my way of thinking, is where you have a blanket network over another blanket network. That is certainly not what has been provided. In fact, duplication has been completely minimised. Any kind of coverage where there are already existing services has been minimised—backhaul, for instance, has been leased. Where there are existing towers or existing infrastructure, those, to the extent possible, are being used.

The other important part of the proposal is that it has a degree of commercial leverage, and the government has been very careful to ensure that that portion of taxpayers’ money is to be used in underserved areas where these services are not already available. The commercial part of the proposal is being used to provide whatever coverage on a competitive basis that the operators choose to roll out.

I have been very interested to hear some of the very unsubstantiated and uninformed comment from the Labor Party about the government’s far-reaching plan to provide fast broadband to 99 per cent of the population. I again repeat my clear challenge to Senator Wortley, to Senator Conroy and to all of those over the other side who have a totally unformulated, uncosted proposal—a totally flimsy proposal.