Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute load of rubbish we are hearing from the other side about broadband. It is continuous and it is also hypocritical. The senator from the other side just made the point that rural and regional areas were going to be the losers in this. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the opposition know it. It is interesting to see that Senator Conroy has completely run out of puff on this issue and has not even bothered to stay in the chamber for this debate. If he thinks it is so important, he should have been here—but, oh no, he has run off.

The reason the Labor Party are wrong about this issue is that we are going to deliver fast broadband right around the country. Let us have a little look at what Labor’s plan actually is on rolling out broadband. Interestingly, it is fibre-to-the-node technology, so it will not get out to rural and regional areas. Yet Labor want to steal the $2 billion that is in the Communications Fund for rural and regional communities to have telecommunications services in the bush. That is $130 million every year that Labor want to take away from the country and give to the cities and, as far as I am concerned, that is not on.

We hear a lot of technology talk in this debate, but it goes out into the ether because all people really want is a decent service. When we talk about fibre to the node, it is exactly that: fibre to the node. Fibre to the node is not to the home or to anywhere else; it only goes to the node. Once you get to the node, the reasonable service goes for only about a kilometre. I live out in the central west of New South Wales, and the last time I looked there were not too many nodes around and there were an awful lot of people living further than one kilometre from a node. We will now have to call Senator Conroy ‘no nodes Noddy’ because he obviously has no idea what is going on out in the regions.

It is despicable that those who sit on the other side of this chamber tell us that we are going to do a bad job when they have no plan. It has been 91 days, I think, since Labor put out their press release—one press release—on their plan for broadband. What is in it? Not very much. Have they said anything since? No. All they are being is negative about this government’s very good plan for broadband around Australia. They have got nothing. It is reflective of many of their policies that they throw out a glib line, a bit of an idea, and then run on to the next thing. There is no substance to their claims. There is nothing substantive about them. The Labor Party do not back up their claims and comments—and this issue is a perfect example of that. They talk about fibre to the node getting out to 98 per cent of the landmass. That is rubbish, because it will be lucky to get to 75 per cent. Even if it were true, that two per cent of the landmass is an awfully big part of this country. Guess who lives in that area? Rural and regional people. They are not going to get it under Labor’s plan. It would be very helpful if Labor decided to say how they were planning to get broadband out to rural and regional communities—but they have absolutely nothing.

The people with whom I have been talking since we announced this policy to roll out WiMAX into the regions are very happy. They have been saying for some time that they want a better service and that they want their children to be able to access better internet services. We are going to give that to them. Businesses are saying that they want better internet services, and we are going to give that to them. Those children, those businesses and those families—everybody—living in rural and regional communities will get better broadband access. There is no doubt about that. There is no way you can argue against it. We are doing that. The ALP and its leader, Kevin Rudd—who obviously has no idea about broadband in the bush—have nothing. They have no plan, not a thing, nothing. They have no plan, but if they do have one for rural and regional Australia they will not even tell us what it is. Senator Conroy ducks and weaves and rabbits on about goodness knows blah blah blah, but he has not come up with a plan of any substance on what they will do in the regions.

I noticed the other day that Joel Fitzgibbon, a Labor MP, was talking about not being able to get broadband into the Hunter under their plan. I understand, too, that the member for Lingiari said:

... in the case of the Northern Territory we would say all the major urban centres would have access to fibre and the remainder of the Northern Territory would have the next best technology, which would provide the best equivalent level of service that we can possibly make available.

The interviewer asked:

Which would have to be wireless, I presume, would it?

Warren Snowdon replied:

Wireless in some form, yes.

(Time expired)