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

I will sum up on behalf of the government in respect of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill 2007. I have brought forward the bill to ensure that the Australian government’s $2 billion investment in the Communications Fund is preserved in perpetuity to provide an ongoing income stream for future telecommunications improvements in regional, rural and remote Australia.

The Communications Fund was established by the government in 2005 and provides a guaranteed income stream to fund services and infrastructure for regional communities such as additional mobile towers, broadband provision and even backhaul fibre capabilities. Interest earned from the Communications Fund is used to implement the government’s responses to recommendations made by triennial independent regional telecommunications reviews. The current review, chaired by Dr Glasson, is underway.

The bill protects in legislation the $2 billion principal of the Communications Fund so that only the interest earned from the fund’s investments, up to $400 million every three years, will be available for future upgrades and can be drawn upon. Importantly, the bill will ensure that the $2 billion Communications Fund cannot be pillaged by a future government for wasteful purposes. It will also ensure that it continues to support areas that need ongoing, targeted government assistance—that is, rural and regional areas where commercial solutions are not always viable.

Labor has committed to draining the entire $2 billion from the Communications Fund, to rob the bush of its ongoing funding and to squander it on a network that is otherwise commercially viable in built-up metropolitan areas where industry has said, in the clearest of terms and publicly, it is prepared to invest. Somewhat ironically, it is rural and regional Australians—whom the Communications Fund was established to protect—whom the Labor Party will, true to form, abandon. Taxpayer funds should be used to deliver equity in under-served areas, and to ensure that regional and rural Australians are not left behind in the ongoing telecommunications technology revolution. We know that the solutions of today will not be sufficient for tomorrow. That is why there needs to be an ongoing dedicated fund for people who otherwise will not be able to get the upgrades and services they deserve and want.

The government has the only plan that will deliver fast internet to 100 per cent of Australians by 2009. When you contrast it with Labor’s so-called plan, which leaves out thousands of the most needy Australians, it is clear that Labor’s plan is a substantially flawed proposal that will not even provide a service until 2013. It is a fair time to 2013. We do not know what technology will be the best solution by 2013, but we know that the Labor Party has very little understanding or grasp of the need to roll out a fast internet solution. In fact, Labor’s proposal is so underdeveloped and incomplete that it has been incapable of providing a map, costing or developed plan—not even an indicative map—to show where this mythical fibre-to-the-node plan will roll out. I think the cat has been well and truly belled in relation to Labor’s plan. It seems quite clear that the Labor Party not only has not thought through this plan but also has absolutely no way to develop a plan of a roll-out to 98 per cent of the population.

Anyone who knows anything about telecommunications knows that Labor’s plan is farcical. In fact, it is a fraud on the Australian people. The Australian people need an internet service that will be available to all Australians—and that is what they are going to get from the Howard government. The bill that I have put forward will ensure that the Communications Fund cannot be pillaged for a plan that industry has said that it will develop. The bill protects the long-term interests of regional, rural and remote Australia, and it will protect regional Australia from the ineptitude and the gross economic irresponsibility of the Labor Party. It is important that these funds be locked away so that they will be available for the purpose for which they were established—that is, to look after the neediest Australians. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question negatived.

Original question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.