Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is right, at one stage they did support our CPRS but then they backflipped into their normal role. Lately, we have heard the opposition’s position on paid parental leave—another example of their envious position on the government’s proposal in this area. And, lo and behold, the opposition’s proposal has been demonstrated as a big new tax. All this week, the opposition’s position has been one of running untruthful, envious arguments against the Rudd Labor government’s successes. We heard them once again today arguing over the Building the Education Revolution—and bear in mind that they voted against it. They also voted against the $42 billion stimulus package that kept people in employment and helped them to hold onto their homes.

There was also a need for the government to inject funds into a depleted school infrastructure program—$16.2 billion. We had to put the funding in to stimulate that part of the economy and also to assist schools. Let us disregard the fact that the opposition will be turning up on the day that the school halls and science programs will be launched. They will be there for their photo opportunity, with big smiles on their faces. They will want to get a photo with the duty senator or the member in the hope that it will be in their local newspaper.

I will now go back to the NBN policy. The government has announced that it will connect 90 per cent of homes, schools and workplaces with fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure that is capable of providing broadband services and speeds of 100 megabits per second. That is 100 times faster than what most people currently have. The remaining premises will be connected with next-generation wireless and satellite technologies, which will be able to deliver speeds of at least 12 megabits per second to people living in remote places in rural Australia who had been forgotten under the previous government for 12 years. That is our policy on the NBN.

If I reflect back to the situation where I had to purchase a desktop PC—it was about 17 years ago when my son was moving through his education—I can still recall the slow connections in those days. Downloading items was always a task. It was as slow as a great-grandmother’s search for an elusive button in the haberdashery store. That is how slow it was in those days. The opposition want to keep us at that pace. They want to keep us in the past. They do not want to accept the fact that we have technology. They will not embrace technology. They are frightened of technology. That is the issue of those opposite. They are frightened of the Matrix. They have been overdosed on the Matrix movie. They have been overdosed on the Robocop movies. They do not like technology. They believe in all those science fiction movies that they watched day in and day out.

Let us have a look at what they thought of NBN, or broadband, when they were in government. They wanted to exclude it to only five capital cities. They did not want to accept the fact that we were in the bottom half of OECD countries for broadband take-up—16th out of 30 countries. They were not prepared to accept the fact that we paid more for broadband—20th out of 29 countries. Australia is the fourth most expensive country for low-speed connections and the fifth most expensive for medium-speed connections in terms of average monthly subscription prices. Those opposite want to keep us in the dark, rather than go where we are heading as a government— (Time expired)