Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also am very pleased to speak to this report and to draw the Senate’s attention to the government senators’ report, which my colleague Senator Sterle and I prepared. I would like to begin by acknowledging also the hard work of the secretariat and thanking the witnesses who appeared, in many cases on multiple occasions, before the various iterations of the Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network. Many of those witnesses were prevailed upon again and again, given that every time something changed in the broadband landscape the Senate select committee would determine to revisit all of the issues.

This committee was constructed as a Senate select committee, with the opposition in full control prior to the coalition losing their control of the Senate. Labor has consistently expressed concern about that and has opposed the references on the basis that Labor felt strongly that the longstanding Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications and the Arts—initially the combined committee and later, when the committee separated to legislation and references, the references committee—was a suitable location. Given that there is legislation before the Senate, all of the legislation inquiries would have dealt amply with the range of issues that we have explored over many months within the Senate select committee.

Nonetheless, I and Labor have participated fully and enthusiastically through the course of this inquiry because of course it is an incredibly important issue for the nation. Whether or not they have expressed a view about the specific government model for a national broadband network, the sentiment of the vast majority of people who have appeared before the inquiry is clear—that is, Australia is best served by a high-bandwidth network that is universally available across our cities, across our regions, in our country towns and in our remote, rural and isolated areas. This is critical economic infrastructure for our future. We do not need to look too far in comparable countries around the world where high-bandwidth networks have been invested to see the benefits that come economically, socially and indeed culturally. Labor watched the coalition founder for 11 or 12 years as they played with telecommunications policy to the detriment of the interests of all Australians. We learnt from their mistakes, and that is why we were able to present such a comprehensive vision for a national broadband network that systematically addressed all of the flaws and all of the issues that were preventing Australia from creating an environment whereby this investment would occur.

There are a couple of key features of the national broadband network that are worth emphasising. First of all of course is its universal high bandwidth. Fibre-to-the-home technology is the primary technology for delivery of this. Our policy was 90 per cent. The implementation study says it is potentially up to 93 per cent, with the rest being backed in by wireless, terrestrial and satellite services with a guaranteed 12 megabits per second—so, guaranteed up to 100 megabits per second for fibre to the home and 12 megabits per second for the rest. This is the best in the world. Coupled with not just this aspiration but this vision for a high-bandwidth network was the structure proposed: a wholesale-only, open access, fibre-to-the-home network is the correct model. It is a model that addresses industry structure, provides for a highly competitive regime at the retail service provider end and, most importantly, given our experience with gaming in the regulatory area of telecommunications, is independently regulated by the ACCC.

I would just like to take Senator Macdonald to task for citing statements by the ACCC, no doubt out of context. Any statement or anything expressed by the ACCC at this point is worthy and it is interesting, because they will be the regulator. So any view put forward by the ACCC at this point needs to be seen in the context that they are the independent regulator. This is not the government setting the regulations in place for the operation of this network; it is the government assigning that responsibility to the ACCC.