Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Sadly, it appears that support for equal access to telecommuni­cations in this country is no longer a bipartisan position. The coalition has now abandoned regional Australia. In responding to yesterday's announcement, Mr Turnbull suggested he would consider selling the satellites. Mr Turnbull also misled the Australian public by asserting that there was sufficient satellite capacity that we could either lease or upgrade. But NBN Co. is already using existing satellite capacity to provide an interim satellite service, an investment of $300 million through to 2015. This is only the first step, which is providing half the service speeds on the way to the reliable 12-meg down and one-meg up that everyone else in Australia will enjoy on the NBN. (Time expired)