Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Will the minister update the Senate on how the government is building high-speed networks to help Australia’s health and education sectors better deliver services in rural, regional and remote Australia? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank Senator Adams for the question and for her longstanding interest in the provision of telecommunications services to all Australians. Whilst we know that millions of Australians connect to high-speed broadband to access a wide range of entertainment services, higher bandwidth services can achieve a great deal more and bring real social and economic benefits to Australians. For instance, by helping build super-fast broadband backbones to connect our universities and hospitals, we revolutionise the way we can diagnose and treat patients and assist researchers to continue with their breakthroughs.

Through the former $23.7 million Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund, the Australian government has produced some tangible examples of how fast networks can make both a social and an economic difference. For example, Queensland Health’s Northern.Net project provided broadband services to 36 remote regions of northern Queensland for the first time. This infrastructure is improving the lives of those local communities by enabling Queensland Health to offer better services, such as radiology, ophthalmology and remote consultations. The good work of this program will continue, I am pleased to say, under the government’s $113.4 million Clever Networks program, a key part of the $1.1 billion Connect Australia package.

Last week I released the guidelines for the program and called for applications for the first round of grants, which will close on 28 November 2006. Clever Networks will support sectors such as health, education, community and emergency services to utilise advanced broadband technologies and to deliver key government services in rural, regional and remote Australia. Clever Networks will support partnerships and collaborations with state and territory governments and will encourage investment by the private sector to deliver projects of sufficient scale and scope to build on our earlier successes. This is a key element of the government’s vision to drive next generation broadband capability to underpin Australia’s social and economic future. It is an essential part of making Australia a world leader in the effective use of broadband.

Does the Labor Party have any policies on major broadband backbones to help deliver health and education services? I certainly have not heard of any. I think it is a fair comment to say that the Labor Party is struggling to find a communications policy. A fundamental problem is that it is very difficult to identify who the Labor spokesperson is. Every time this government announces yet another building block in our plan to deliver world-class telecommunications, there is an unseemly struggle between the finance spokesman, Mr Lindsay Tanner, and Senator Conroy to respond. Sadly for Senator Conroy—

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

Senator Conroy interjecting—

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

I am really sorry about this. Mr Tanner seems to be getting the upper hand and relegating Senator Conroy to the missing-in-action list. We rarely hear from Senator Conroy, other than in this place where he is certainly vociferous. I do not want to go on about that. While Labor flounders on communications, this government is getting on with the job of delivering fast networks to improve the lives of countless Australians.