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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Senator Coonan) to questions without notice asked today relating to broadband telecommunications infrastructure.

If ever there were a day when a government was exposed for what it is really about, it was today. Today we have a leaked email from Senator Helen Coonan’s office which demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that this government is not interested in the national interest, nor is it interested in the public interest. It is interested in one thing and one thing only: votes in marginal seats for its own re-election campaign.

This email demonstrates that this government has, once and for all, passed its use-by date. It is obsessed with its own interests. It is obsessed purely with its re-election and nothing else. Good policy does not matter; just ‘Where are we going to get the votes to win the election, and what sort of sham policy can we put up?’ The government fails the national interest test. Its priorities have been set out in its email, in which a minister’s office tells a department to ‘go and get me maps and details on the following priority seats’, which, coincidentally, are all marginal. Let me read the list again just to highlight the shame involved in this policy pronouncement by the government: Kingston, Stirling, Bonner, Macquarie, Bass, Deakin, Solomon, Wakefield, Makin, Hasluck, Moreton, Blair, Lindsay, Eden-Monaro, Page, Dobell, Braddon, McMillan—and I could go on. This is what obsesses this government. It does not have a national interest, or a national vision; it has a plan for a quick-fix bandaid solution to get it through the next election. That is its political priority. The government is not even really announcing a fibre-to-the-node network. It has announced a committee. It is so afraid that Ken Henry will blow the whistle again—like its sham water policy off the back of an envelope. It is so ashamed of its performance on water it has tried to dragoon Ken Henry into its selection process.

Ken Henry is an eminent public servant and an eminent economist, but what does he know about the ins and outs of fibre-optic technology? I am talking about WiMAX, and I could be doing Mr Henry a disservice but I am sure he will point that out to me if I am. He is there because the government got caught out on its water plan, its back-of-the-envelope, $10 billion spend on water. Mr Henry is there to make sure that the National Party and the rural and regional Liberal senators across the other side of the chamber do not get to stick their paws in the honey jar and rip off the Australian public again.

Today we have seen that it is not just Senator Ronaldson and not just Senator Eggleston—we know that Senator McGauran does not understand technology; we saw the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts demonstrate how out of depth she is on this issue. We asked her a question about the coverage of WiMAX and she said, ‘Oh no, look, isn’t it great; we can discuss 50 or 20 kilometres.’ But here it is on the minister’s letterhead, which even has her face on it. It says: ‘WiMAX is fourth generation wireless technology that provides high-speed broadband connections over distances of up to 50 kilometres.’ The Optus one actually produces the truth—20 kilometres. Optus are not prepared to gild the lily, but this government is.

Let us be clear about this. The minister would not answer this question. They say the definition of wireless is:

Broadband wireless will use public and apparatus licensed spectrum. The term WiMAX is used in this fact sheet as a generic term to describe a family of technologies that includes broadband wireless access.

Why have they got to say that? Because they will have to use public shared spectrums which will lead to interference. Can the Optus network formally be described as a WiMAX network? That was a simple question, and the minister ran and ducked. What WiMAX standard is the Optus wireless network using? The questions will haunt the minister until she answers them. They will haunt Senator Ronaldson and Senator Eggleston. Those are the questions. You claim it is WiMAX— (Time expired)

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today Senator Conroy said that the government has been exposed for revealing what it is all about. That is absolutely true. Today the government has been exposed. It has been revealed to be committed to providing fast broadband service to the Australian population wherever it is found—to 100 per cent of the population, not just to a few people living in major cities and regional centres, as would be the case under the Labor proposals. The government is very proud to have been revealed to be committed to providing this high-technology service to the whole population of Australia. We are very proud of that because broadband is now a basic tool of business. People rely on the internet in business, just as they do in their personal lives, to acquire information for their businesses and, at a personal level, to download videos and movies. As I said, the most important and the most outstanding feature of the government’s proposal is that it is to go to every nook and cranny of Australia. It will reach, in fact, 100 per cent of the Australian population.

Let us have a look at what the government is providing under Australia Connected. It is a program which will provide fast, affordable broadband for all citizens of this country. It will provide broadband at speeds 20 to 40 times faster than those in use by most customers today. In the built-up areas of our cities, and major regional centres, this speed will jump to 20 to 50 megabits per second—a really fast and outstanding service to the people of Australia. The centrepiece of Australia Connected is the immediate rollout of a new, competitive, state-of-the-art wireless broadband network which will extend high-speed broadband to 99 per cent of the population and provide speeds of 12 megabits per second by 2009.

By 2009, 99 per cent of Australian households and small businesses will be able to access a high-speed broadband service which has the capacity for live video streaming, five-second CD downloads and multichannel television. So, if you are living up in Wyndham on the far north-west coast of Australia, you will get multichannel television and fast downloads. It is hard to imagine anywhere more remote than Wyndham, except perhaps Kalumburu, which is a little further up on the north-west coast. The Aboriginal people in that community will have these benefits also.

Let us see what the composition of Australia Connected is. First of all there is a new national high-speed wholesale network. The awarding of the $600 million competitive grant for this will deliver a mix of fibre-optic, ADSL2 and wireless broadband platforms to rural and regional areas of Australia. This rollout has been boosted with the addition of $358 million in funding to ensure coverage for 99 per cent of the population. That is the great strength of this program. This innovative, outstanding, remarkable program announced today by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts is going to deliver state-of-the-art, high-speed broadband connections to Australians wherever they live in this country. It is not going to concentrate just on capital cities and larger regional centres. People in even the most isolated areas—the most remote areas—will have access to high-speed broadband, and that is something that, as senators and Australians, we should congratulate the government on.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, wish to take note of the answers provided by Senator Coonan to questions today in question time. I really despair. I am very glad that Senator Coonan was in Goulburn today. I wish she had told me she was coming because I could have arranged for her to meet some of the people who live in the suburb of Bradfordville, in Goulburn, who cannot access ADSL and who have been very frustrated. Maybe she could have met some of the residents in the villages such as Marulan and Tarago, who cannot get reliable connections to the internet at all and some do not have mobile telephone service. Perhaps she could have talked to those people about what she has in mind. Or perhaps she could have met some of the parents of the homeschooled children who are struggling to participate in some online learning activities. But, no, she was there to launch what is really a pup of a program. It is certainly something that we could say is a broadband, whiteboard bandaid and nothing more. It really is about clearly defining a divide between rural Australia and the rest of the country.

I do not quite know what Senator Coonan thinks about country people, but she certainly seems to think that there may be country bumpkins who cannot see what is really going on with this announcement. I was very pleased that Senator Joyce was able to understand that she was condemning country people to a second-rate system. What we will end up with in this country is a two-tiered system of communications that will leave country communities behind. This policy is one of the most cynical vote-buying exercises we have seen. If the Prime Minister were really genuine about helping country people, he would look at funding the services which the government wants to be delivered through technology. He might like to fund some of these services on the ground so that we do not have a community like Temora advertising a half-a-million-dollar incentive payment for a doctor to come to the town. Temora is only a couple of hours drive from here, but it is a community that is desperately short of doctors.

How credible is the Prime Minister’s commitment to IT? As we heard in the chamber, what is the real grasp of the technology that is being talked about today? Who is going to benefit from the faster broadband that is being offered under this regime? Not too many people, I can tell you, until at least 2009. The minister for communications was very keen to say that, regardless of where someone lives, they will have access to broadband for between $35 and $60 a month. Perhaps the minister does not pay for her broadband plans. Perhaps she does not understand the costs of downloading and uploading or how people are reaching their download limits so quickly that they are being penalised by the uploading costs that are coming from video streaming, movies and the multichannel televisions that Senator Eggleston was so keen for us all to take up.

We heard about the WiMAX network today. We all know that there are real problems with this wireless technology. The OECD report was quite scathing about it. Our problem with it is that those communities and farming families who are living 20 to 50 kilometres from the exchange will be stuck with a system that degrades with the number of users on it and also according to the weather. If you have regular seasonal weather problems, you will be very disadvantaged by that when using this system. So, let’s think about what we are condemning country Australia to—a two-tiered system that will leave regional Australia very disadvantaged in the longer term.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not surprised that Senator Stephens sat down early, because she was starting to repeat herself. Isn’t it remarkable that the Australian Labor Party is talking about regional and rural Australia?

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you know where Goulburn is?

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do, because I actually live in regional Australia—unlike you, I suspect. What is amazing is that this is the same party who phased out analog without any other system to replace it. You stranded regional and rural Australians with an analog phase-out without any technology replacement for it at all. When we got into government, we had to move very quickly to put in the CDMA system; otherwise the people that you are crying crocodile tears on behalf of would not have had any mobile phone service at all. So do not come in here and talk about regional and rural Australians and the Australian Labor Party. What about your proposal to phase out the Communications Fund? Who will that impact on? What group of people will be impacted by the Labor Party’s decision to phase out the Communications Fund? Again, it is regional and rural Australians.

Earlier, the shadow shadow minister, Senator Conroy, was crying crocodile tears. His nickname is ‘Captain Dial-up’. He has had two policies. The first was dial-up, but Lindsay Tanner, the real shadow minister, got onto it and tried to do something else. The second policy had Senator Conroy with his hand in the honey jar, ripping funds away from our kids and grandkids. What did he say about Labor Party costing? Senator Birmingham, you are wondering that to yourself as I speak. He does not know where the figure came from. He has no idea. I hope that gives you an answer to the question that you were just about to ask. He had no idea of what the figure was or where it came from.

Those who actually know something about this technology have a rough idea of what it will cost. Senator Conroy is talking about $4.7 billion. Industry analysts believe that it will be closer to $16 billion. So he will have one bite at the Future Fund for $4.7 billion on the basis of figures about which he says he does not know where they came from. Everyone, except Senator Conroy, believes that it is grossly underpriced at $4.7 billion. Industry says it will be closer to $16 billion. So Labor will have one bite at the Future Fund, then they will have another bite at the Future Fund and, when they start running the country back into debt again, they will have yet another bite at the Future Fund. Labor parties, both federal and state, cannot help themselves. They are poor economic managers, and the people who end up paying the price for it are the Australian community.

This program provides a balance between the requirements of metropolitan Australia and those of regional and rural Australia. The bottom line is that, for people living in capital cities, there is very strong competition and the market is capable of delivering these services with fibre. You will see players come out of the woodwork to put in tenders, which will be considered by the group that was referred to earlier. But, in regional and rural Australia, it is just patent nonsense to think that fibre will solve these problems. This program has a sensible mix of technology, and it will maximise the chance of all regional and rural Australians having high-speed broadband. The Labor Party policy cannot work. It is not funded. It cannot be delivered. Our policy achieves what regional and rural Australians want, and that is access to broadband in the future which will enable them to live, work and entertain themselves where they live. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make comment about Minister Coonan’s answers to questions. I was disappointed to hear the comments of Senator Ronaldson, who purports to represent rural Australia. Once again we see the Howard government responding to Labor initiatives and trying to play catch-up, just like with climate change. This government only appears to take notice of problems once the Labor Party has drawn its attention to them. This Prime Minister seems to be a sceptic on anything to do with the future. Whether it is climate change or broadband—you name it—this government refuses to accept that there is a problem until Kevin Rudd and the Labor Party point it out. Then it puts together something with a bit of spin and no substance and hopes that no-one will see through it and the problem will just go away.

The government’s backflip on broadband shows a lack of vision that is characteristic of this government. It has nothing left in its tank, and all it can do is be towed along by Labor on issues of national significance such as broadband and climate change. The government’s broadband plan as announced is nothing more than another election year bandaid for a problem that requires a long-term solution. The Prime Minister has realised, months out from an election, unsurprisingly, that broadband is a serious issue and that he cannot get away with closing his eyes and pretending broadband is not an issue. Labor realised this a long time ago and put forward its own national broadband policy, which represents a massive long-term investment in Australia’s future. Kevin Rudd has put forward a vision for this country’s broadband future that looks at what is best for everyone, regardless of where they live.

This government’s policy does nothing of the kind. It makes a distinction between rural and metropolitan areas and it offers wireless access for regional areas. I ask why, if wireless is such an excellent solution, the Prime Minister, the minister and her colleagues do not switch over to wireless completely. Somehow I cannot see that happening, yet the Prime Minister is perfectly happy to propose the same solution for millions of Australians. Of course, this government does not really care about the quality of the access it is providing to Australians. It is all about the spin of putting something forward, even if it is nowhere near what is required.

Wireless is hardly a solution to rural broadband issues. It still has a range of problems, such as declining performance due to distance, bad weather or the number of users at any one time, let alone the problems in a community like Tasmania, where there are geographical challenges. Wireless has a place as a complement to fixed-line broadband services but cannot be a replacement as the government intends. We need the vision and foresight to take us forward into the future, and we need to invest in the infrastructure that will help our rural areas. To do that we need to provide them with the best possible fixed-line broadband services that we can—exactly what is proposed by Kevin Rudd and Labor.

Once again, we see the government looking for the quick fix, the easy solution. I should not be surprised that this is what the government is proposing—it is an election year, after all. That is the only time that this out-of-touch government pays any attention to issues that Labor has drawn to its attention. Does anyone here really think that this broadband plan would have been cobbled together if there was not an election or that climate change would even be acknowledged as an issue by the Prime Minister if it was not an election year? It illustrates just how out of touch with the Australian public this government and this Prime Minister are, that it takes an election and polls to wake them up to the issues facing Australians.

Labor believe that regional areas, including many places in my own state of Tasmania, deserve to have the same broadband opportunities and infrastructure as metropolitan areas. We do not agree with the two-tier system that has been cobbled together when there is an election around the corner. Labor’s proposal delivers a minimum speed increase 40 times greater than current speeds to everyone, no matter where they live. The government is proposing 12-megabit coverage using a wireless system. We are proposing a much more solid fixed-line broadband solution that will provide a much faster alternative to the government’s proposal. Our solution is not a cheap bandaid like what the Prime Minister is proposing.

We believe that it is important to set up our broadband infrastructure now so that Australians are no longer disadvantaged and so that living in the bush certainly does not disqualify you from access to fast internet services. That is our long-term vision for the country—an internet infrastructure that delivers fast, effective broadband to all Australians. This hacked-together plan does nothing of the kind; it is the worst kind of— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.