Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) 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.

We are once again witnessing the most amazing game of catch-up that we have seen for a long time. I have paid a great deal of attention to the issue of broadband for 11 years in this place. I have seen this government announce to all and sundry that in fact it was their view that Australians not only did not want broadband but they did not need it. We have witnessed 11 years of this government not only doing just about everything they possibly can to ensure that Australia was left behind in the economic sphere of opportunity that broadband offers, but they did so with quite a disgraceful alternative political agenda—and that was the privatisation of Telstra. That kept them focused on that particular objective and turned their heads away from the needs of the future of this nation in relation to broadband.

What we are seeing today is the minister desperately trying to justify this policy, as a catch-up to Labor’s forward-thinking, future orientated broadband initiative. But, as with most things that the Howard government attempt to do in the eleventh hour of an election year, they have got it wrong. What is sad and disappointing about the government’s attempt in this area of public policy is that they are creating a two-class system—a whole raft of second-rate citizens who will only have available to them the inferior wireless service that forms such a central feature of the Howard government’s so-called broadband plan, Australia Connected.

I say this because, today in question time, we tested the minister’s knowledge and understanding of the technology once again, and asked her very specifically to answer a question about the proposed speeds for the WiMAX technology that will service rural and regional Australia under their plan. What we know is that this technology cannot service a minimum of 12 megabits per second; it can service up to 12 megabits per second. What we also know from Elders-Optus is that it is likely to provide a speed of around six megabits per second. I would like to refer to a useful document, which I will refer to the minister to assist her knowledge. It is called Broadband made easy and is published by Ericsson. It gives the definition of WiMAX as ‘World Interoperability for Microwave Access’ and describes it as:

A new wireless technology that uses a shared base radio station for two-way communication for several kilometres around the base station. It’s used for fast Internet access and sometimes phone calls.

The document goes on to say:

Most service providers and manufacturers in their sales literature will give the maximum theoretical speed in Mbps—

megabits per second—

that their technology can provide (for example ADSL can provide speeds “up to” 6Mbps). In the real world, factors such as sharing with other users, distance, and interference will mean that the average user experience is likely to be lower than this speed. So the “capacity” or “throughput” of your broadband access will be less than the maximum “speed” of the broadband access. This is true of all networks.

And they use this analogy that I think is quite useful for the minister:

For example the signs on a freeway may say that the maximum speed is 100kph, but at peak hour when you are sharing the road network with thousands of other users, you may not be able to achieve this speed very often.

The minister seems to be incapable of acknowledging this technological fact. She failed to answer this question and, in fact, deliberately ignored it and my supplementary question about what is known to be severe interference with that technology. Senator Coonan also failed to answer questions regarding Tasmania, which misses out completely on the higher bandwidth technologies based on fibre networks. We know that they took this issue to cabinet and it is political. In relation to the maps, I found out that, in a slimy, dirty act, these maps were slipped under the doors of opposition MPs after 9.30 last night, when the House rose. What a typical Howard government slimy dog act. And the minister stood here and gratuitously claimed that everyone got this information in these maps at the same time. What a disgrace! (Time expired)

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow Senator Lundy, because, in order to respond to her comments, you look in vain to find any powerful points that she has made against the government. What we are seeing, of course, is a classic case of Labor sour grapes. Labor’s election approach is now completely unravelling. We know that with the climate change issue the Labor Party have fallen over a very big hurdle with their targets, which cannot be sustained without doing massive damage to the Australian economy. We know that the centrepiece of the economic strategy—the productivity approach led by Mr Rudd—has fallen over because it has become very clear that Mr Rudd himself knows nothing about the issues of productivity and the Australian economy.

Finally, with the announcement of the broadband rollout, we find that the Labor Party is now struggling to catch up with the government’s approach. By every measure, the Labor Party’s policy on broadband is grossly inferior to the policy outlined by the Prime Minister in his press conference yesterday. I was intrigued to listen to Senator Lundy and her attack on the WiMAX technology. It is a great pity that Senator Lundy’s speech is not being heard in the US. My understanding is that WiMAX is being rolled out to some 100 million homes in the US, but they did not have the advantage, unfortunately, of the advice from Senator Lundy, which I am sure would not have changed their opinion one iota.

What we are seeing is the classic approach by the Labor Party. They never want to discuss policies; they want to play the man. This is exactly what we are seeing across a wide range of areas with the Labor Party’s approach as we go to the next election. There are very significant policy issues that have to be debated in the Australian community. The government is very proud of its broadband policy. A great deal of work has been put into the development of this policy on broadband, which will be rolled out to 99 per cent of Australian homes. This is in contrast—and I am being generous to the Labor Party’s broadband policy—to a rollout to some 75 per cent of Australian homes. Of course, we have been able to do this without the massive raid on the public purse which the Labor Party has proposed.

What we are seeing as we are moving towards the winter break is that the Labor Party are finding that their policies on climate change are under acute attack—and correctly so—because of the damage they will do to the economy. We are finding the productivity approach of Mr Rudd unwinding simply because of the incredible ignorance of Mr Rudd on key features of his own policy and key features of how the Australian economy works. And we are seeing this precisely in relation to the matter of broadband.

As to the paucity of the Labor Party policy, those who do not believe me should listen to the astonishing interview that was given by Joel Fitzgibbon, the Labor Party shadow defence minister. He finally told the truth—I do not say that he did that deliberately—about the Labor Party’s broadband proposal. He revealed that it is ‘yet to be tested’. It has ‘no technical backing’ and cannot reach anywhere near the levels of the population in the proposal announced by the Prime Minister yesterday. The fact is that the Labor Party approach on broadband is grossly inferior to the approach that was revealed by the government.

Now that the Labor Party is trying to catch up what does Senator Lundy do? Senator Lundy gets herself into a great lather and attacks the government and personally attacks Senator Coonan, which I thought was most unfortunate and shows a complete unwillingness, in my opinion, to debate the substantive issues which are before us. But I can make this prediction: as we go towards the next election, the personal attacks on the Prime Minister and on the frontbenchers of the Liberal Party will increase. We are seeing this day after day in question time. The personal attacks on Senator Coonan were unfortunately continued in the contribution made by Senator Lundy. The fact of the matter is the Australian public want a substantive policy debate. They want real issues to be debated, and the Labor Party— (Time expired)

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing, Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take this opportunity to make some analyses of the government’s so-called broadband proposals for North Queensland and the implications for our economy and our ability to participate in the broader community. Access to broadband is increasingly being raised with my office as an issue of concern for North Queensland residents. Why? Because people are increasingly coming to understand that broadband is the new way to do business—it is the new way that we connect with society. For people in more remote places, it is increasingly becoming apparent that we currently have a second-rate service. Increasingly, my office is receiving complaints about the current second-rate service, the inability to connect to the internet and the poor speed of the service that we currently have.

North Queenslanders know that at present we receive a substandard service. The children at the Seventh-day Adventist school in the inner-city suburb of Westcourt in Cairns know that they still cannot connect their computers to the internet. For over three years we have worked hard but to no avail to try to get this school connected, but the service that is being provided is now substandard. Unfortunately they are joined in waiting for a service by the children from Caravonica State School, a school on the northern highway out of Cairns. We are not talking about remote or isolated schools in this circumstance; we are talking about schools in the main part of the city of Cairns which currently cannot receive an adequate internet service. The schools in more remote places have another set of problems again.

Unfortunately, the announcement by Senator Coonan yesterday confirms that our children in North Queensland will continue to have a substandard, second-rate service compared with that for their city cousins. We know that the technology being offered to rural and remote Australia will not equate to what people will be able to access in capital cities. In fact, Senator Coonan said so herself; she said it would be ‘comparable’. We know that the wireless proposal is a second-class, substandard service compared to that which could be accessed in a capital city in Australia. Even the proponents, Optus-Elders, have said that speeds will be ‘up to’ 12 megabits. Senator Lundy has quite rightly put to the chamber that the Optus-Elders proposal will probably run at a speed of around six megabits. Twelve megabits may be the best that can be achieved, but the reality is that we know it will be highly unlikely.

We also know that the service will be compromised by distance, traffic on the system, weather conditions and terrain. Welcome to North Queensland! In North Queensland we know that under the Howard government proposal we can expect to have significant outages during the long wet season we experience. In North Queensland we know that there will be significant outages for people living in more remote places, where the signal will have to travel longer distances. We also know that for those who live in the area west of Cairns, the Atherton Tablelands, the black spot problems they currently experience with their mobile phones because of the terrain will be once again exacerbated.

But we do not have to take my word for it. I was in touch today with a leader in the IT sector particularly interested in IT in health and ageing. He compared Labor’s previously announced policy and the announcement yesterday by the government. He described the government’s plan as a short-term quick fix. He said that it was clearly for political reasons, to get them past the election, and not a long-term solution. Interestingly, he described Labor’s plan as far more robust and sustainable. He described wireless service as high risk. As we know, one area of opportunity for rural and remote communities is e-health, where patients can be assisted by physicians located, usually, in major cities. He painted a fairly scary picture. He said, ‘Imagine— (Time expired)

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is no wonder that Labor is flailing about on this issue and trying to get lots of coverage, because it has been exposed. Its policy proposals have been blown out of the water by a better package delivered by the Howard government on broadband and the future communications infrastructure of this country. It is a package that is more comprehensive and that recognises that one size does not necessarily fit all, a package that delivers across the spectrum of the Australian community—unlike Labor’s policy, which is an attempt at a simple, one-size-fits-all that is going to blow billions of dollars of public money.

The government has recognised that we do need to address areas in which there may be market failure, and we recognise that they may exist in regional areas. That is why the government has committed some $600 million to providing the most effective mix of infrastructure to deliver broadband technology as fast as possible to regional Australia. It is a mix of fibre optic, ADSL2+ and wireless broadband. It is recognition that the government is willing to put in place the best and most appropriate technology to get broadband as fast and as cheaply as possible into the communities where it is needed. Where the markets can deliver, we are backing the development of a commercial fibre optic network—again, ensuring that it is done faster than under Labor’s plan but ensuring that we do not have to put public money into it, because there is no market failure.

Labor wants to spend billions of hard-earned Australian taxpayers’ dollars addressing a market failure that does not exist in metropolitan areas. Instead, we are putting our faith in the private sector, through a competitive tender process, to deliver that infrastructure. All up, that is going to ensure that we cover some 99 per cent of Australian households—a greater number than would be covered by Labor’s proposal, faster than Labor’s proposal and with a more effective mix of technologies. Just to ensure that the remaining one per cent do not miss out—and because the government has always been committed to ensuring that people in regional and rural Australia get the right mix of technologies—we will also have in place the Australian Broadband Guarantee, ensuring a subsidy of up to $2,750 per household to allow those who might miss out under the other two schemes to access broadband.

This is a much better proposal. It is a proposal in which my home state, South Australia, is a winner. I was delighted to read this morning that, as a result of the awarding of the tender to the Elders consortium, there will be 450 extra jobs coming to Adelaide. It is excellent news for South Australia and something we welcome warmly. Not only will we get better broadband infrastructure in South Australia as a result of this but we will get more jobs in a high-tech industry as well. It is great news for South Australia.

We hear allegations from the other side that states such as Tasmania may miss out. Perhaps the other side need to do their homework, because I understand that Tasmania will not miss out. There is already a high-speed optical fibre cable going to Tasmania, built at the cost of some $24 million by the Tasmania government and doing absolutely nothing at present. It is lying idle. The Labor Party, whose government in Tasmania built this $24 million cable, should be thanking the government for the fact that we are delivering the capacity for that piece of infrastructure to be utilised in the north of Tasmania. That will ensure that Burnie, Devonport, Ulverstone and Wynyard all get access to ADSL2+, contrary to what is being alleged on the opposite side. Indeed, as the minister indicated, Hobart will also be included in the tender documents. So South Australia is a winner, Tasmania is a winner; all of Australia is a winner under this proposal, because we will be saved from Labor’s plan. We are going to get great infrastructure here, and all of Australia will win by being saved from a plan that would deliver less for the future in connection speeds and coverage across Australia, and would deliver less funds available for the future by raiding the $2 billion Communications Fund—not just raiding it but wiping that out—and by raiding $2.7 billion from the Future Fund. It is a case of delivering less for Australia from that side, more from this side. We have developed a plan for the future. Compare that with the policy backflip of Labor—the uncertainty on policy. Senator Lundy back on 1 December told the AFR broadband Australia 2006 conference that— (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion to take note of the answers by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan, to the questions today in relation to the government’s broadband plan—a plan that is very much wanting. Senator Birmingham talks about it building a future. It is unfortunate the only future that the government seems to be concerned about is its own. This is a plan that is very much wanting, a plan that has been exposed as nothing more than a plan for the government’s re-election. The government’s broadband announcement proved, once again, just how arrogant and out of touch it has become. It proved yet again that this is a government that is willing to sacrifice the best interests of the Australian people to suit its own power hungry political agenda. It proved that this government is short sighted, with its focus only extending as far as the next election and with no real vision for the future. If we needed any further evidence of this, we only need to go to the minister’s office itself. In a leaked email from the minister’s office, it laid out its priority. Is the national interest the priority? No. Is good governance the priority? No. Surprise, surprise, its priority is votes in marginal seats. So desperate is this government, so self-serving, so obsessed with its own interest, that the national interest goes out the window. Good government policy goes out of the window and we are left with a broadband plan that is very much left wanting.

The minister today seemed to backflip and belatedly add Hobart to the FTTN list. That is a commitment we will hold the minister to. But what about Launceston? The government’s announcement has left the state of Tasmania and rural and regional Australia out in the cold. The announcement would lock millions of Australians into a second-class service. The government has slapped together a quick fix, a short-sighted bandaid plan that will only deliver high-speed fibre networks to the inner areas of the capital cities, leaving families, students and small business operators in other areas to struggle with inferior wireless service.

Unlike Labor’s high-speed fibre to the node national broadband network plan, which will be rolled out to 98 per cent of Australians and deliver service that would be a minimum of 40 times faster than that which is currently provided, the government’s plan is to only deliver such services to the capital cities, leaving the rest of Australia with a second-rate wireless service. As the OECD recently found, there are serious questions over the reliability of wireless to deliver adequate services to rural and regional Australia. Current users of the wireless network in such areas already know all too well that it is unreliable, to say the least, suffering from slower speeds, slower upload and download times and weather interferences. Why should people in rural and regional Australia be left out in the cold and be made to put up with a second-rate service? Why, if the government plans to provide, as it claims, a complete and comprehensive broadband solution for Australia, are families and business operators located outside the cities, who are due to receive the FTTN, being neglected? This is a disgrace. Under this plan, my home state of Tasmania has virtually been left off the map. The government plan means that Tasmania will be classified as a rural and regional area and we will not receive the fibre to the node network.

The government plans to treat Tasmania, along with other areas outside the cities, as broadband backwaters not worthy of receiving a first-class service. Simply, it is a disgrace. The government, with its head in the sand, is naive to think that all that is at stake for people living in these areas is slow access and a few hiccups due to bad weather. The Australian Local Government Association found in its State of the regions report last year that the cost of inferior broadband services—that is, wireless—in 2006 alone was $2.7 billion in forgone gross domestic product and 30,000 regional jobs. Why should areas where people live, such as areas in Tasmania, be forced to suffer such a fate? And where were the Tasmanian Liberal senators when the plans were being hatched to dump Tasmania and relegate Tasmanians as second-class citizens? I will tell you: nowhere to be seen, just as they were for the Blundstone workers and just as they were for the Telstra workers. They were nowhere to be seen. The government cannot see— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.