Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I refer the minister to her claim that her broadband plan will provide very fast broadband speeds of 12 megabits per second to rural and regional areas. Can the minister confirm that Optus-Elders themselves concede that their plan only delivers speeds of up to 12 megabits per second? Don’t Optus-Elders qualify their claim by acknowledging that actual speeds will vary according to distance, internet traffic, weather conditions and terrain? Why has the minister ignored the Optus-Elders qualification and misled Australians about the broadband speed that her package will deliver?

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

Thank you to Senator Lundy for the question. The technology that the government has adopted in its Australia Connect package and in the rollout of the new network will reach people that the Labor Party will simply forget. The rural and regional Australians who will be excluded from the Labor Party’s ‘fraudband’ will be covered by this new technology. The OPEL network will use the best mix of technologies. It will use ADSL2+ in the more densely populated urban fringes and WiMAX technology to fill black spots in the ADSL2+ coverage and in the less densely populated regional areas. I am glad that Senator Lundy brought up Optus-Elders’s claim, because I happen to have here what Mr Les Wozniczka, CEO of Futuris, which is the owners of Elders, said this morning:

The network has been designed from the ground up to meet all the needs of users in rural and regional Australia. The government funds will be deployed in a mixture of fibre. In fact, 80 per cent of the funds will be going into improving backhaul roots, where there has been major congestion, and to address some issues of monopoly pricing there. It is going into WiMAX technologies and it is going into ADSL2+. The technology will deliver a performance that will be comparable to metropolitan centres.

He continued:

It is scaleable—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I rise on a point of order. It goes to the question of relevance. The minister has made no attempt to answer the question—in fact, in answering it she said she was glad Senator Lundy brought something up, as if the answer should not be at all related to the question. I ask you to direct her to the question, which was about a comparison between her claims and the claims of those allegedly providing the service. I ask you to ask her to answer the question.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has over two minutes left to answer the question. I believe she was relevant, because she was talking about broadband speed and that is what the question was about.

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

I know this is hitting a bit of a raw nerve over the other side. Mr Wozniczka, from Elders—and this was specifically raised by Senator Lundy in her primary question; I am sure I will get a penetrating supplementary—said:

This technology is scaleable. The long-term plans are to reach speeds of up to 50 to 70 megabits per second. The infrastructure that we are putting in place will allow Australia to continue to be at the leading edge of technology as new technology comes in.

I was interested to hear Mr Wozniczka comment that the opposition had not bothered to talk to Elders about this technology. Can you imagine, Mr President, that there is criticism of the technology? According to one of the companies that will be rolling it out in a joint venture, nobody has even bothered to ask them how they see this technology working.

It is also interesting that this company—the Elders and Optus joint venture, called OPEL—have actually got some skin in the game. This joint venture are putting $1 billion of their own money into this technology. Would they seriously back technology that they did not feel was capable of meeting the capabilities that they claim for it? WiMAX is a fourth generation wireless technology, and it is proven to provide high-speed broadband connections over long distances. Mr Wozniczka has confirmed the speeds that the technology is capable of. He said that it is a guaranteed speed, increasing to 12 megabits out to a radius of 20 kilometres, and that will be by 2009. (Time expired)

Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Despite my colleague’s point of order I note that the minister deliberately ignored my specific question. I ask this supplementary: isn’t it the case that, if you live in a flat area and there is a cloudless sky at 2 am, wireless broadband might be able to deliver speeds of 12 megabits per second? Isn’t this exactly why the minister’s colleague Senator Joyce said today that a lot more needs to be done on this? Why should regional Australia get only a second-rate service?

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

The government will deliver a service where the Labor Party will provide absolutely none. Labor has absolutely no answer for the last two per cent of the population. In fact, they have no answer after about 72 per cent of the population, but that is for another answer. The important thing to notice is that this technology will deliver what it is claimed to do and it is capable of scaling up. The critical point is that the Labor Party will simply drain the Communications Fund that this government will keep and retain for the benefit of future upgrades for rural and regional Australians so that this technology can continue to improve over the years.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan. Will the minister please provide details to the Senate on government action to ensure that all Australians enjoy equitable access to high speed broadband? Are there any alternative policies?

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

Thank you to Senator Nash for her longstanding interest and support for the people of rural and regional Australia. Yesterday I announced a new wholesale network for Australia that will provide a world-class 12-megabit coverage to 99 per cent of the population at affordable prices. We are providing $958 million to ensure that, using a mix of technologies, a new state-of-the-art network will reach 99 per cent of the population and be completed by 2009.

The Communications Fund that I mentioned will provide an income stream to ensure ongoing upgrades of this technology into the future. Yesterday every member of parliament, without exception, was provided with a map giving intricate details on the rollout of this new network. This is a world first—a policy that ensures that all Australians, regardless of where they live, have access to affordable broadband. By contrast, Labor has released an uncosted, untested and undeliverable proposal that misleads people into thinking that Labor can deliver fibre to 98 per cent of Australians for only $8 billion. However, based on any reasonable assessment of their flimsy costings, their numbers simply do not add up. $4 billion alone is required for the cities covering 36 per cent of the population, so if you generously assume another $4 billion will get you another 36 per cent of the population, you have a total coverage of 72 per cent. That is certainly not 99 per cent and not even 98 per cent, but 72 per cent. We can call it 75 per cent to be really generous, and I am being generous today. This means that Labor will leave over three million premises without fast broadband service and no prospect of ever getting one in the future.

Labor’s forward proposal is now starting to unravel. Labor’s shadow cabinet minister and the member for Hunter, Mr Joel Fitzgibbon MP, has well and truly belled the cat with his comments in a media doorstop in Canberra today. The journalist asked, ‘Who misses out in that region under your plan?’ The shadow minister for defence replied, ‘Well, those things are yet to be tested.’ He went on to say, ‘We will roll out fibre to the node right throughout the Hunter region. Obviously there may be some people excluded from that.’ He then said, ‘We don’t have the technical backing to make those final conclusions.’ So now we have a shadow cabinet minister confirming that Labor’s proposal leaves many behind, and it does not even cover the Hunter region.

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There is too much noise in the chamber.

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

There is not much noise over here.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ronaldson, come to order!

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

Forget a so-called plan for the future. Labor’s broadband has been shown up as ‘fraudband’ by one of its own shadow cabinet ministers. It is absolutely clear today that this is an inexperienced Labor team which does not have the necessary policy or economic clout to manage a trillion-dollar economy. I want to issue the Labor Party a challenge—(Time expired)

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Would the minister further explain why the government will not be adopting alternative policies?

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

I was issuing a challenge to the Labor Party, and I see that Senator Conroy is piking it today; he is not in the chamber. My challenge to the absent Senator Conroy is this: release Labor’s costings, coverage maps and details of technical backing that prove Labor’s plan works. I am calling on the Labor Party to release details that support their claim that with $8 billion they can reach 98 per cent of the population with fibre. It is clearly a nonsense, but until Labor provides this detail on its plan, all Australians, particularly those in regional and rural Australia, will have no confidence that there is any alternative to the government’s fully costed and fully tested plan of delivering affordable broadband to all Australians.

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

My question is to Senator Coonan, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Can the minister confirm that Tasmania has been totally excluded from the government’s five capital city fibre-to-the-node broadband network? Isn’t it true that, instead of getting a first-class fibre-optic system, many Tasmanians will have to put up with second-rate wireless broadband? Doesn’t the performance of wireless decline with distance, bad weather, hilly geography and the number of people using the service at any one time? Why should Tasmanians put up with a system that will not work properly if they live in a hilly area or it happens to be raining?

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

I actually enjoy Tasmania very much, and when I go to Tasmania I am going to be able to access first-class telecommunications from any part of Tasmania, because Tasmania is obviously to be covered by the new high-speed network that will provide a minimum speed of 12 megabits to 99 per cent of the Australian population. Unless I am very much mistaken, Tasmanians definitely belong to the whole of the Australian population, and they are so included. The government is strongly committed to the proposition that all Australians, regardless of where they live, should have access to high-speed broadband.

It is a very brave person who would say that they know all the technological answers for Australia over the next five years. Just a couple of years ago we had Labor’s foray into dial-up internet, urging the government to splurge $5 billion of taxpayers’ money on mandating dial-up. The reality is that a mix of technologies will be the most effective means to deliver the services that Australia needs. The WiMAX broadband technology is a wireless broadband technology that can provide a lower cost alternative to wireline broadband in regional and rural areas. I am not telling those opposite anything they do not know already, particularly if they listen to their shadow spokesperson, Senator Conroy, who seems to be absent today. This is a bit of a killer: in 2005 Senator Conroy told a Connecting Up conference:

With access to a wireless broadband virtual private network, a farmer could design a farm that is completely ‘connected up’—

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was that wireless?

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

Yes, Senator Abetz, that was wireless. He continued:

... and allows him to monitor his property and control his machinery from the comfort of his home.

Senator Conroy went on:

However, these possibilities can only be realised if rural and regional communities have access to the infrastructure used to deliver these services.

That is a phenomenal backflip! In the same speech Senator Conroy said:

The most important infrastructure in this regard is the infrastructure that allows the delivery of broadband, optical fibre, DSLAMs and wireless base stations.

That is a quote from a speech of Senator Conroy. I could not have put it better myself. He said that by adopting a mix of technologies the government is providing equitable access to all Australians regardless of where they live.

Why has he had this change of heart, we have to ask ourselves, don’t we? It may have been that a focus group report had come in, and that was why it came time for him to jump out of bed yesterday morning. Senator Conroy had been told it was time to do a backflip. He now believes that a one-size-fits-all approach to 72 per cent of the population is sufficient, which is what his plan has. Like many other Australians, I disagree with him. The government has a detailed, costed and deliverable policy of delivering broadband to all Australians.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Didn’t the government say its plan was a comprehensive and complete broadband solution for Australia? If the plan really is comprehensive and complete, why aren’t Tasmanians—including those living in our two largest cities of Launceston, Senator Colbeck, and Hobart, Senator Abetz—getting first-class fibre-optic broadband? Why aren’t Tasmanians entitled to the same level of service as Australians living in the five mainland capital cities?

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators on my left, one of your colleagues asked a question. For goodness sake keep quiet and let it be answered!

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

The government’s technology will roll out 12 megabits, which is precisely what the Labor Party has said they can do with fibre. Senator Carol Brown can rest easy because the competitive bids process will include Hobart, as a major capital city, in any of the fibre-to-the-node rollouts.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about Launceston? What about Devonport? What about Burnie?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry, you are warned!