Helen Polley (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. I refer the minister to an article in the Courier Mail newspaper on 30 July regarding small broadband providers in regional and rural Australia. Does the minister agree with the article where it says that many people will not receive the government’s broadband solution because of the topography where they live? Does this mean that small broadband providers will have to save the government from political embarrassment by filling in the black spots left by the minister’s second-class system in rural and regional Australia? Can the minister now confirm that her broadband plan will not reach the 99 per cent of Australians she says will be covered, and that she will instead rely on small service providers to fill in the gaps?

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

Thank you, Senator Polley, for the question, which is based on some entirely unfounded assumptions. Let me inform the Senate about the government’s broadband plan, which thoroughly refutes Senator Polley’s contentions. Senator Polley should not look at articles in the Courier Mail or anywhere else without checking the factual basis for the allegations. The government appreciates that if there are a number of black spots right across Australia, and some of them are around metropolitan Australia, in outer metropolitan rings of metropolitan Australia, in rural and regional Australia and more remote Australia, it is quite obvious that you need a comprehensive plan to mop up all those black spots and to actually understand how you are going to obtain coverage of at least 99 per cent of the population with a fast service at an affordable price. The government conducted a competitive bids process with, I think, 28 bidders who all came up with some creative solutions as to how to do this. And the winner of that bids process, OPEL—a consortium of Elders, the well-known Australian brand and Optus—now has a plan to roll out broadband using a mix of technologies—fibre, backhaul, enabling ADSL2+ exchanges and state-of-the-art WiMAX technology—to ensure that people who do not live near built infrastructure, people who live on farms, people who do not live near an exchange or people who live near an exchange but have not been able to get a broadband service for some considerable time and are very frustrated by this, will get a broadband service that will be 20 to 40 times faster than is currently available. And this service will be available right across Australia.

That is not to say that the one per cent who may not get this service will not have a service, because they will under the Australian Broadband Guarantee. Unlike the Labor Party, who have a one-size-fits-all approach that will not reach the difficult areas in rural and regional Australia—and in fact will mean that something like 7,000 households and premises will miss out—we appreciate that competition actually delivers choice and better prices for Australians. So we welcome small providers who under the Australian Broadband Guarantee will continue to be able to provide a service and who have under earlier stages of the government’s broadband program been rolling out services to ensure that Australians get a broadband service regardless of where they live.

Senator Polley really needs to go back to the drawing board on this one. She needs to understand that WiMAX technology is state-of-the-art technology that is quite capable of delivering the service that we are contending. It will all be independently tested and it will mean that all Australians regardless of where they live will be able to get a fast broadband service.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Does the minister stand by her statement that the actual coverage of the second-class fixed wireless broadband solution the government is imposing on millions of Australians will not be known until after the network is built? Doesn’t this confirm statements published in the international journal WiMAX Day that the government’s second-class network is ‘suitable only for distracting kangaroos and dingoes as they scamper across the wild Australian outback’?

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

This provides fast broadband to 99 per cent of Australians at a metro-comparable price. Consumers are indeed lucky that they are not relying on the Labor Party to deliver a service that will not provide any kind of coverage for people who do not live near built infrastructure. I think that this service is going to be better than the nonexistent service that would be available under Labor’s one-size-fits-all complete and utter fraudband.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I commend you on your chairmanship of your first question time and ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.