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 ministers to questions without notice asked today.

What we are seeing here is a government flailing around desperately trying to cover up the deliberately misleading information it is providing about its 17th and 18th plans. That is right; in case you have not counted them, these are the federal government’s 17th and 18th broadband plans in 11 years.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

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

You are so deluding yourselves that you are sending around information in pamphlets like the one I have here issued by Ms Fran Bailey. While you are in the chamber, let me take you through some of your self-delusions. The pamphlet starts off by saying:

Did you know?

Labor says its plan to roll out fibre to every home—

that’s funny; I thought we were rolling out fibre to the node—

will cost taxpayers $4.7 billion.

However, South Korea—a country half the size of Victoria—used the same system, but it cost $50 billion.

As Senator Coonan continually says—and accuses us of doing—Labor is rolling out fibre to the node. Labor has no plan to roll out fibre to the home, but that has not stopped Fran Bailey from distributing this nice, colour brochure.

She then goes on in her brochure to talk about all the wonderful things about the WiMAX product. There is only one problem with that: you bought an obsolete version of WiMAX. You bought fixed wireless. The brochure tells us that WiMAX chips will be incorporated in a whole raft of electronic devices, such as computers and laptops. That is true: WiMAX chips will be incorporated in those devices. But there is one problem: you bought an obsolete version of WiMAX. Not one computer or laptop in this country produced today or that will be produced in the future will actually receive your dog of a product of OPEL—not one laptop. You will not be able to take it for a walk down to the shed, like Senator Coonan told you in the party room. I am sure she said, ‘Don’t you worry; we’ll be able to pick up a laptop and walk down to the shed.’ It is not true. Not one laptop will receive it. And of course there are those very colourful maps that you all had distributed. I note that not all of you have taken the option of posting them out, like Fran Bailey has. Some of you probably looked at them and said, ‘Umm, that can’t be right; that can’t possibly be true.’ Let me be clear: this government is offering Australians, particularly the millions and millions of Australians who live in regional, rural and outer-suburban Australia, a second-class plan designed to lock them into an outdated, obsolete technology that they will not be able to upgrade from in their lifetime.

But let us go back to the issue of coverage. I will read from the government’s panel in Australia Connected, as distributed by you and by the minister, which says:

Coverage—Proven to reach 100% of the population.

Actually, the minister is only claiming 99 per cent. So that is the first mislead. The second is:

Speeds—12-50 mbps.

I know it may seem like the words ‘up to’ are not important but, if a company was not using the words ‘up to’, it would be fined by the ACCC. WiMAX, particularly the OPEL fixed wireless, cannot deliver 12 megabits. OPEL themselves have admitted that actual speeds will be less due to distance and traffic. If you want 12 megabits you will need to be standing underneath the tower at midnight on a Saturday and praying that you are the only person using it. That is the only way that you are going to get 12 megabits out of this dog that you have bought. But I will continue quoting. The next point is ‘Radius from each site’. The maps in the brochure are particularly important at this point. The nice green circles are around base stations. What did the government claim? The government claimed:

Minimum 20km from base station.

What does Mr Peter Ferris, the General Manager of Technology and Planning for Optus, say about the reach of the OPEL product? He says that the systems trial by Optus requires line of sight—and I will come back to that—connection between tower and user and then six kilometres from the towers. (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always entertaining to listen to Senator Conroy talk about truth in advertising and in supplying the facts. It is a very strange form of entertainment. Perhaps it is better for me to listen to it than to have my children suffer nightmares after watching Senator Conroy on the TV, as they did the other day. They rang up and asked, ‘Dad, do all senators behave so badly?’ I say to the 80,000 listeners today that I am very disappointed you have heard that spray from the Labor Party. They criticise a very good initiative to roll out broadband to 99 per cent of Australia, to give access to 99 per cent of Australians to fast, efficient broadband at a cost which is a fraction of the cost of this mythological program which the Labor Party purports it will roll out.

Senator Conroy talked about how we have had a number of approaches to supplying broadband to people in this country in as efficient and cost-effective a manner as is possible. Of course we have had a number of approaches because the technology has been changing over the entire duration of this government, and it will continue to change. The Labor Party are suggesting that their answer is the only answer. It is going to cost $4.7 billion. They are going to raid the future posterity of this country, taking money from our children and taxpayers to pay for a technology that will not be delivered for probably a decade or more, if they manage to honour their promises.

The Labor Party have a history of not honouring their promises. We deliver on our commitments and they know that over there. I am really disappointed that they cannot acknowledge that we are using taxpayers’ money in an efficient manner to deliver results that are going to be far superior to anything they are offering. But that is the Labor Party way: they oppose for opposition’s sake.

I would like to put a couple of things on the record. We are aiming to reach 100 per cent of the Australian population with broadband and 99 per cent of the people with high-speed broadband. The Labor Party are claiming they will reach 98 per cent, and I give them credit for that, but they are likely to reach only 75 per cent. They are talking about 12 megabits per second; we are talking about between 12 and 50 megabits per second. We are doing it with a range of technologies to speed it up. We are talking about extending coverage as new technologies come out. This is an incremental program to ensure that we are always at the very forefront of technology. Let us have a think about this. The Labor Party are going to charge $4.7 billion to the taxpayers of Australia. That is simply not right. And they are going to do it to provide an undisclosed service to consumers. They are not prepared to talk about a commercial operation with companies making a contribution as well.

We are putting $600 million into the Broadband Connect Infrastructure Program. We are allocating a subsequent $358 million to guarantee affordable and comparable prices for all Australians. And what is important is that we are starting on this immediately. When are Labor going to start? In the never-never. We do not know because Labor’s promises are all spin, all style and no substance, and they are designed to deliver in 2050, 2035 or 2020. There is no meaningful policy debate or contribution; it is all about clichés and trite attacks on the government because they are paid to be outraged. Every time we have tried to take a step forward in this country, it has been opposed by the Labor Party. They become increasingly hysterical with their shrieking. They try to alarm the general populace, the voting public, but they will not swallow it. They cannot believe the Labor Party because they have broken every single promise they ever made.

You talk about economic conservatism, yet you vote against it all. You talk about prudent fiscal management; it is simply not true. We hear it time and time again. The Australian public will not believe the Labor Party. The country cannot afford to believe the Labor Party. The Labor Party have destroyed economies in three years or less. We cannot take the risk. Look at Whitlam. Look at Keating. Look at Hawke. They destroyed the Australian economy in less than a term of government. We cannot afford to go back to Labor. The Australian public cannot afford to go back to Labor. We know that the Labor Party cannot deliver. (Time expired)

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What this country cannot afford is to re-elect a government that has no vision or plans for the future. Let’s face it, when Kevin Rudd, on behalf of the Labor Party and with Senator Conroy, announced our broadband plan early this year it was because there is a vision for the future and some foresight in the Labor Party. It was announced because this government fails the test of the future. After dithering around for 11 long years and not getting on the program when it comes to keeping up to date with telecommunications and the infrastructure, finally this government is forced to react and come up with something. It has come up with a half-baked idea which is a concoction between SingTel, Optus and Intel. If you have a look at the substantive nature of this infrastructure, you see that it buys out old technology, when young kids, businesses and the families of our nation want not today’s technology but tomorrow’s technology today. This certainly will not deliver it.

I think this government is hoping that the general public will be dazzled by technology words and IT concepts that they will not understand. When people go to their computer to access the internet, they want real-time, fast service. I notice a suggestion that this OPEL deal will access 99 per cent of the population—Senator Bernardi suggested 100 per cent just now in his reply. In fact, that is absolute piffle.

If you have a look at the copy of the map that I have in front of me of the OPEL coverage for the Northern Territory—and I will seek leave to table this map—compared to what Telstra already delivers commercially, you will see that all it is simply going to do is affect Darwin and Palmerston. Funny about that: Darwin and Palmerston happen to be in Solomon. The rest of the Northern Territory has no black dot marks or circles anywhere on this map. Of course the rest of the territory happens to be in Lingiari. But the issue of whether this is perhaps going to be rolled out in marginal seats is a debate for another time. If you are not living in Darwin or Palmerston and you live somewhere else in the Northern Territory, what do you get out of this deal? Zero; nothing. If you live in Jabiru or Katherine, let alone Borroloola, Tennant Creek or even Alice Springs, you get absolutely nothing out of this deal. This map proves it. This map has only two little dots on it, over some of Darwin and over some of Palmerston. Anywhere else south of those lights at the Palmerston Centre you will get absolutely nothing, nothing at all, out of this deal.

Mr Howard’s plan is for a high-speed service but only if you are in one of the major capital cities in the states. You will get a low-speed service if you anywhere else in this country and absolutely no speed if you live in the Northern Territory outside of Darwin and Palmerston. Our plan is worth $4.7 billion; the government’s plan is worth $900 million. The reason that our plan costs a lot is that it will actually roll out fibre optic to the node, not just in the capital cities—and in marginal seats—but beyond the capital cities and into rural, regional and remote Australia. Territorians are being held back, and our options are even more limited because we do not have the level of internet access that is acceptable in the 21st century. I put it to you that if you live in the heart of Melbourne or Sydney then your internet access needs are not as crucial as those of someone who lives on a cattle station, out bush or in a remote community because the people out there are now relying on internet services for their day-to-day access to information.

The OPEL network that the government is suggesting is based on obsolete technology. It has fixed wireless WiMAX with connection speeds that are shared and the more users on the network the slower the speed. In fact, industry experts have indicated that the network is on average capable of delivering only 512 kilobits per second at twice today’s average speed. I have already mentioned that Optus have admitted that wireless will have only a six-kilometre penetration and it will be less behind hills—not 20 to 50 kilometres as the minister stated in her press release in June. So the Howard government is proposing an antiquated, back-to-the-past broadband connection. (Time expired)

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

We have heard today yet another great spiel from Senator Conroy attempting to flog his dead horse of a policy, and I am being generous by even calling it a policy. He is trying to flog his dead horse of a press release, a press release that he likes to call a policy, which he and the Leader of the Opposition pretend is a policy statement. It was nothing more than a headline-grabbing media stunt earlier this year. I applaud them for their success in grabbing the headlines at the time but since then it has been demonstrated that the policy, the media release, lacks substance, any substantive follow-up and—as the government has outlined with its far more comprehensive plan to deliver broadband services to the people of Australia—it is flawed as well.

Senator Conroy spoke of taking the laptop down to the shed. I am wondering whether he has been spending a little too much time in the shed and not enough time actually out there talking to people in industry, talking to small businesses and talking to the community about the flexibility that is required to deliver appropriate broadband services. Perhaps, rather than sitting in the shed, Senator Conroy should in fact be calling the Broadband Now service set up by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan, and the government recently. He should be checking it out on the web to see the sorts of services that are available that will ensure Australians get access to the type of wide-ranging, high-speed broadband that they require.

Under this government, 4.3 million households and small businesses have already accessed high-speed broadband. Our plan is to ensure that it is rolled out to be accessible by 99 per cent of Australians—no ifs and buts but the right blend, the right mix, of technology to ensure that that is available to that 99 per cent. To do so, we firstly start with the OPEL network. I particularly welcome the OPEL network, a combination of a consortium involving both Optus and Elders. I know that Senator Wortley would join me in welcoming the hundreds of jobs that that successful consortium, based in the home state of Elders, will create in our home state of South Australia—great news for South Australia. The importance of the inclusion of Elders in this consortium is not only that it creates jobs in Adelaide. Most importantly, it provides shopfront services right around Australia—a pre-established network of services for this wholesale product that will be used by Elders as well as other ISPs in the delivery of the broadband service.

OPEL will be operational with six megabits per second increasing to 12 megabits per second by 30 June 2009. Contrast that with Labor’s fibre-to-the-node plan which, whilst reaching fewer people, will be fully operational to that smaller number of people no earlier than 2012. Knowing that it will be a publicly funded infrastructure rollout of the type that we have seen state Labor governments—and federal Labor governments of the past—operating, no doubt we can be confident that the cost will blow out and the time will drag out and the technology will be outdated by the time they even get around to finishing it.

So we have the OPEL network as the first important part of the package. It is not the only part of the package. We are also looking to establish a network within the cities, looking to ensure that, in addition to that, we provide, through the Australia Connected program, broadband that goes beyond just OPEL and actually provides a mix of ADSL2+ and fibre technology as well as the WiMAX technology used under that contract that has been signed. This will ensure that we are using the right range of technologies for different areas. Contrary to what we have just heard, Labor’s fibre-to-the-node plan will actually leave many people in regional areas worse off. It will ensure that they do not get the services that can be offered by the flexibility of WiMAX where there are not nodes to which to deliver the fibre. That is why this is an important policy. Instead, we are seeing from Labor old-style policy investing billions of dollars of public funding to deliver something that the private sector, working in tandem with government, can deliver for much less, ensuring that we on this side of the house reach 99 per cent of the people with high-speed broadband, compared with an opposition policy that will not— (Time expired)

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan. We have had 11 long years of the Howard government, and it is without doubt that the state of telecommunications infrastructure and services across Australia has suffered as a result. Senator Birmingham, let me say that I have spoken to people in our home state of South Australia about their ability to get high-speed broadband. I have spoken with small businesses which can no longer compete because they cannot access high-speed broadband, and I have met with students who have thrown in the towel on accessing lessons on the internet because it was just too unreliable, too difficult, too time consuming and too frustrating. As it stands, our nation’s lack of high-speed broadband is hurting and holding back Australian families and small businesses. We lag a long way behind the countries we consider to be our international peers, yet the coalition has sat on its hands for years, only cobbling together a plan in the shadow of a looming federal election. Even now the result is unsatisfactory on many levels.

The federal government has thrown $958 million of taxpayers’ money at the problem in the lead-up to an election. The trouble is that this $958 million, awarded to the Elders consortium OPEL, is going towards building a second-class broadband system. Having had 17 previous attempts at devising a broadband plan for Australia, the Howard government’s 11th hour effort has raised more questions than answers. Perhaps the minister does have the answers to these questions but will not reveal them because she knows the answers are not palatable. It certainly is not due to the lack of opportunity.

Today, the minister responded to specific questions from Senator Conroy by saying that the government has a comprehensive plan. There were no answers, just a sweeping statement. Here we have one of the largest government grants to a private company in our history and yet three months on there remain so many unanswered questions. These questions are as basic as what the real minimum broadband speeds will be, what the technical specifications of the network will be, where the 1,361 new towers will be built, what the maximum retail price will be and just how much money OPEL will in fact be contributing. The fact is that the government made the announcement that it would award OPEL the job in June this year. So, surely, it is not unreasonable to expect that in September, some three months on, Australian taxpayers be provided with at least some of the answers. After all, it relates to $958 million of taxpayers’ money being spent.

When the government announced that it had awarded the tender to OPEL, its purpose was to build a broadband network for underserved areas—those who had long been ignored. However, those people living in such areas, which include but are not limited to rural, regional and remote Australia, are going to be let down under this proposal. The network, which is based on the obsolete technology fixed wireless WiMAX, will not reach the claimed 99 per cent of Australians. Optus has admitted six-kilometre penetration from the base station, not the 20 to 50 kilometres stated by the minister in her release in June. OPEL states that its network will serve 3.7 million phone lines in underserved areas, but there are in fact only two million phone lines. So this statement by OPEL appears to be completely false and misleads the Australian people. OPEL does not own the transmission spectrum. The Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts has admitted that actual coverage will not even be known until the network is turned on.

Adding to the coverage conundrum are the fraudulent maps being mailed out by the government without the disclaimer issued by the department. The disclaimer reads:

The Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts makes no guarantee about the suitability of these maps for any purpose by any person whatsoever.

Along with the deficiencies in the coverage by the government proposal come disappointments in the area of speed, a basic requirement of an appropriate broadband network. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.