Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak about a convergence of two issues that are very close to my heart—regional Western Australia, and communications.

As many senators will be aware, I have a background in telecommunications, having worked in an executive capacity with Singtel Optus over several years before coming to this place, and telecommunications policy is an interest I maintain as Chair of the Government Backbench Committee on Communications. Equally, I am sure senators are aware by now of my extensive interest in regional Western Australia, particularly the development of the more remote parts of my home state's north, around the Pilbara.

The Abbott government, of course, is already committed to the further development of our north, including the north of Western Australia, through both a parliamentary committee process, which I am pleased to be involved with, and also though an ongoing white paper process.

In my contribution tonight, I would like to focus on one particular project that is tremendously exciting for regional Western Australia's communications capacity, and I will come to the specifics of that in a moment.

It goes without saying that the pace at which technology evolves is dramatic. In the past week we have seen thousands and thousands of Australians lining up at stores, camping out overnight to secure the new iPhone on the day it was released.

Communications technology now governs our day-to-day life to an extent that was inconceivable 150 years ago. And that is my starting point this evening. Because it was around 150 years ago that the first undersea cable for communications was established, across the English Channel, followed several years later by the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Australia's first undersea cable connection came in 1872, with the Java to Port Darwin link.

These early innovations were technically limited - they were only able to carry telegraph messages. It was not until much later, in 1956, with the development of coaxial cable and in-cable amplifiers that voice transmissions switched from radio to cable transmission. This was a crucial moment in opening Australia to the world. The rapid technological improvements and increasing affordability were of particular benefit to a remote nation like Australia. It is worth bearing in mind that the cost of using the first transatlantic undersea cable to send telegrams was around $5 per word. When you consider the massive amount of data that now travels to and from Australia along undersea cables every day at the merest fraction of that cost, it is hard not to marvel at so much progress in such a comparatively short time.

However, we are approaching a crucial point. Continued improvement is not a given; it will require sensible investment and cooperation between governments and the private sector. Governments, in particular, are going to have to make the right decisions now, to ensure Australia's communications infrastructure retains the flexibility to embrace technological advances we cannot conceive of today. For instance, a decade ago, the phrase 'cloud computing' would not have meant very much to most of us in this chamber nor did the word 'Skype'. Today, for most businesses, and especially those operating in regions like the Pilbara region in Western Australia, these technologies are essential features that underpin day-to-day operations. Yet they and most other key functions for businesses in WA rely on the ability to access efficient and reliable communications services.

I suggest it would come as a surprise to most Senators, indeed, it would probably come as a surprise to most Western Australians, that WA is currently relying on a single, 15 year-old undersea cable with an uncertain shelf-life, as its primary communications link to Asia. Just think for a moment about how much technology has evolved since 1999, and how much consumer and business demand for communications capacity has grown in that time. To my mind, relying on a single 15-year-old undersea cable leaves WA open to an unacceptable degree of risk.

We talk a great deal about national security and food security in Australia and deservedly so. Both should be priorities, as the current situation in relation to national security has clearly demonstrated. I also think the time has well and truly come for us to develop just as acute an appreciation for communications security as it relates to the reliability of our communications infrastructure. There is no doubt that Australians want better communications infrastructure. This is most ably demonstrated by the high degree of public support for the NBN. To be frank, I think too much of this public support is based on a 'how many movies can I download' type mindset. We need to look beyond the NBN as merely a consumer product and start focussing more on its capacity as a tool for economic development, most particularly in regional areas such as Pilbara and other parts of Western Australia.

In that connection, I had the privilege of speaking in Perth recently at the Resources ICT Summit, which examined opportunities to improve access to high-quality telecommunications services across the Pilbara, and other parts of WA. A particular focus was the Trident subsea cable project, which proposes building a state-of-the-art fibre optic network linking Perth to the Pilbara and also, importantly, to South East Asia, offering cost-effective, high-speed data services to crucial Pilbara-based resource operations and flow-on benefits that will boost the region's economic capacity.

What is exciting about the Trident project is that it is being driven by the private sector. That is an unambiguously good thing in my view. I have never been of the view that government has a monopoly on wisdom in the telecommunications sector—a view that I am sure will dismay Senator Conroy and those of his ilk who believe that government is the solution to every problem. I think the Trident project represents an enormously exciting opportunity for Western Australia and the fact that it is being driven by the private sector rather than government is a critical element in its attractiveness and future success.

Western Australia has always had something of the frontier spirit about it. We tend not to wait for others to make decisions for us; we get on with the job. The Trident project very much embodies that spirit, in my view. The realisation of this project will not only be transformational in the communications capacity for the resources and energy sector operating in the Pilbara region—though that is of critical importance but, I think, the fact that the project builds in some communications insurance, if you like, by providing a terrestrial communications link between the North West and Perth is also an enormously important element. As a Senator for Western Australia , it is my primary role to stand up for my state and to get the best possible policy outcomes for WA.

As we all know, 'productivity' is a bit of a buzz word in economic debate at present. We all understand that Australia needs to boost its productive capacity. It is an area of broad consensus. Our disagreements in this place are about how we do it for the most part, not whether we need to do it. In my own view, there are three essential requirements for boosting productivity: firstly, by promoting sensible changes to labour market laws, which the government is committed to through its Productivity Commission review; secondly, by cutting the cost of doing business through reducing the red tape burden on business operators, which is something this Government has already demonstrated it is doing; finally, we can boost productivity, most especially in regional communities, by harnessing the capacity of new technologies to improve business efficiency and engage with new customers, particularly overseas markets.

Of these three elements, it is the latter that I believe will be quickest and, politically, the easiest to implement because there is broad consensus across the political divide that technology represents a huge economic opportunity. We should use that broad consensus to drive projects like Trident forward. As the Trident project shows, there is a will in the private sector to help boost telecommunications capacity for our regional communities.

As parliamentarians, we should welcome anything that boosts competition in the telecommunications sector, and, in particular, the productive capacity of the Pilbara, where mining activity remains absolutely critical in underpinning Australia's export performance and continued economic health.