Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, I would like to tell you about the absurd situation that has recently arisen in my electorate of Bass, where I believe that we can claim both the best and the worst to offer with respect to internet connectivity in Australia.

In the last few weeks, unexpected NBN service outages have plagued local businesses in Northern Tasmania, specifically in Legana, which adjoins the electorate of my friend the member for Lyons. It was on the third day of an ongoing outage that a small-business owner contacted my office, frustrated and disappointed that no-one was taking responsibility to rectify the issue. Hers was one of several businesses in the Legana Shopping Centre that had been forced to, essentially, cease trading, with no phone, internet or EFTPOS services available to them. I will make the point here that these premises are connected to what I will call 'Liberal NBN'—that is, fibre to the node. After much back and forth between NBN Co and service providers, it was identified that the outage had stemmed from a problem with the local node, and that all of these businesses were operating their internet service through that node. It was, by the time services were restored to full capacity, a five-day outage. I will say at this stage, to their credit, that NBN Co were very receptive to inquiries made by my office and in actioning a response to the fault once identified. However, it remains a fact that, for almost a week, these businesses were at a distinct disadvantage—their viability crippled by being unable to access the very service they rely upon to operate day to day.

In stark contrast, just across town and almost at the same time, Launceston-based telco Launtel announced Australia's first gigabit NBN connections. Using what I will call 'Labor NBN'—that is, a pure, fibre-to-the-premises NBN connection—Launtel is offering its customers internet speeds some ten times faster than the national average. The advantages that a gigabit connection can provide to Tasmania should not be underestimated. A business's productivity, innovation or creativity no longer needs to be limited by internet speed. This competitive advantage will no doubt, in my view, attract investment to our state. I hope to see interested businesses and new industries making the move to Tasmania, and to my electorate in particular.

We need to prepare now to ensure that we have the skilled population ready to fill the jobs that will emerge as a result of this opportunity. Investing in the education of our children now is an investment in our economic future. As I have mentioned on several previous occasions in this place, I am a firm believer in the transformative power of education. Education is the key to transforming Tasmania's economy from its current position, of underperforming the average of the other state economies on a per capita basis by about 27 percent, by equipping a future workforce for the specialised jobs of the future. Education is also the key to transforming the poor health outcomes—in particular, in Northern Tasmania—through a range of related mechanisms like income, access to health care and greater participation in employment. Indeed, of the non-medical determinants of health, there are many individual factors that governments have little control over, such as diet, exercise and consumption of alcohol and tobacco. However, education, as one of these determining factors, is an area where government has the power to implement policies and programs that can lead directly to improved health and community outcomes.

This situation that we have found ourselves in over these past few weeks in my electorate is perhaps the most definitive example of the stark difference between the Liberals' flawed, copper based, 'fraudband', fibre-to-the-node NBN and Labor's pure fibre broadband network. The Liberals' second-rate NBN leaves Tasmanians with no connection at all. Labor's fibre-to-the-premises NBN provides world-class speeds and huge potential for investment in Tasmania's economy. The flow-on effects of such investment will act to improve opportunities for jobs, education and health in our state.

I note with significant interest the fact that one of the first businesses that were able to use a gigabit internet connection was a local architectural firm called ARTAS Architects. It has its head office in Launceston, in Tasmania, but has branch offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Everybody knows that architectural files and engineering CAD files are very large files, and it is important for a decentralised workforce taking advantage of the nature of the internet these days to be able to transfer those files remotely between offices. In my view, Tasmania is extremely fortunate to be at the cutting edge of internet connectivity, having these gigabit internet connections.