House debates

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Questions without Notice

Broadband

2:48 pm

Photo of John HowardJohn Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was asked a question about the radius from each site and the capacity under the respective plans. According to my advice, under the Labor plan, the broadband speeds they speak of would only be available four kilometres from the exchange; whereas ours will be a minimum of 20 kilometres from the base station. Under the Labor plan, the speed will be 12 megabits per second. Under our plan, it is between 12 and 50 megabits per second. The cost to the taxpayer of the fibre network to be built by the Labor Party if they win office will be $4.7 billion. The cost to the taxpayer of a network built after a competitive bid process if the government’s plan goes through will be a big fat zero. Under our policy, the completion date for 99 per cent of the population having access to very fast broadband will be the middle of 2009. That is in just two years time. The completion date of the Labor Party policy will be, at the best estimate, 2013—which is six years from now. I warmly thank the member for Melbourne for his question, as it has given me an opportunity to compare and contrast many of the benefits of the government’s policy.

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