Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this debate today, because it gives me another opportunity to raise the problems with, and the inadequacy of, access to broadband internet in my electorate of Capricornia. It is one of those issues that consistently comes up in phone calls and emails to my office. I am pleased that once again the focus in the House is back on broadband and that, inevitably, the focus is on the government’s failures in this important area and on the ALP’s plans to bring Australia into the 21st century with a world-class broadband network.

The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill 2007 provides for amendments to the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. The aim of the bill is to protect the $2 billion Communications Fund so that only income or interest earned on the investments of the fund will be available to implement recommendations proposed by the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee.

Throughout this debate, members from the Liberal Party and the National Party have been lauding the Communications Fund, telling us about how this fund is the be-all and end-all and the answer to all of those problems that have built up after 11 years of neglect of this important infrastructure area. But we need to look back to where this fund actually came from. The fund was the fig leaf, the pay-off, from the Liberal Party to the National Party for securing the votes of the National Party members for the full sale of Telstra back in 2005.

So the Communications Fund, which the Liberals and Nationals are lauding so generously in this debate, was really nothing more than a bribe to the National Party. It was a fig leaf—something that the National Party members could go back into their electorates with and sell to their constituents after they had sold out their regional and rural constituents so comprehensively by backing down on their longstanding commitment to keep Telstra in government hands. When the Nationals rolled over to the Liberals and sold Telstra, they needed to have something to try to cover up the fact that they had been rolled by the Liberals and had sold out so easily and cheaply.

It is interesting to note when you listen to Liberal Party and National Party members heaping praise on the Communications Fund that if you look back to when it started in 2005, you see that, back then, the Liberals bemoaned the fund. The Treasurer actually called the Communications Fund financially irresponsible. At the time Senator Barnaby Joyce claimed that the $2 billion that was being put into the Communications Fund was inadequate. Back in those days, when Senator Joyce was pretending to have a bit more backbone, he threatened to cross the floor on the Telstra sale. At that time, Senator Joyce wanted $5 billion for the fund, because he knew what we all know: that the government’s funding level was not going to be enough to fix the shambles that is broadband and telecommunications infrastructure around Australia.

We on the Labor side always knew that the expected income from the Communications Fund would be inadequate to cover the amount of investment required to ensure Australia’s broadband future. These concerns were matched by the member for Calare, who labelled the fund a con. So it is interesting to contrast the praise being heaped on the Communications Fund at the moment by National Party and Liberal Party members with their views about it back at the time of the Telstra debate in 2005. When you look at the history of where the Communications Fund came from and what the government is trying to achieve through the introduction of this bill, you realise that this is very much a stunt. It is something to try to cover up and deflect attention away from the government’s woeful performance on high-speed internet in this country.

Through the introduction of this bill and this debate, the government wants to highlight the fact that Labor want to use the $2 billion in the Communications Fund to build a national broadband network. We want to use that money to do something serious, genuine and long lasting. The fund, as it is set up, is expected to deliver about $400 million every three years to put towards telecommunications infrastructure in rural and regional Australia. We do not see that as being adequate. We think that we need to get serious and give access to broadband internet to everyone right across the country, wherever they live, and that needs to be made a national priority because that infrastructure is absolutely essential if rural and regional Australia—indeed, all of Australia—is to keep pace with the demands of the modern world.

I said at the outset that access to broadband is an issue that often comes up when I am out and about in my electorate. You would have thought that, after 11 years, the government would be using the time in this House to address some of those concerns rather than using the time to take pot shots at Labor’s comprehensive plan. I will share with the House some examples that have come to me recently which highlight where we are at and what the government has to answer for after 11 years of not taking telecommunications infrastructure seriously. One example comes from Janine Bennett of Eton, which is west of Mackay. It is not very far west of Mackay. It is only about 20 or 30 minutes down the road from Mackay. So we are not talking about a rural or remote area. Janine sent me a copy of a letter that she sent to Telstra in response to their telling her that she was not able to access ADSL broadband in her area. In her letter, Janine laments the fact that she is stuck with dial-up internet and states:

Let me make it really simple for you to understand how frustrating it is. It takes us about 4 hours to bring our email in, I actually go into my webmail and delete messages that are over 1 MB because it just takes too long to download. We can ‘t even get on our bank sites some days and when we do, I can do my housework while it opens each page, takes me all morning to do any little thing, and we often get kicked off as it times out. We never surf the net cause we can only have one page open at a time, it’s just too hard. We have to take our computer into Mackay and pay the dealer $25 to do our updates because there’s no way we could download them on dial-up.

Janine was offered wireless access on the Next G network but had this to say:

Yes very good thing and yes we can get it. But again it’s totally unaffordable for the average person and not recommended for heavy users.

Janine continued, saying:

I’d like you to just take a minute and think about what it would be like for you to not have broadband for just one day. I think that would be an impossible thought for most people in the city areas who have had access to affordable broadband for years now.

Another disgruntled resident is Mr Neil Hoy of North Rockhampton. Mr Hoy contacted Telstra about getting broadband and was told that he could not get ADSL and that his only option was to use wireless on the Next G network. Mr Hoy was shocked to discover that he could not access affordable broadband in a major regional centre such as Rockhampton. Mr Hoy is one of thousands who cannot understand that very point, including me. Around Rockhampton and the fast-growing areas on the Capricorn Coast are the areas where this is raised with me the most often. So we are not talking about places that are in outback Queensland; we are talking about new estates close to a major regional centre.

Adam Humphries of Yeppoon—a fast-growing seaside community about 30 kilometres from Rockhampton—recently moved into a new residence. Upon applying for broadband through Telstra, Adam was told that there were no ADSL ports available and that he was unable to gain access to broadband. Adam’s next-door neighbour, on the other hand, has ADSL broadband. But, because Telstra does not find it commercially viable to put in the necessary infrastructure, Adam has to miss out. Adam’s wife runs a small bookkeeping business but is now unable to run this business from home without broadband.

Another constituent, Shane Woods, has contacted me in relation to the inadequacy of the government’s Australian Broadband Guarantee. Mr Woods is also unable to access ADSL broadband but is within the Broadband Guarantee area and did investigate this option. Mr Woods stated that he was initially content to see that the Broadband Guarantee offered a ‘metro-comparable’ service but was later dismayed to discover that he would have to pay much more than a ‘metro-comparable’ price. Shane stated that he would pay each month under the Broadband Guarantee for the offered one gigabit download limit the same as he would pay for a download limit of between 15 and 30 gigabit with an ADSL service. For this size download under the Broadband Guarantee, Shane would have to pay $440 per month. Who can afford to pay those kinds of prices for something that is an essential facet of today’s life? People in the city would not dream of having to pay those prices.

That is just a snapshot of what is going on in my electorate, and I am sure the situation is replicated right around the country. While in those examples Telstra’s name came up quite a bit, we have to be clear about where the blame for this lies. This is a national priority. This is essential infrastructure if our country is to develop and stay competitive with other countries around the world and if we are to make sure that people have the business, education and health opportunities that life in the 21st century demands. The government has been sitting back and not keeping pace with what has been going on in the rest of the world. We have had something like 17 broadband plans put into place by this government. Government members want to stand up and laud the government’s initiatives in this area, but they should talk to people like Shane Woods and Janine Bennett, who are not able to get the broadband services that they need, whether it is for education, for their home businesses or for government and banking services—services that people with broadband can take for granted. So while Telstra’s name came up in those examples, I am certainly very clear about where I see the responsibility lying—and it is with the government, which has let this major national infrastructure priority pass it by.

It really comes back to the government always seeing things as political problems that need to be fixed—’Let’s throw money at this plan’; ‘Now we’ve got the Communications Fund’; ‘Now we’ve got the Broadband Guarantee’. It is about: ‘How do we get out of our latest political fix and how do we cover up the fact that we just have not been on the ball for the last 11 years in this important area of national infrastructure?’ As I said, we have had 17 broadband plans, yet the latest OECD figures show that we are still ranked only 16th out of 30 countries that have been surveyed by that organisation. They are the OECD figures, but the sense that I am getting from my electorate is that we are being left even further behind, being in a regional area.

After 11 years of fiddling around on this, the government has come out with its latest plan, which is a complete insult to people in my electorate and to people in rural and regional areas because it proposes a two-tiered system. The government’s plan, which involves giving $1 billion to the Singapore government, amongst other organisations in the consortium, Optus and Elders, will create a two-tiered system. Australians living in the inner suburbs of one of the five major cities will have access to a fibre-to-the-node network, but Australians who do not live in those areas will have to put up with a substandard service.

The proposal put forward by the OPEL consortium will deliver fixed wireless WiMAX to regional areas. That is regarded as obsolete technology by many experts in this area. Connection speeds are shared and industry experts predict that the average broadband speed will be 512 kilobits per second. Again, it comes back to the government grabbing whatever straw is handed to them five minutes before an election to try and get over the fact that they have done nothing about this for 11 years. It is becoming a critical political problem for them because people are not getting the broadband access and speed that they want and deserve.

On the other hand, some months ago, well before the government decided to play catch-up, Labor presented its plan for this important infrastructure. Labor wants to build a national network of fibre to the node which will deliver internet speeds of at least 12 megabits and have the ability to be scaled up even further than that so that it will evolve as demand and technology grow. Australia is lagging behind the rest of the world in this important area, and Labor has identified this as an absolute national priority if we are going to maintain the level of prosperity that we currently enjoy, thanks to the mining boom.

There is plenty of evidence about what broadband means for the productivity of our economy. Labor’s broadband network will deliver benefits such as $30 billion in additional economic activity each year, making Australian small businesses more competitive, creating new markets for businesses and new jobs for Australians and extending media diversity. If Australia is to prosper after the mining boom we have to be smart about what we do. We need to focus on not only being the best educated country in the world but also our information and communications technology abilities through greater investment and innovation. Labor has a plan for the long-term prosperity of the nation while the government consider only the short-term prosperity of their own political interests. This is the defining difference between us and the government.

As noted in our New directions for communications policy document, several studies have shown the sheer importance of broadband in stimulating economic activity. Some of these include the economic modelling by the Victorian Department of Infrastructure that shows that, by 2015, the IT industry, with 21st century broadband, has the potential to add $15 billion to the state’s economy and create 153,000 new jobs. True broadband in Queensland alone would boost that state’s economy by $4 billion and create 1,200 new jobs. A New South Wales broadband network would boost that state’s economy by $1.4 billion a year, increase employment by 3,400 and raise exports by $400 million over the first decade. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology found:

The assumed (and oft-touted) economic impacts of broadband are real and measurable.

And:

Broadband does matter to the economy. Broadband is clearly related to economic well-being and is thus a critical component of our national communications infrastructure.

The Australian Local Government Association in its State of the regions report last year found that the cost of inferior broadband for 2006 alone was a staggering $2.7 billion in forgone gross domestic product and 30,000 regional jobs. The report estimated that my home region of Central Queensland could have added at least $56.9 million per year in additional exports had we had a high-speed broadband network. That is $56.9 million that businesses in my region would have loved to have been able to have accessed but were denied the opportunity due to the neglect of this government and its failure over 11 years to understand the importance of this infrastructure and the importance of maintaining parity between regional and rural areas and metropolitan areas.

There is no doubt that broadband is vitally important to the Australian economy and is a cornerstone in ensuring the future prosperity of this nation, especially in the inevitable event of the current mining boom coming to an end in the coming years. We cannot afford to rest on our laurels and expect the boom to continue indefinitely. This government should have acted a long time ago to ensure that we are insulated from any downturn in the resources sector. (Time expired)

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