Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

High-speed broadband also provides opportunities to reduce the cost of doing business by cutting administrative costs and increasing productivity through the adoption of new technologies. I was asked about alternative policy perspectives. A speech delivered to the Sydney Institute in 1999 provides such perspectives. The speech says:

The fusion of computing and communications, especially through the internet, have broken the bounds of time, cost and distance.

I was fascinated to see that this is a perspective shared in its entirety with the United Nations Human development report published in that same year, which said:

The fusion of computing and communications—especially through the internet—has broken the bounds of time, cost and distance …

The speech went on to observe:

In biotechnology, the ability to identify and move genetic materials across species types has broken the bounds of nature, creating totally new organisms with enormous but unknown implications …

Now, the Human development report says:

In biotechnology the ability to identify and move genetic materials across species types has broken the bounds of nature, creating totally new organisms with enormous but unknown implications.

The speech went on to say:

… both the communications technologies and the biotechnologies are fuelling globalisation, opening new markets and giving rise to new actors.

I thought that was familiar, because it says in the UN Human development report:

Both technologies are fuelling globalization, opening new markets and giving rise to new actors.

See this speech in context