Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak about the government's programs and measures in relation to the Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts portfolio. It has been a very, very busy time, and many of our initiatives are reflected in this year's budget, including the commitment we have made to invest $4.5 billion in the next stage of upgrades to the National Broadband Network. That includes $700 million to establish 240 business fibre zones covering 700,000 premises with access to CBD pricing. That means that for business fibre zones in regional areas—85 of the 240 are in regional areas—those will deliver wholesale price reductions of up to 67 per cent. Some 700,000 business premises are covered by that. Indeed, some 99 per cent of Australian businesses will be able to order an enterprise ethernet connection to no up-front billed cost. This is very important—enterprise ethernet up to one gigabit per second; symmetrical, business grade, business level, service level agreements, and a premium business service.

We're also investing some $3.5 billion to allow eight million premises around the country by 2023 to be able to order a speed of up to one gigabit per second. That includes $2.9 billion to take fibre deeper into the fibre-to-the-node network. That will allow some two million premises which today are served by fibre to the node, including almost one million in regional areas, to order speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second by 2023. We are also committing $400 million to upgrade the HFC network, allowing all 2.5 million residences in the HFC footprint to order gigabit speeds from December 2021.

I emphasise the point that the hybrid fibre coaxial network is able to be upgraded to offer this very substantial increase in speed. This is the very same network that the previous Labor government was proposing to completely scrap—completely junk a network which at that point was 10-15 years old, very modern technology and very much capable of being upgraded. Labor's proposal was to junk it, to scrap it. This is one of the many ways in which we have been much more capital effective.

We are also contributing $100 million to a speed uplift program for the 1.5 million homes served by fibre to the kerb. That will give these homes access to gigabit speeds, through the enablement of what is called G.fast capability, by 2023. What we've done here is we've extended the NBN's capabilities in a capital efficient fashion. It's the next stage of growth in the NBN.

But there are many other things that we're doing in the Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts portfolio. We're committing significant funding to support Australian screen content. This year's budget includes $30 million over two years for Screen Australia to support Australian film and television drama, children's and documentary productions, and also $3 million to Screen Australia to cultivate quality Australian screen writing and script development. There's $20 million over two years for the Australian Children's Television Foundation to increase support for the development, production and distribution of quality Australian children's screen content. We're also standardising the producer offset to 30 per cent for producers of Australian film and television. We're removing the outdated distinction between cinema and television in a world where streaming video on demand is completely disrupting the global market for content and creating new opportunities for Australian producers. Our changes to the funding system are designed to support Australian screen producers to go to where the market is. There is a big opportunity with the streaming video on demand services around the world, and we're supporting Australian producers to better seize that opportunity.

We are working to keep Australians safe online, building on our world-leading eSafety Commissioner. In this year's budget we've committed $39.5 million in additional funding for the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, and her office to continue their very important work in protecting Australians against harms online.

We're providing funding to increase the take-up of 5G and particularly to trial different uses of 5G across different industry contexts. That is $29.2 million.

There is a range of other funding in the arts sector—hopefully I will have time to talk about that at more length—but right now I might focus on $22.9 million over one year for eight national cultural institutions.

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