Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

It is a big word, Member for Hunter; it's two words, actually, 'technology agnosticism'. I think that's fantastic, and I commend Labor on using that approach to telecommunications. But I suggest that we extend that process and the concept of technology agnosticism to the energy debate as well. That's where that technology agnosticism—I've said it five times now, Member for Hunter, and not messed it up yet. But I really do think that we need to look at all technologies when we're looking at our energy system, because it is such a critical part of our economy and technology is moving fast.

We don't want the one-size-fits-all outcome for communications; we want to use all the technology—mobile phone towers, direct to device, low orbit satellites. Technology is moving fast in this area, and whoever's in government will have to keep up. So you have our support for the concept; we just want to see it deliver better outcomes on the ground. As the member for Riverina said in his speech earlier—and apparently he's going to keep a folder of all the presentations by Labor members talking about how great this is going to be—it's great to talk about it here in the House of Representatives. It'll pass. It'll pass the Senate, I believe. Then it will be about the deliver and whether we actually get those better outcomes. We'll be holding the government to account on that.

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