Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was unaware until Senator Trood brought it to the attention of the Senate today that Mark Latham in his book apparently indicated that when Senator Conroy was offered this shadow portfolio he was not too keen at all. It was a bad week when it was offered. If that was a bad week, this has been worse, because, unfortunately for Senator Conroy and Mr Beazley in the other place, they had nailed their colours to the fibre-to-the-node mast. I am afraid that a very large gale blew up and ripped those colours to shreds. Unfortunately for Senator Conroy and for Mr Beazley, they had effectively plucked out Telstra’s fibre-to-the-node proposal, deemed it to be their own and when it fell apart at the seams on Tuesday were effectively left in a policy vacuum.

I will give the Senate some quotes. I only have 10 minutes and not the 15 minutes I thought I had, so I will make this very brief. Senator Conroy quoted the Age. I will quote the Age as well. Alan Kohler in the Age headed his article ‘Telstra spits the dummy, but node news is not so bad news after all’. He wrote:

SO, TELSTRA has spat the dummy on fibre to the node (FTTN). Good. Now we can get back to the more interesting and important business of entrenching competition in the broadband we have—ADSL.

Telstra was obviously trying to use fibre to re-established its fixed-line monopoly, because ADSL competition has been starting to get out of control.

Optus, Primus, AAPT and iiNet have accelerated the installation of digital multiplexers in Telstra’s exchanges and have been planning a big competitive assault on Telstra’s broadband market share when the ACCC cuts copper access prices, which it is about to do.

There were other quotes, but time does not allow me to go through them. Telstra’s behaviour in relation to fibre to the node is quite disgraceful. It flows on from their quite disgraceful behaviour in relation to programs such as New Ground, which made available broadband to an extra 200,000 outer metropolitan Australians—which they could have done 12 or 18 months ago but refused to do—and their XTel program, which would have given about 14,000 regional and rural subscribers broadband. They have the equipment there. There are 200 pieces of equipment sitting there not being used. For Telstra to say that the ACCC’s unwillingness to recognise the actual cost of Telstra’s FTTN investment is the reason for the breakdown is absolute, patent nonsense. In fact, when setting access prices, the ACCC is required by law to take into account the cost of investment and the legitimate commercial interest of the infrastructure owner, including the investment risk faced by the owner and the need to provide incentives for investment.

The government’s telecommunications regulatory framework has created a competitive environment that has brought more choice, innovative new services and lower prices for Australian consumers and businesses. There are many companies, as I said before—iiNet, Internode, Primus, Optus and Austar, to name a few—who are already making substantial investments in next generation broadband services. On top of that, the government itself has invested a huge amount of taxpayers’ dollars in this area: the Broadband Connect funding of some $878 million, a competitive program which is delivering enormous benefits, and the $50 million Metropolitan Broadband Connect program. No government in this country’s history has put more money into this area. In fact, it was this government that broke Labor’s cosy duopoly, which held back telecommunications in this country for the 13 years they were in power.

I will briefly now go to Labor’s broadband policy. Senator Conroy was talking about a $2.7 billion investment from the Labor Party. The trouble is that Senator Conroy has no idea what the cost is; he has no idea at all. About a week after their policy launch, when they nailed their colours to the FTTN mast, Senator Conroy was asked what the cost of the rollout would be. He said, ‘Well, we’ll have to sit down and work it out.’ He has this magnificent, marvellous policy and he has to sit down and work out what the cost is! The only person who will pay the end result of that cost is the Australian taxpayer. Senator Conroy has been totally confused about broadband from the beginning, which probably reflects his reluctance to take up the portfolio in the first place. Firstly, he labelled broadband under 10 megabits per second as ‘fraudband’. Then his leader, Mr Beazley, came up with a plan for six megabits per second and suddenly Senator Conroy changed his mind. When it became clear that 12 megabits per second was widely available in metropolitan areas, the exact same areas where Telstra would have installed fibre to the node, Senator Conroy started talking about 100 megabits per second.

In this MPI, reference was made to OECD reports, and there was very selective quoting from Senator Conroy today. I know the Labor Party only mutter the word OECD under their breath now, because they are acutely aware of the rankings the OECD gives this country and the enormous credit it pays us for the structural reform and the robust macroeconomic framework we have introduced. Our living standards now surpass all the G7 countries except the United States. Today’s extraordinary employment figures are further proof of this government’s credentials.

In relation to broadband, Senator Conroy said we are at the bottom of the heap. Nothing could be further from the truth. I will quickly go through three of the points that he raised. The first point was about take-up. The reality is that Australia’s broadband take-up is growing at the fifth fastest rate in the world. We are growing faster than the US, the UK, Japan, Korea, Canada, France and Germany. It is hardly the backwater he refers to. We are surging ahead. The second point was in relation to penetration. Senator Conroy has made a number of claims. Yes, it is true we can improve—and that is what the government are doing; that is why we are spending hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars—but we are improving rapidly. In the latest broadband penetration figures, which are behind what is currently happening, Australia is ahead of Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and many others, and we are within just a few percentage points of Japan, the US and the UK. Indeed, the Economist Intelligence Unit, talking about e-ratings and other things, has said that Australia is among the big gainers in 2006 rankings. It says:

... Australia, Canada, the US and Western Europe have over the last two years made considerable leaps in broadband penetration and have effectively “caught up” with South Korea and Japan.

Those are the countries that have been painted by Senator Conroy as the world leaders. I repeat:

... made considerable leaps in broadband penetration and have effectively “caught up” with South Korea and Japan.

The third point that Senator Conroy refers to is the question of speed. He said we have the slowest broadband in the world. That is simply not true. I assume that Senator Conroy is being very cute with this and that he must be referring to the OECD ranking of speeds offered by incumbent telcos. Yes, Telstra’s ranking is about 25th, but Senator Conroy neglects to acknowledge that we are not living under Labor’s cosy telco duopoly and that we do not have to rely on the incumbent. Indeed, people are voting with their feet and are no longer relying on the incumbent. There are many competitors offering broadband speeds many times faster than the 1.5 megabit speeds offered by Telstra. The Labor Party have been in an absolute shambles over this matter since the fibre-to-the-node network approach to the ACCC failed. It is complete and utter chaos for them, for which they have no answers. (Time expired)