Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

It is interesting that Senator Conroy interjects. I was asked about alternative policies, and I would welcome a debate if there were credible alternative policies from the opposition in this important area. Senator Conroy’s statements last week that ADSL2 Plus technology can only achieve speeds of three megabits a second have been branded by the telecommunications industry as codswallop. Several service providers of fast broadband, such as iiNet and Internode, have pointed Senator Conroy to the true speeds that ADSL2 Plus broadband is offering Australian metropolitan consumers today.

While it is, of course, deeply embarrassing for Senator Conroy that his comments have been branded as codswallop, Senator Conroy’s incompetence has also been noticed by his own side. A brief look across the ALP website clearly shows that the ALP’s Mr Lindsay Tanner believes he is the real shadow minister for communications. Not only are Mr Tanner’s last five media releases all communications related, they were all issued well before anything dribbled out from Senator Conroy’s office.

On payphones Mr Tanner was frontman. On the media reform package the comment came from Mr Tanner. On the issue of internet filtering, once again Senator Conroy was missing in action. It is not a good look for Senator Conroy to have Mr Tanner second-guessing him, calling the shots and relegating him to being the second-string opposition spokesman on communication.

Now, as we have seen over the last few days, while the Labor Party has taken the lazy option in communications of adopting any report and adopting any commentator’s views, this government does the heavy lifting in communications. We are getting on with the job of transforming the telecommunications sector to meet Australia’s present and emerging needs.