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

I was in the course of saying that government investment is targeted at the particular needs as they evolve with broadband. Who can forget that the Labor Party were so technologically challenged that, just a couple of years ago, they all voted in favour of getting the government to invest $5 billion in dial-up internet? How silly do they look now, when they are trying to advocate something they cannot pay for—an end-to-end fibre network? So there was dial-up internet, which I think everyone thinks is a joke, and a pie-in-the-sky uncosted proposal. We have targeted investment. We have connected over one million premises and small businesses. We have enabled some technology changes throughout rural and regional Australia. We have in play a tender process that will deliver a build for a new network for regional and rural Australia. We have delivered a broadband guarantee so that all Australians—not just 98 per cent of them; 100 per cent of them—will have access to broadband regardless of where they live. This new network that will be rolled out needs to be sustainable and scaleable as people’s appetite for broadband increases and at a price that people can afford.