Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (Senator Coonan) to questions without notice asked today relating to communications and broadband.

Once again we see a government that is in denial. If you look at just some of the commentary in today’s papers, you see that it spans right across the political spectrum. Terry McCrann writes:

Labor has caught both the Government and Telstra flat-footed with its entirely unexceptional and really quite sensible plan to co-build a national broadband network.

The prime minister’s response was shrill and silly ...

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Earth to PM: trying to characterise a plan for a 21st century broadband network as having “no regard for the future” was sort of clunky with a capital C.

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The sum to be spent over a period of five years is almost exactly the same in relative terms as the $2.3 billion committed over four years in the 2006 Budget for additional funding of road and rail infrastructure.

He goes on:

John Howard commits $600 million a year for 20th century road and rail. Kevin Rudd commits a similar sum for 21st century broadband. What was that about having regard for the future?

This is a government that is in desperate shape and is clutching at any straw whatsoever. Just so we have it on the public record, since 2002, the Howard government has launched the following broadband programs—and it is a long and pathetic list: the Telecommunications Action Plan for Remote Indigenous Communities, the Australian Research and Education Network framework, the Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme, the National Broadband Strategy, the National Broadband Strategy Implementation Group, the Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund, the demand aggregation broker program, the Metropolitan Broadband Blackspots Program, the Broadband for Health program, the Broadband for Health: Pharmacy program, the NBSIG Australian government action plan, the Clever Networks program, the Broadband Connect subsidy program, the Broadband Connect Infrastructure Program, the Communications Fund, the Broadband Blueprint and, most recently, the Broadband Guarantee. That is only since September 2002.

This is a government that is treating Australians with contempt. It is a government that refuses to accept that a national high-speed broadband network is a critical piece of infrastructure that this country desperately needs. It is in shambles after years and years of the government walking around, taking out the political pork barrel at the behest of Senator Boswell, Senator Joyce or its own regional members of parliament, and just throwing billions of dollars out there. Billions of dollars have been thrown out there and what have we got? We are ranked 17th in the OECD and we are going backwards. We need a national broadband network. We need it so that our children have access to the most powerful educational and research tool ever invented by mankind. We need it so we can deliver the e-health initiatives and the remote viewing for aged people who need to be monitored by health professionals. That is why we need a national broadband network. That is why Robert Gottliebsen today said ‘Howard wrong-footed by Rudd’s net quickstep’. He also said:

… the community should celebrate because at least one of our major parties now understands that in three to five years a change is coming to the internet that will make current practices akin to the crystal sets that were the forerunner to radio and the 17-inch black and white TV sets that led to today’s flat-screen TVs.

Elizabeth Knight in the Sydney Morning Herald writes:

The general principle of the Labor strategy is fairly compelling for the simple reason it recognises the dire need for Australia to improve information technology infrastructure to move up the productivity curve relative to its international trading competitors.

We have a government that just does not get it. We have a government that is mired in the 20th century. We have a Prime Minister that is stuck in the 20th century. Tragically, he is taking his party with him. Kevin Rudd recognises that we need 21st century infrastructure, unlike Senator Boswell, who is in denial on this issue. (Time expired)