Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Is the minister aware of concerns of the Australian Local Government Association President, Paul Bell, that wireless broadband does not replace the need for fibre-optic cables in rural and regional Australia? Hasn’t Mr Bell rightly stated that fibre is much faster and can support a much wider range of services than wireless? Why does the minister think it is acceptable for metropolitan Australia to have access to a much wider range of services than rural and regional Australia? Why is the government bragging about entrenching a second-class level of telecommunications service in rural and regional Australia rather than delivering first-class fibre broadband?