Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

More than the 11 years in opposition and still no hard, detailed facts in terms of policy development. How hopeless the Labor opposition are in this area of communications. They simply do not have the capacity to deliver in this area, just as they do not have the capacity to manage a trillion-dollar economy. All they are going to do is raid the Future Fund, put at risk Australia’s future prosperity and bandaid over their lack of hard policy work.

Let us see their costings. Where are their costings? All we have is a one-page summary announced three months ago. There is no further detail. There are no costings, no coverage maps, no back-up detail of the technical cognisance of their program. They are simply not competent in this area. There is nothing to support their wild claim that an $8 billion outlay will bring fibre to the node to 98 per cent of the population. Until they release the details of their plan, particularly with regard to people in rural and regional Australia, we simply can have no confidence that they are an alternative government, both specifically in terms of delivering communications networks and, more importantly, in terms of managing our economy and managing the Australian community.

We heard Senator Conroy refer to the Ericsson criticism of the WiMax facility. Of course Ericsson are going to criticise that. They have a direct interest in HSDPA or 3G mobile phones, which is a direct competitor with the WiMAX technology. So—surprise, surprise—of course they are going to criticise the WiMAX technology: it is their direct competitor. It is purely a business decision on the part of Ericsson to promote that criticism. In contrast, we ought to have a look at what Nokia have said. They are the world’s largest mobile telephone manufacturer and, of course, a competitor of Ericsson, but they have said that there is a very strong business case for the introduction of WiMAX. (Time expired)