George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I refer the minister to her claim that under her broadband network:

You’ll be able to take your laptop out to the shed and you’ll be able to get on with business in the global economy ...

Can the minister confirm that the technology standard used by her second-rate service is not compatible with the existing chipsets in laptops? Doesn’t that mean that taking your laptop out to the shed, or anywhere else for that matter, to do business with the global economy will simply not be possible? Isn’t this another example, Minister, of you misrepresenting the technology’s capacity and providing second-rate services for rural and regional Australians?