Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

What we have now heard from Senator Coonan is a backflip of ginormous proportions. But what is more concerning is the complete lack of understanding by Senator Coonan about what the technology is and how it will be utilised. It has been exposed today, because, when you look at the issues, the Howard government has had to catch up with where Labor is on fast broadband.

I was going to consider Senator Coonan and the Liberal coalition government Luddites, but that would be in fact too great a statement to make, because it would mean someone who has made a conscious decision to reject technology. What we have is a minister incapable of explaining the technology—that is, WiMAX technology. There are huge question marks about how that OPEL group technology will be utilised and how the network will come together and be utilised by Australians. We have a government that will not be able to deliver the strategy that they are promising, let alone be capable of explaining the strategy. The simple argument is that the government have picked a loser. They have picked a standard that is 802.16d, or ‘dead’. Instead, WiMAX, the technology where most people understand the Intel chip set will be going, is 802.16e—a different standard. The government has also bought a frequency out of the spectrum of 5.8 gigahertz. WiMAX is in the lower end—the 3.5 end—of the gigahertz scale. What we have is a Clayton’s WiMAX being proposed—a standard that is not going to deliver into the future. We already have Intel chip manufacturers ramping up to make 802.16e chip sets, where WiMAX is going to be.

The government has not been able to manage spectrum in this instance. Why? Because it has had to rush out a policy to try to catch up to Labor’s policy position. This government has done a cynical backflip. Its arrogance is breathtaking. The losers from the policy of the Liberal and National parties to introduce a two-tiered system of fast broadband will be rural and regional Australia. If you live in the metropolitan cities, you are in luck. The Liberal and National parties will ensure that you will have true broadband, but if you are one of the millions of Australians who live in an outer metropolitan region—guess what?—you will be stuck with this second-rate system.

My office is located halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, in Beenleigh. It is close to Eagleby, Beaudesert and some suburbs of Logan City. If the government is so confident that fast broadband will provide small business innovation to people in this region, tell us today. Put your foot on the sticky paper and make it clear to the Australian people who live in that region that they will get fast broadband, they will be able to maintain thriving businesses based on internet fast speeds and they will be able to compete with metropolitan areas because they will be assured of fast broadband in those areas.

The government has been mean and tricky on exactly how fast the broadband access will be. Senator Coonan started talking about it today. I congratulate her on saying that it will be up to 12 megabits, but then she slipped back into the old routine of saying that it will be 12 megabits. The government has to say what speed people in the outer metropolitan and rural and regional areas of Australia will receive. Will it be 12 megabits, up to 12 megabits or significantly less than that? (Time expired)