Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future) Bill 2007, which seeks to amend the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999. From reading the title of the amendment bill one would be forgiven for assuming that the government is aiming, through this bill, to do something positive for the future of telecommunications services in rural and remote Australia. Indeed, one would be forgiven for assuming that this bill is aimed at doing the right thing by protecting the standard of telecommunication services in rural and regional Australia for the future.

If Senator Nash and Senator Boswell were serious about delivering broadband to the bush then they—the Nationals—would be supporting Labor’s national broadband plan. However, unfortunately for the people of rural, regional and remote Australia, the government’s intention through this bill is far from aimed at investing in and protecting the standard of telecommunications services; this bill is about preventing the ALP from using the Communications Fund to provide a national broadband network announced by Labor—should a Rudd Labor government be elected. The Howard government is not motivated by the long-term national interest; it is motivated by short-term political interests. The Labor Party are not the only ones to see that this government is all about stunts and does not stand for anything. I quote from yesterday’s Sunday Age:

After 11 years of being run by a policy contortionist, it’s difficult to see why the Liberals want to be in government.

They don’t stand for paying less tax, not for less regulation, not for smaller government, not for protecting civil liberties, not for investing in universities, not for the arts or sciences, not for a fair go in the workplace, not for states rights, not for an open economy, not for less welfare, not for caring for the planet and not for respecting international law.

The government recently released the draft guidelines for its 18th broadband plan. The guidelines are appalling and vague and leave the majority of Australians, particularly those in rural and regional Australia, in the dark, with it containing no firm guarantee that they will receive reliable, high-speed broadband access. The guidelines fail to specify who the network will reach and the minimum connection speed and to rule out government contribution to network losses.

So what is the point? The guidelines smell of another ad hoc political stunt by an out-of-touch, arrogant government, designed to convince the voters that they are committed to delivering a broadband solution for all Australians. However, it is obvious from the vague nature of the government’s guidelines that their broadband plan is a bandaid, a poorly thought-out policy that has been slapped together on the run in the lead-up to the election. Their vague, poorly drafted policy, which is set to invest in obsolete technology and see the majority of Australians still without a fast, reliable broadband service, proves once and for all that this government just does not get it when it comes to investing in the future of this nation. Just as it does not get it when it comes to climate change, it does not get it when it comes to providing a genuine broadband solution for this country.

This is a government that is stuck in the past and is not willing to invest in the future. The measures contained in this bill prove it. Through this bill the government intends to lock up $2 billion of government money set aside to improve telecommunications services in rural and regional Australia and effectively deny people and businesses in such areas the chance to access metro-comparable telecommunications services.

It seems that this government is so hell-bent on political stunts that, rather than turning around the poor quality of telecommunications for all Australians, including those living in rural, regional and remote areas, it is willing to underinvest in essential infrastructure such as telecommunications. While the government plays games in the lead-up to this year’s elections, people and businesses in rural, regional and remote Australia are set to suffer. It is measures like those contained in this bill that leave no doubt that this government is old and out of touch with the people of Australia and that investment is needed now to ensure the health of the Australian economy in the future. It proves that this government is more concerned with holding on to government money in the lead-up to an election than investing in essential infrastructure for the future. It proves that this government, at this point in time, is so obsessed with serving its own political interests in terms of preserving its own power that it no longer has the best interests of the Australian people at heart.

This bill seeks to effectively lock up $2 billion in the Communications Fund, which was initially established in 2005 to improve telecommunications services in rural and regional Australia by implementing the recommendations given by the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee. As a result of this measure only the interest earned by the fund will be available to implement the recommendations of the committee. This will equate to about $400 million over three years, about $133 million a year being available to be spent on telecommunications services in rural and regional Australia.

Labor is 100 per cent committed to improving the appalling standards of telecommunications services in rural, regional and remote Australia and does not believe that $400 million every three years is anywhere near enough to ensure this occurs. At present Australia is ranked only sixteenth out of 30 countries surveyed by the OECD when it comes to our broadband performance. Over the past 11 years the Howard government has failed to do anything to improve this situation, with 18 failed broadband plans under its belt to prove it. Labor believes that what is needed is a national broadband network that ensures 98 per cent of Australians, regardless of whether they live in metropolitan areas or rural and regional Australia, have access to quick, reliable broadband services that deliver a minimum speed of 40 megabytes per second and the remaining two per cent at the very least have access to standard service comparable to that provided by the new network.

Labor plans to deliver such services by rolling out superior state-of-the-art, more reliable fibre-to-the-node technology to 98 per cent of Australians. Labor believes that investment in telecommunications services now and in the future is of comparable importance to investment in rail infrastructure at the turn of the century. Labor’s plan will ensure that all Australians, regardless of where they choose to live, will be granted access to a global market and a catalogue of information which will be pivotal in guaranteeing economic prosperity in the future. It will ensure that no Australian is left behind or left needlessly to struggle with inferior telecommunications infrastructure.

For this to occur there needs to be an obvious investment in telecommunications infrastructure over the next couple of years. As an indication of just how important investment in such infrastructure will be, Labor is willing to invest $4.7 billion to improve the standard of telecommunications services in Australia, particularly in rural and regional areas. This initial investment is sure to pay off in the not-too-distant future, with the network set to open up businesses, particularly in rural and regional areas, to the global market ensuring flow-on investment in such areas. This is why the government’s plan to lock up $2 billion of the Communications Fund, some of which could be used to improve the standard of telecommunications services in Australia, is simply not warranted. It just does not make good economic sense. Four hundred million dollars over three years will do nothing to improve services, let alone maintain them in rural and regional Australia. For this obvious reason, Labor opposes the bill.

The government’s broader approach to telecommunications services in this country just does not add up. It announced earlier this year that it intended to provide a ‘complete and comprehensive broadband solution for Australia’, yet it plans to invest only in the fibre-to-the-node technology in major metropolitan areas, leaving people and businesses in rural and regional Australia out in the cold. How can neglecting the needs of people in rural and regional Australia and leaving them with an inferior, second-rate wireless service be considered as ‘providing a complete and comprehensive broadband solution for Australia’? It is not.

The government has proved with this bill and its broader botched broadband plan that it just does not get it when it comes to investing in essential services for the future. It has proved that it does not get how investing in essential telecommunications infrastructure and lifting the standard of service delivered to rural and regional areas will pay considerable economic dividends in the future. Why doesn’t the government get these things? Because its attention is fixed on retaining power at the next election, rather than coming up with a plan that genuinely invests in telecommunications infrastructure and the future of Australia. It is too busy playing politics. And that is what this bill is about: politics.

Labor has openly expressed its intention, if elected, to put to use the money from the Communications Fund to assist in the rollout of fibre-to-the-node services to 98 per cent of Australian households under its national broadband plan. Now, ironically, here we are debating a bill proposed by the government to lock up that money before the next election. Once again we bear witness to a government that are willing to use and abuse parliamentary processes to play politics and suit their own political agenda, rather than promoting the interests of the Australian people. We have seen it time and time again. Now, with the election looming, they have turned to childish tit for tat politics to ensure that, even if things do fall in their favour at the next election, they will still be left a lasting legacy. This is the work of a government that are scared of losing power, rather than using it in the interests of the people they serve.

Why shouldn’t the money in the Communications Fund be available to invest wisely in the services it was formed to improve? Why should people in rural, regional and remote Australia be left behind? Access to quick and reliable telecommunications services will have a significant bearing on the long-term prosperity of my home state of Tasmania in particular. Tasmania has in recent times enjoyed a period of growth, thanks to the state government’s commitment to investing in the long-term future of the state. Indeed, in recent years there has been an increasing number of people moving to the state as well as an increasing number of young people choosing to stay and invest their futures in Tasmania. This has resulted in a significant amount of development in many parts of the state. In the north-west, places such as Stanley, Ulverstone and Burnie have witnessed a significant amount of development and investment.

Likewise, so has the Kingborough region in the south, where I recently toured with some of my colleagues. This region, combined with the accompanying Channel-Huon region, is one of the fastest growing regions in Tasmania. However, at present many of the people and the small and medium businesses in the region are unable to access the government’s current wireless broadband service. Further, those few who can are constantly hampered by interference, delays and slow upload and download times. The geographic nature of Tasmania, in particular, is not conducive to the Howard government’s proposed second-rate wireless service because of its hilly geography—the very thing that makes the region so appealing.

Under the government’s proposed broadband plan, the people and businesses located in Tasmania will be left either without service or to struggle with the second-rate and highly unreliable wireless network. How can this be in the best interests of the small to medium businesses emerging in Tasmania? This gross underinvestment in essential telecommunications infrastructure by the government will mean more to the people of Tasmania than simply not being able to check the footy scores or to log on to YouTube. The standard of access to telecommunications services in such areas will have direct bearing on the health of the local economy, the success of local businesses and the degree of prosperity they can generate for the national economy.

Indeed, the Australian Local Government Association’s State of the regions report of last year found that inferior broadband services—that is, wireless—in 2006 resulted in the loss of $32.1 million in forgone gross domestic product and around 415 regional jobs in southern Tasmania alone. This is a tragedy. And the figures are similar for other regional areas across Australia. How can the government ignore such figures and continue to underinvest in essential telecommunications infrastructure in Australia? How can we expect people to continue to invest in regional and rural areas when the government is not willing to provide them with basic, reliable telecommunications services to facilitate the growth of their businesses? Why can’t the government see that an investment in essential telecommunications infrastructure in such regions will no doubt result in the generation of more wealth to be invested in the local economy, which will in turn boost the health of the national economy now and in the future?

Such an investment will open local businesses to national and global markets, attracting international interest and investment. This is the way of the future. If Australia is to prosper beyond the current mining boom, investment in this infrastructure is essential. It will not only open up the global market to local businesses; it will also open up a catalogue of ideas to bright young minds, hopefully stimulating creativity and innovation. This will also no doubt benefit the Australian economy in the future.

Gone are the days when people were forced to move away from their local communities, families and friends and give up their lifestyle in order to make ends meet. The information superhighway and ever-increasing mobile means of communication ensure that people now have the option of staying with their families and in their local communities while pursuing a meaningful and productive career. Such advances are welcome in Tasmania, in particular, with the attractiveness of our way of life luring interstate and overseas investors to the state. It may also represent the first small step towards facilitating a means of fusing work and childcare duties for young parents struggling to juggle both.

For this opportunity to eventuate, there first needs to be an investment in the infrastructure to make it all possible, yet the government’s proposed broadband plan will deny nearly all Tasmanians access to a fast, reliable broadband service. They will be left to struggle with the second-rate and unreliable wireless technology. This is simply not good enough. It is not good politics, it is not in the best interests of the Tasmanian people and it is certainly not going to contribute to the future prosperity of the state.

Why throw $54 million into marginal electorates like Braddon in the form of ad hoc, quick-fix, vote-grabbing policies like the one aimed at the Mersey hospital—which one of the government’s own senators thinks will be a disaster? Why open a technical college campus in the same area when enrolment rates well below target are doing nothing to aid the skills crisis in the area or help people retrain to fill the ever-increasing number of job vacancies opening up in this developing area? Why not invest in the long-term future of the state and ensure that every Tasmanian has access to a fast, reliable broadband service?

Labor is aware of the possibilities and the need for investment in essential telecommunications infrastructure. That is why it has allocated $4.7 billion to invest in a high-speed, fibre-to-the-node national broadband network which will be rolled out to 98 per cent of Australians and deliver a service which will be a minimum of 40 times faster than that which is currently provided. Meanwhile, unfortunately the government is more interested in using rural and regional Australians as infantry for its pre-election campaign rather than coming up with a genuine plan that will see an investment in essential telecommunications infrastructure in such areas.

As with an increasing number of bills that have passed through this chamber in recent times, this bill is an attempt by the government to enforce its own political agenda in the lead-up to the election. It is unfortunate that the government has chosen to pursue its own political agenda rather than to consider the needs of people in rural and regional Australia. This bill by no means, as the title suggests, promotes or secures the future of telecommunications services in rural and regional Australia. In fact, it does the opposite.

For this reason and because Labor is 100 per cent committed to improving the standard of telecommunications services in rural and regional Australia, we oppose this bill. Locking up $2 billion and allocating only $400 million over three years is simply not enough, and the government knows it. The Howard government’s WiMAX solution will be badly affected by interruptions to line-of-sight vision. True broadband will bring enormous prosperity. We need to be prepared to take on the challenges so that we can compete in a competitive economy. More needs to be done than this government is prepared to do, and it appears that Labor is the only party with the vision, the plan and the will to do it.