Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak to the second interim report of the Select Committee on the National Broadband Network and specifically to note that the government senators have prepared a minority report. We have done that for a very good reason—that is, because on 7 April 2009, as we have heard many times in this chamber already, the government announced that it had terminated the National Broadband Network request for proposals process on the basis of advice from the independent panel of experts that none of the national proposals offered value for money for the Commonwealth.

The history of this committee dates back to prior to the coalition losing their control of the Senate. The select committee was established with a structure the opposition have used to completely dominate the numbers on the committee. I do not think that has impacted too much on the substance of the material that we have received from witnesses but it really belies the underlying purpose of this select committee inquiry into the National Broadband Network. We have an opposition scratching around for relevance in one of the most critical areas of public infrastructure that we as a government have had to deal with for a long time.

It is well and truly on the record that Labor’s policy for a national broadband network as announced on 7 April is the largest investment in public infrastructure, and rightly so. It provides the economic foundation for the future. It is truly economic infrastructure. We have done this with vision and foresight on the back of a very long period, under the former Howard government, of neglect and ad hoc policy servicing the needs of the privatisation agenda of a monopolistic telecommunications company that we all, as Australians, are paying a price for.

The opposition makes a comment with respect to this report about questions remaining unanswered, and yet this very inquiry was set up to parallel the government’s process in setting out the request for proposals. Now that we have announced our policy and have been very clear about our implementation plan—and we remain completely committed to consultation with all of the stakeholders and providing opportunities, as we have said in our minority report, for appropriate scrutiny of associated legislative processes with the progress of the National Broadband Network—I am at a bit of a loss as to why the opposition appears to be so adamant about questions remaining unanswered. Those processes are in train and it seems to me that, as a platform for wanting to somehow appear relevant, the opposition are attaching themselves to the National Broadband Network process. It is quite pathetic. I had cause earlier today at CeBIT to reflect on the more than a decade of neglect in telecommunications policy and the fact that it has been the Labor government that has had, as I said, the vision and the foresight to step up and put this forward.

Just to clarify some misleading information provided to the Senate, the government’s National Broadband Network proposes to connect 90 per cent of all Australian homes, schools and workplaces with broadband services with speeds of 100 megabits per second but all other premises—and this is a very important point—with next-generation wireless and satellite technologies that will deliver broadband speeds of 12 megabits per second. This is way above our previous commitments. I do not accept, and Labor does not accept, any criticism by the opposition when it purports that somehow we are not honouring our election promise. We are going far beyond our election commitments with the fibre-to-the-premises National Broadband Network as announced on 7 April. I should also say that this comes at a time when we need this investment. Our economy needs this investment. It will provide up to 25,000 local jobs every year on average over the eight-year life of the project. In that regard, this is indeed a very worthy and timely investment.

The other issue I want to talk about is the substance of the evidence from the witnesses received in the course of the inquiry. I am very happy, as the chair and other members of the committee know, to acknowledge the contribution of the range of stakeholders—witnesses, academics and members of the community—who took the time to make submissions to the inquiry. Regardless of how the opposition chooses to twist their representation of the evidence that we received, the evidence was in fact incredibly valuable to the government. We would like to acknowledge that, despite our concern and despite not concurring with the non-government senators’ recommendations, we were grateful for the input by the range of witnesses. Many of the issues they raised informed the government’s decision to proceed with a fibre-to-the-premises network rather than a fibre-to-the-node network—as well as, importantly, the wholesale nature of the National Broadband Network as it was announced. Those who participated in the inquiry would know that it did cast a forensic eye across some of the weaknesses of the fibre-to-the-node network—at the time I think rather to the glee of the opposition as they tried to tear down our policy. In fact, our vision was true and the policy as announced recognised the limitations of a fibre-to-the-node network. Hence, our very sound and future-proofed decision to proceed with a fibre-to-the-premises network.

I too would like to thank the secretariat of the committee for their hard work, and I also thank Jonathan Chowns. There were a wide range of technical issues to absorb and represent. I commend the government senators’ minority report to the chamber. We feel that it is an accurate reflection of the substance of the matter. The evidence collected through this inquiry is a powerful and immensely important validation of Labor’s National Broadband Network policy. Points were made about the need for a future-proof network, and the issue that came out was that the speed—the 12 megabits per second—represents a tenfold increase on what people are getting with broadband. But there was acknowledgement through our policy that great speeds were needed if we were going to genuinely future-proof this public investment, and we have been able to respond to that profoundly with our visionary policy for a national broadband network.

I urge people to read the transcript and understand the evidence that was put forward. Despite an opposition scratching around for relevance on this one, they are still in the broadband black water. I still get emails from people who are aggrieved and who are essentially victims of 10 years of policy neglect by the previous Howard government, which Labor will now rectify with our visionary plan for a national broadband network.