Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

along with his best mate Clive Palmer, but we will not go there. Is this the man I have heard for the last five minutes suggesting that even people in rural, remote and regional Australia should not have better communications, should not have better and faster broadband and should not be able to dial up and expect to access the world wide web as fast as people can in Melbourne or Sydney? Is this the man I heard criticising this deal that is going to make communications better and faster for the people that he purports to represent? No, this is a man who wants to come into the chamber and ask questions about communications, the best communications deal this country has ever had. The real reason here is that he wants to mask what happened over the weekend at the National Party conference. There was a great double-page spread in Saturday’s paper featuring Senator Joyce—the man of the water, a man of the time—beside the river. He is going to save the Murray-Darling Basin agreement. He is going to be the person who can bucket that water to the farmers who need it in that region. But lo and behold! He spent the whole weekend encouraging the National Party and ensuring that the National Party rolls Tony Abbott’s policy on water.

He does not want to talk about that today. He does not want to talk about the failed policies of the National and Liberal parties over the weekend when it comes to the fact that they cannot get their act together and come up with a program for delivering water and saving the Murray-Darling Basin, as Senator Joyce purported to do before the weekend—‘Let’s disguise that mistake; let’s ensure that we run away, run backwards, from Tony Abbott’s failed plan over the weekend.’ The National Party rules again—the tail is wagging the dog again—when it comes to most of the policies. Instead, he says, ‘Let’s ask questions today about the NBN.’ We are happy to answer questions about the NBN today, but we would actually like questions to go to the right minister. We are more than happy to answer any questions about the NBN. In fact, we would like to spend the rest of the day debating the NBN solution announced yesterday because it is going to be so good for this country. But it really would help if the coalition’s tactics committee could actually sort out who the right person is to answer the question. Is it Senator Sherry? No, Minister Sherry is not exactly the person who had the answers to this question. It is Senator Conroy. So, Senator Joyce, we would be more than happy to answer your questions, but you really have to ensure that you ask the right person.

Let me tell you about the good news for this country from NBN Co. and the Telstra agreement announced yesterday. The heads of agreement announced yesterday included policy reforms that will deliver clear benefits for Australia in both the short and the long term. In the short term, the payment starts the first step and paves the way for our National Broadband Network to be built faster, cheaper, more efficiently and with faster uptake, higher revenues and less use of overhead cabling. Senator Conroy was right when he said today this is not about the copper network of the past, which is where people like Senator Joyce would want to leave regional and rural Australians, but about a fibre optic future.

Under our vision, policies and plan for this nation, the Rudd Labor government is going to deliver a fast broadband network to this country. We are going to deliver the outcomes that people in the rest of the world are currently experiencing. We are not languishing in the past, back in the bush that Senator Joyce would want the people he purports to represent to still stay in. What do you get under us? Under a Rudd government, Australians will more quickly gain access to all the benefits of superfast broadband. But, if I am hearing Senator Joyce right today, it would seem as if they are not going to back this plan either. They do not want Australians to get on board and get superfast broadband. They just want to let them languish in— (Time expired)