Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hurley for her question. Occasionally you see during election campaigns some truly enlightening matters brought to public attention. I recall watching The 7.30 Report where the Leader of the Opposition indicated to his audience, ‘Again, if you’re going to get me into a technical argument, I’m going to lose it, Kerry, because I’m not a tech head.’ That was the response of the Leader of the Opposition when it came to the question of a technical understanding of the NBN. He went on to say at the people’s forum at Rooty Hill that ‘for me broadband basically is about being able to send an email, receive an email’. Further on he said ‘it’s about downloading movies, downloading songs, all that kind of thing’. But, of course, Australian business knows that the NBN is about so much more than that. If you take, for instance, the situation within the automotive industry: you have Toyota, you have Holden and you have Ford, all of which have very significant design and engineering capabilities in this country. They send very complex and very detailed digital files all around the world, and without the NBN they are at a distinct commercial and competitive disadvantage.

The NBN will allow us to be amongst the world’s best. It will allow us to maintain our competitive advantage and ensure that we keep high-skilled, high-wage jobs in Australia. But it is not just in private companies. If you look at what is happening with Australian universities and the Australian research community, you get to understand how huge an advantage the NBN will be to ensure that we are able to maintain the prosperity of this nation. We will be able to get Australian researchers and businesses to go global and to be competitive globally. That is what Australians want—they want to be able to work with the very best in the world in real time, and they want to be able to ensure that they have the capabilities to maintain living standards. (Time expired)