Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for her question. Recently the Deputy Prime Minister and I were in Kiama, joined by Kiama Council's mayor, Sandra McCarthy, and their young citizen of the year, Melissa Tierney, as we went live for the trial into the Kiama Downs and Minnamurra region. Residents of the town have proved to be strong early adopters, with nearly 80 per cent consenting to have the fibre connected to their premises. Jeanette Burgess, a small business operator in Kiama, was interviewed by ABC South East New South Wales on August 12 about her experience with the NBN already. Ms Burgess said:

Everything is so much faster. For example, yesterday I had to download some software. Well it was just like that—faster than I would have been able to get the disc out, load it onto the drive and close the drawer.

Ms Burgess also said, 'Regional Australia needs this infrastructure'—while her business is already benefiting as she uses QuickBooks Online, and that is a lot faster. She said:

But I am looking at doing remote access, logging into my clients' computers remotely and helping them fix up data in their files.

Just two weeks ago today, with the Prime Minister and the mayor of the City of Moreland in Melbourne, we had the pleasure of turning on the most recent trial site of Brunswick in Melbourne. Brunswick is the first mainland city site to have the NBN turned on. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate the City of Moreland, which has worked proactively to produce communi­cation tools aimed at bridging the digital divide for those families who come from culturally and linguistically diverse back­grounds. Those opposite should be ashamed of themselves for continuing to oppose the NBN, for continuing to have a policy position of demolishing the NBN, because regional and rural Australia will be significant beneficiaries. Schooling, educa­tion, small business and farming com­munities will be the beneficiaries. (Time expired)