Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on this urgency motion, to impress upon the Abbott government the need to actually honour its election commitment to roll out fibre-to-the-premises broadband for no less than 200,000 premises across the state.

Holding the government to this commitment has many benefits for my home state, including the fact that it would stop a digital divide from tearing Tasmania apart. Today, I want to focus on one of the particular benefits that fibre-to-the-premises broadband would have for Tasmania and that I believe is of particular urgency.

In comparison to other states and territories, Tasmania has a high percentage of older people. In fact, the state's population is the oldest in the country and ageing faster than any other state or territory. It is actually for this very reason that world-class, fibre-optic-cable-connected broadband is so essential to Tasmania. It is nothing short of urgent, because the state needs this technology.

Late last year I spoke in this chamber about why Labor's broadband model had the potential to assist in transforming the lives of older Australians. I noted that the NBN is not, as the coalition would have you believe, just about providing people with superior video entertainment systems. In fact, some experts have estimated that 30 to 40 per cent of total NBN usage across all areas would be for health applications. That is why we need to pause and consider just how vital a reliable, medical-grade broadband connection is for technologies such as telehealth. Today, medical professionals can engage in face-to-face consultations and examinations via high-definition monitors and cameras. This means that instead of visiting a hospital or being moved into a residential facility older Australians can stay at home, where they feel comfortable. They can communicate with others and in the process help to combat social isolation.

The sky really is the limit. Earlier this year I spoke to an ehealth expert, Kathy Kirby, who has worked diligently for years to update and expand the existing telehealth network in Tasmania. Her message to me was quite clear: the technology to support the expansion of telehealth is available. The opportunities are right there in front of all of us. It is no surprise that the momentum really is gathering behind the conviction that technologies like telehealth can change the lives of older Australians and dramatically enhance the cost-effectiveness of our health and aged care systems.

Several weeks ago I was fortunate enough to join several other shadow ministers in meeting with Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan. Ms Ryan is a strong advocate for improvement to internet access for older Australians, and she impressed upon us the great potential of telehealth to assist older people who may otherwise miss the digital revolution. The problem, of course, is that the coalition's NBN infrastructure plans may well not be sufficient to support such innovations fully. We are talking about remote consultation, examinations and diagnosis: the bandwidth requirements in both directions are high, and they are only going to get higher.

The difficulty is this: even if a medical practitioner in, say, Launceston, Devonport or Queenstown can afford to extend the connection from the node to his or her premises, many people will not. There will be insufficient service at the recipient's end in terms of the bandwidth going out of the home. So it is important that this issue is put front and centre in Tasmania and, indeed, across the nation.

It is of course entirely predictable that the strongest proponents of fibre-to-the-premises broadband are often younger, tech-savvy people—people well versed in the language of megabytes, nodes and download speeds. But it is time for this to change. It is time for older Australians and those who care for and support them to stand up and say, 'We need fast, reliable, medical-grade broadband connections right now, across the board.'

I think it is telling that the people of Tasmania have given a clear message to state opposition leader, Will Hodgman. We want our households and businesses connected to world-class broadband. It comes as absolutely no surprise that Mr Hodgman was caught out saying in front of a live ABC microphone that the NBN issue could cost him the upcoming state election. Tasmanians know that they were given a clear promise—all existing NBN contracts would be honoured. Instead, the communications minister went back on his word and is intent on creating a digital divide in Tasmania.

This motion is a matter of urgency for Tasmanians, because we deserve better and we should not be lied to. The coalition's approach is not good enough. It is not good enough for households and businesses and, as I have focused on today, it is certainly not good enough for those older Tasmanians who simply want access to technology— (Time expired)