Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Minister for Rural Health) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator McKenzie for her question and note her very longstanding hard work in this area. As somebody that lives in a rural community, I know how important high-quality broadband is to those people in rural and regional communities, who very much need access to this service. Whether it is a what farmer in Mallee, a small business in Mildura or perhaps even the development of a groundbreaking application by a student in Bendigo, fast and affordable broadband is a key enabler for regional growth.

I recently had the pleasure of launching the Sky Muster satellite with the Minister for Communications and want to acknowledge the very great work he has done in improving communications for people right across this country. The recent switch-on of these services will provide fast, reliable and affordable services to homes, farms and businesses in rural and remote communities. NBN has engaged a number of companies to assist with the transition of services from the interim satellite to the Sky Muster service and to connect new end users to satellite broadband. And this milestone will mark that Australians, no matter where they live, will have access to fast, reliable and affordable broadband services.

And, of course, this is part of the government's approach to making sure that we have services to more than eight million homes by 2020. The satellite service will allow connections to around 400,000 premises, and nbn expects up to 250,000 people to take advantage of this service, which will, of course, provide that high-capacity service for farms, homes and businesses to access those digital services and transact business over the internet more easily, creating new jobs, growth and opportunities.