Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Regional Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Williams. Yes, I think there might be. The threat to a better broadband for regional Australia is the threat of a future Labor government. When Labor was in government it was completely clueless about the need for data and mobile connections out in regional Australia. In contrast, when we came to government, we flipped the rollout of the NBN so that the regions were prioritised, because—guess what?—they didn't even have access to broadband. Now we've got more than 620,000 premises with access to fixed wireless and over half a million have an active service.

If we'd stuck to Labor's plan for fixed wireless and satellite coverage, at least 200,000 farms and businesses—and they're actual people producing the wealth of this nation—would have no services at all. We have delivered the technology the regions need to access essential health and education services.