Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Coonan. Will the minister inform the Senate of steps the Howard government is taking to drive the roll-out of high-speed internet networks throughout Australia? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Adams for her continued interest in this very important matter, coming as she does from regional Australia. As senators on this side of the chamber would be aware, the Howard government is making great strides in the roll-out of broadband across Australia. We have already invested more than a billion dollars in rural and regional telecommunications services and we have committed to investing $1.1 billion more. More importantly, we have invested $2 billion in a communications fund to ensure that money is set aside for future investment in telecommunications.

More than 110,000 customers have been connected to either a HiBIS or a broadband connect service and more than 700,000 additional premises have gained access to terrestrial broadband. However, we do need to build on our decade of investment and reform. Last week, I called for expressions of interest from industry for larger-scale infrastructure projects under the $878 million Broadband Connect program. There is a unique opportunity to use a substantial proportion of these funds to encourage private investment in Australia’s regional broadband networks. The EOI process will allow interested parties to put forward other ideas, plans and possible project proposals to help inform the final design of any funding approach. The process is being designed to maximise the roll-out of high-speed internet and to make the most of taxpayer funded investment in this important technology.

Senator Adams asked me if I am aware of any alternative policies. I am aware of one proposal from the ALP, but it would be generous to label it a policy. I think we all heard Mr Beazley’s pronouncements on broadband in reply to the budget, when he promised to plunder all the money the coalition has set aside to future-proof the bush to fund a one-off election commitment. We are also aware that it took less than a week after the Labor broadband proposal was launched for the opposition’s spokesman to admit that he did not know the total cost of their proposed new network and that he would have to sit down and work it out. It really begs the question: how can Labor make plans for the next seven years when their policies do not even hang together for seven days?

On top of all that, I have recently discovered that Labor’s plan to extend fibre to the node to 98 per cent of Australia is not what it seems. Labor have mysteriously and quite inappropriately failed to mention that much of the proposed network will not be fibre to the node at all; it will be the existing copper network. So Labor’s proposal to spend the Communications Fund, to leave not one red cent for future investment in future upgrades and to fund a fibre network that will really be largely based on legacy copper, is hardly what you would call an alternative plan; it is just a cheap, knee-jerk reaction, trying to catch up. Telecommunications is yet another serial policy failure on the part of the ALP, while this government continues to deliver for rural and regional Australia.