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

My question is to Senator Coonan, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. Does the minister recall claiming on The 7.30 Report this week:

ADSL 2 plus has speeds on average about 12 megabits up to 18, even 23, depending on some circumstances.

Is the minister aware of a report released by Citigroup that finds that it is physically impossible for ADSL2+ to deliver these kinds of speeds on a mass-market basis and that a more realistic average speed for this technology is three megabits? Can the minister explain to the chamber what she is doing to remedy her appalling ignorance of the technical issues in her own portfolio? Will the minister also apologise for misleading the Australian people about what ADSL2+ is capable of delivering?

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

Thank you to Senator Conroy for the question. One of the really interesting things about the speeds that Senator Conroy talks about in his question is that he seems to be terribly confused about them. He says that we need six megabits, then he says 10. When I said the other day that some ADSL platforms were capable of 12, he said that we need 100. He is all over the place. He does not have a clue. The important thing is that the only card that Senator Conroy has to play is to try to mislead people as to what I have said.

As I have clearly said, even in the absence of any metropolitan fibre, the network proposed by Telstra which was to go to the most populous parts of five capital cities, Australians living in the inner metropolitan areas can already access faster broadband speeds of between 12 and 18 megabits per second if they can access the ADSL2+ platform. Not everyone can. This also applies if people can access cable networks, which run past 3.7 million Australian homes. These are the people who were being referred to in the footprint of what could have been the Telstra fibre rollout, which would have been rolled out, of course, just to the most populous parts of five capital cities.

The government’s longstanding policy of encouraging competition in telecommunications has delivered metropolitan consumers a choice of broadband providers and a choice of speeds. That is absolutely undeniable. At least nine service providers—I have referred to some in this chamber already—offer these speeds in over 400 exchanges, with another 500 to come on. I will say a few of them again: Adam Internet, Amcom, iiNet, Internode, OntheNet, People Telecom, RIA, TPG and TSN. If those firms are making misrepresentations about the speeds they offer, that might be a matter for the ACCC, but my information is that these speeds are available in the way that I indicated.

ADSL2+ and cable networks enable consumers to access a rich mix of data services, including high-quality video, audio, voice and text. ADSL2+ is the technology, of course, that Senator Conroy would have been relying on for part of his plan to try to rob the $2 billion telecommunications fund and to put in some plan that relies on a non-existent Telstra rollout.

The problem with the Labor Party is that they do not understand what this technology does, how you can enable it, whereas this government has the Broadband Connect program where we have enabled over 1,000 additional exchanges with ADSL equipment enabling customers to access services up to 1.5 megabits a second and a large number of new wireless providers offering services, some well into the megabits per second range. There is increased competition in satellite, with services now dropped to as low as $29.99 a month. More than 110,000 customers have been connected through the HiBIS program. More than 700,000 additional premises have been enabled. I can just go on and on. I do hope Senator Conroy will continue to ask these questions.

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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I again refer the minister to the Citigroup report. Is the minister aware that the report finds that ‘Australia will have to wait until 2012—for true broadband—given delays on regulation and build unless the government decides to intervene’? As the minister for communications, when will the minister stop making excuses and finally take responsibility for ensuring that Australians have access to world-class telecommunications infrastructure and, like Labor, develop a plan to deliver fibre broadband for Australia?

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

I am sure that Australians are very glad that they are not waiting for Labor’s plan, which depends on Telstra’s plan, that would not have started till 2009 and still relies on copper to the home to deliver any service. In fact, Senator Conroy is completely wrong about Australia and broadband. You only have to look at the OECD league table to see that our broadband take-up is growing at the fifth fastest rate in the world, faster than the US, the UK, Japan, Korea, Canada, France, Germany and many others. This is hardly a broadband backwater. The only backwater in the broadband debate is the fact that the Labor Party always looks backward, never forward, and has not a clue about how to deliver a future for telecommunications.