Stephen Parry (Tasmania, 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 how this government is expanding access to broadband? Further, 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 Parry for the question and for his ongoing interest in telecommunication services, in particular access to broadband in Tasmania. It is true that we have heard many varying opinions on Australia’s broadband service, but the fact is Australia is neither leader nor laggard. Australia has a good broadband story to tell and we are determined to ensure that the broadband story evolves and improves in the future.

Demand for and access to broadband services today are on the up. Today Australia has the second fastest take-up of broadband in the OECD, after Denmark. Around 90 per cent of Australian households and small businesses can have access to broadband speeds of between two megabits per second and eight megabits per second via ADSL; and from next year Telstra’s Next G is also expected to offer more multimegabit broadband speeds.

There are also now more than a dozen ADSL2+ providers supplying even faster speeds. Playing catch-up to its competitors, Telstra recently switched on its ADSL2+ service to more than 340 exchanges. I call on Telstra to go further and make ADSL2+ available to more than 90 per cent of consumers. They can do this at the flick of a switch because the ACCC have made it very clear that they have no intention to declare the service.

I have been asked about some alternative policies. The question for the Senate is: what will Labor’s policy on broadband be now that the leadership deckchairs have been shuffled again? I congratulate Senator Conroy on being re-elected Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and I certainly hope he comes back soon because I really miss him.

Last year, in his budget reply speech, Senator Conroy pulled Telstra’s publicly announced broadband plan off the shelf and—guess what—rebadged it as Labor’s new broadband policy. And when Telstra pulled out of that deal earlier this year the house of cards on which Labor’s plan was built collapsed at Senator Conroy’s feet and he was left with a multibillion-dollar sham plan.

Senator Conroy is well known for his statement that he does not really have any particular policy interests. I do not know whether he has reached a fork in the road—it seems as if so many other Labor members have—but it now seems abundantly clear that Labor is unable to do the hard yards and come up with a workable policy for the provision of broadband across Australia. In the meantime, the coalition government gets on with business. In the last 12 months we have gone from the fifth fastest in broadband take-up to the second in the OECD. We have committed more than $1 billion to ensure equitable access to broadband, irrespective of where people live. There are now more than four million homes, businesses, schools and community organisations, among others, who have access to fast broadband. This is broadband in action. As usual, the Labor Party is missing in action.