Page 4322 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 22 September 2010
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That is the great shame of this motion, and it is the shame for the government, because it exposes this government’s lack of activity in nine years in delivering broadband services in Gungahlin. If there is a problem with it in Gungahlin, it is the problem that Jon Stanhope and his government cannot deliver infrastructure.
We actually do have our own fibre champion in the ACT, and it has its own network. It is called TransACT. The question is: what has the government done to help TransACT deliver better and faster services? Those opposite can answer that. But the question really does stand out, highlighted by Ms Porter’s motion, that the federal government has had to come to the rescue of the ACT Labor government of Jon Stanhope because they have abandoned Gungahlin.
It is not just on the issue of things like broadband; it is the provision of pools; it is adequate access in and out of Gungahlin; it is the access to shopfronts and library services and other standard services which should have gone into that town centre ages ago but which have not. I do thank Ms Porter for running this motion today and I thank her for highlighting the fact that the Stanhope government has abandoned the people of Gungahlin over the last 10 years.
You have to go the fundamental of what is being attempted here. It is easy to get on the bandwagon and say, “Faster broadband speeds—fantastic. That’s what we all want.” I thank Ms Porter for referring to Korea. She is right—it is probably the most connected country in the world—and she is right that they can have downloads of 100 megabytes per second or more. I would like to read from an article that appeared in the Business Spectator on 16 September by Stephen Bartholomeusz, which says:
In other countries where they have had fibre networks delivering 100Mbps speeds for some years, like South Korea and Japan, consumers have been reluctant to pay more for those speeds, even with significant public subsidies. Ubiquitous high speed fibre hasn’t produced economic miracles in the handful of countries that have it.
It does go back to the basics. Where is the business plan? Where is the cost-benefit analysis? It is well and good just to say, “Wow, great idea! We are going to spend $43 billion.” That is the approach of so many Labor governments. We hear it in question time every day. When the government are asked a question, they talk about inputs. They never talk about outcomes. They forget about the people who pay for those inputs, and the Australian taxpayers and the taxpayers of Gungahlin will pay for the national broadband network whether they want it or not, whether they need it or not, whether they use it or not. They will be billed for it.
The evidence overseas, and I think the evidence emerging from Tasmania, is that if you want it, it is a good thing, but it is incredibly costly. But in many cases, the services that Ms Porter just spoke about can already be downloaded through the existing ADSL networks. For instance, all of the supposed benefits—medical consultation through video conferencing—can already be delivered on standard ADSL services. So why do we need this enormous new network, and where is the analysis to prove that the people of Gungahlin will be better off? There is none.
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