Page 751 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 February 2012
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hear that. NBN Co has been engaged by the Village Building Company to provide telecommunications services to its new developments at Watson and Macgregor. The timing of the Watson build in fact means that it will be the first NBN implementation in Canberra. The rollout in new developments will proceed in parallel with the Gungahlin rollout.
I am sure all members will join with me in looking forward to the complete rollout of the national broadband network in Canberra, and that that work will continue in the years ahead.
MR SPEAKER: Supplementary, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, can you please explain how the rollout of the NBN in the ACT will benefit Canberra residents?
MR BARR: The NBN will bring significant benefits for the ACT—for residents, for businesses and for government. It will make a significant contribution to economic growth, create jobs, contribute to innovation, and enhance our city’s credentials as a forward-looking high-tech city.
Superfast broadband access will facilitate new business enterprises and generate employment in these fields. It is not just about firms in the information and communication technology field but about any company that wants to do business faster and smarter. It will improve the educational and teaching resources for teachers and students, allowing for the greater use of virtual classrooms and videoconferencing. One day our students might be able to learn Mandarin from a teacher in Beijing or go on a virtual tour of one of the world’s many great museums.
It will also deliver positive impacts on business efficiencies and revenues, particularly for small and medium business, allowing the transfer of data and information more quickly and more cheaply. The NBN will provide increased opportunities for new and innovative delivery of health and community services. For example, it will allow the uploading of vast quantities of data such as medical imaging in which details are of course vital.
It will also improve the delivery of government services—the virtual government shopfront where you can undertake a range of transactions with government from your own home. That provides the benefit that you perhaps would not need to pop into a physical shopfront to undertake those transactions.
The NBN is already creating jobs.
Mr Smyth interjecting—
MR BARR: The great diversifier is expressing some Luddite views, is he, across the chamber there?
NBN Co has been engaged in the physical rollout of the network and there are 40 jobs being created through the construction phase.
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