Indi residents lose out on Broadband & future technology

Sophie Mirabella MP, the Federal Member for Indi, today spoke on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008 in the House of Representatives.

Mrs Mirabella opposed Labor’s Bill, which – according to the Bills Digest of the Parliamentary Library “removes the requirement that was inserted by the 2007 Act that required the Minister to take reasonable steps to keep the balance of the Communications Fund above $2 billion.”

In essence, Labor can play politics with the Communications Fund and use it for its own political purposes.

“Labor’s plan cannot and will not deliver broadband to many residents in Indi. Labor either doesn’t understand telecommunications technology or they simply don’t care,” Mrs Mirabella said.

In her speech, Mrs Mirabella noted “I believe this bill represents a sneaky raid on important future-proofing measures that were implemented by the former coalition government and that readily protected the interests of consumers in rural and regional Australia. Labor has now turned its back on these consumers so that it can raid the fund to pay for its half-baked policy.”

Mrs Mirabella’s speech follows.

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008.

By way of background, it is important to note the significant record of assistance given by the former Coalition Government in upgrading telecommunications infrastructure over the past decade.

The crowning glory of these achievements was the $2 billion Communications Fund created by the former government which is under threat by this Bill. We know the Labor Party never liked this fund.

They wanted to raid it – just like they want to raid the Future Fund – to suit their own political motives. The former Government, of course, reinforced the integrity of the Communications Fund by passing the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australian into the Future) Bill 2007 which augmented the effectiveness of this fund through making it a perpetual fund and requiring it to maintain a minimum principal of $2 billion. Sadly, as my colleagues have noted, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Communications Fund) Bill 2008 – among other things – essentially reverses this important mechanism.

This is yet another example of what we can expect under Labor. They are going to raid the Coalition’s Communications Fund for their own purposes – leaving many thousands of consumers and telecommunications users in the lurch.

It is clear that the Communications Fund is of critical importance to some of the potentially more disadvantaged consumers – namely those in rural and regional areas.

Here we have another prime example of Labor’s disdain for the bush. It is nothing new to people in my electorate – they are used to Labor Party saying one thing and doing another.

But the very legislation we debate today removes an inherent and ingrained aspect of the former government’s legislation that proudly protects the people rural and regional Australian – who rely so heavily on telecommunications and access to quality services.

All throughout the recent election campaign, the Coalition challenged the Labor Party to provide the costings, coverage maps and technical information about their broadband proposal for the full scrutiny of the Australian public.

It became quite clear that the Labor Party did not have a genuine broadband strategy for Australians beyond the major capital cities. Their plan continues to be light on detail with no technical backing.

The Labor Party’s city-focused plan is to build fibre to the node services that will cost taxpayers around five times more - yet deliver speeds that are no faster than ADSL2 or WiMax. It will not provide for fibre to every isolated farmhouse unlike the satellite subsidy that was the Coalition Government’s policy.

Over the last few years, Labor has failed to keep up with the Government in having a policy to bring telecommunications to rural areas. Does anyone genuinely believe that Labor will now install new fibre to every isolated farmhouse node? Of course not - which is why a wireless service is much more practical and affordable for rural internet users.

My Labor opponent in the Indi electorate at the recent election blundered badly when she said “Labor’s broadband plan is to connect all exchanges to broadband, so if you’re connected to a telephone exchange, you’ll have access.”

This confession that fibre will only be laid to the exchange was a major blow for the Labor Party’s rural broadband credentials. It means that the so-called “last mile” between telephone exchanges and residences will not be upgraded.
This is where the bottle necks currently exist – between the exchanges and the users. This is exactly what the Coalitions Government’s clear plan addresses using innovative wireless technology.

Further, the technology advocated by the Labor Party is only accessible by users who are within four kilometres of an exchange. This means that anyone who is currently unable to access broadband services will remain unable to access broadband services under Labor’s plan – which some wits described quite cleverly as ‘fraudband’.

Clearly, this Labor candidate didn’t realise that the current hurdle to high-speed broadband services is the copper cabling from a telephone exchange to a residence. This is due to the physical properties of copper cabling, not due to any Government or telecommunications company policy.

It is simply not physically possible to send data at broadband speeds down copper cabling more than about four kilometres long. This left a big hole in Labor’s claim that their broadband service will serve people in rural areas of North-East Victoria.

I believe this Bill represents a sneaky raid on important ‘future proofing’ measures that were implemented by the Coalition Government and which readily protected the interests of consumers in rural and regional Australia. Labor has now turned its back on these consumers, so it can raid the fund to pay for its half-baked policy.

The Communications Minister was said to be grumpy with his Department recently when wanting to implement Labor’s so-called broadband plans.
He’ll have to do better than that if he wants Australians to believe his utopian promise that they are somehow going to be better off as a result of Labor’s plot to raid the Communications Fund.

I hold grave reservations for the future state of telecommunications facilities and standards in rural and regional areas as a result of the measures contained in this Bill.