How a second-rate NBN is making the bush suffer inequality
Australia is a great country, but inequality is rising with the top 20 per cent of wealth holders owning 70 times the wealth of those in the bottom 20 per cent — a key element of which is a rural and urban rich-poor divide.
Shadow regional communications minister Stephen Jones, speaking at the “Broadband for the Bush” forum today, said rural Australia has some of the highest levels of poverty: 18 of the 20 poorest electoral districts in Australia are rural.
Access to reliable and modern digital communications is a key game changer — something Malcolm Turnbull and his mismanagement of the National Broadband Network (NBN) won’t be helping to address any time soon under the Liberals’ “Fraudband”.
“Labor invested so much planning and energy in the NBN.”
“The levers a reforming government would pull to address these concerns include investments in health, education and public infrastructure,” Jones said “and Labor’s plan is to do just that.
“But in the 21st century, access to broadband sits alongside education and health care as a key driver of opportunity.
“It is why Labor invested so much planning and energy in the NBN.
“Today we are focused on digital inclusion which isn’t just about making sure that every household has a computer hooked up to the internet; we need to go much further than that and end the ‘digital divide’ in Australia,” Jones said.
The gap that separates households and businesses with access to digital and information technologies, and those struggling with more limited access, is one Labor will close.
“It’s about access, it’s about affordability — it’s about having reliable broadband services as much as it’s about digital literacy,” the shadow minister said.
“Achieving digital inclusion is not some far-off destination we may reach; it should be one of our highest priorities.
“While 88 per cent of households in major cities are online, the figure falls to 82 per cent in inner regional and even lower to 79 per cent for those in outer regional and remote parts of Australia.
“Labor’s original plan was to deliver optic fibre to 93 per cent of homes and businesses in Australia, and this included delivering optic fibre to 70 percent of regional cities and towns.
“Equality of infrastructure and equality of price.”
“The previous Labor government also introduced a policy called universal wholesale pricing which meant people in the bush paid the same wholesale price for equivalent broadband services as people living in our cities.
“Not just equality of infrastructure — but equality of price,” he said.
The city-based Liberals jettisoned these policies, with the active consent of their Coalition partners, the National Party.
“The optic fibre rollout has been axed; Australians in regional towns will now overwhelmingly receive second rate copper-based broadband,” Jones said.
“Universal wholesale pricing has also been axed so regional and rural areas will pay more for essential broadband services.
“We planned to use the NBN satellites to serve about 200,000 of the most remote homes and businesses in Australia but to cut costs, the Liberals have doubled this footprint.
“Now more than 400,000 homes and businesses will be served with the satellite, and more users means congestion and a lower quality of service.
“It is not fair, and it is a direct result of the retrograde changes the Liberals have made to the NBN — changes which will hurt the bush,” he said.
“Under the Liberals, the NBN is a lottery pure and simple.”
Enabling more people in the bush to get online improves economic participation, health services and education outcomes.
“One of the reasons Labor’s NBN model was so important for rural Australia is we understood that it would help to level the playing field for regional businesses,” Jones said. “Under the Liberals, it is a lottery that will unfairly disadvantage many businesses operating in tight margins in communities across Australia.
“New technologies can save the entire healthcare system billions of dollars.
“One aged-care provider — Feros Care — has said if just half of their nurses’ visits were done using telehealth, each nurse would save 7700 kilometres in travel.
“But this can’t be achieved with sub-standard broadband services.
“Labor will have plenty more to say about the NBN in coming weeks; I’m going to leave that to our shadow communications minister Jason Clare.
“What I can tell you is that at this election, we face a stark choice: if we want to further entrench growing inequality, go full steam ahead with Malcolm Turnbull’s second rate and unfair NBN model.
“Committed to getting the NBN back on track.”
“But there is another option: ensuring households and businesses in the bush are provided with the communications infrastructure they need to help them get ahead, at fair and affordable prices.
“Malcolm Turnbull has made a diabolical mess of the NBN.
“But we are committed to getting the NBN back on track, and to restoring our original vision for this critical infrastructure project.
“It’s a vision that will ensure equality of access between the city and the bush.
“Communities in the bush will always be better served by Labor when it comes to communications policy.
“If we fight to preserve Labor’s hard fought policy achievements and fight to advance our new ideas for improving people’s lives, we can make a real difference,” Jones said.
