Senator the Hon Helen Coonan was Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts from 18 July 2004 to 3 December 2007. This site is available for archival purposes only.

Senator Stephen Conroy is the current Minister for the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy

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7 November 2005

Government broadband support is good for the regions

The Australian Local Government Association’s State of the Regions report, released today, backs the Howard Government’s significant and continued support of communications in rural, regional and remote Australia, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan, said today.

The report concludes that greater penetration of broadband in regional Australia would significantly boost the nation’s export potential.

“In August the Australian Government committed a further $1 billion to extend broadband availability in regional Australia over the next four years,” Senator Coonan said.

“This $1 billion commitment includes the $878 million Broadband Connect program and the $113 million Clever Networks scheme.”

Both programs build on existing regional broadband subsidy schemes including the very successful Higher Bandwidth Incentive Scheme (HiBIS).

“In the past year alone, more than 800 regional and rural towns have been connected to terrestrial broadband services, such as ADSL and wireless, as a direct result of HiBIS,” Senator Coonan said.

“This means more than 600,000 households and small businesses in rural areas can now access an ADSL or wireless broadband service thanks to HiBIS – 12 months ago they could not.

“There are also now more than 10,000 HiBIS satellite services in operation in more remote areas. Since its inception, HiBIS has helped to close the gap between metro and regional broadband take-up.

“Two years ago broadband take-up in regional areas was just five per cent while in metro areas it was 11 per cent. Today regional take-up is running at 19 per cent and in metro areas it is 21 per cent.

“With continuing, targeted investment from this Government the gap between country and city is closing.”

Australia continues to record strong broadband take-up.

During the twelve months to June 2005 the number of broadband subscribers more than doubled, with over 1 million new customers taking up a broadband service.

This performance has placed Australia eighth on the OECD league table in terms of the growth in broadband take-up.

There are now more than 2.1 million broadband subscribers in Australia.