81/07
Tuesday 19 June 2007

Labor’s ‘fraudband’ broadband plan exposed

With the release of Australia Connected and the Government’s rollout of a new high speed broadband network to 99 per cent of Australians, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Senator Helen Coonan called on Labor to come clean with full and proper detail on their broadband plan.

“This is a clear challenge to Mr Rudd and the Labor Party to provide their costings, maps and technical information about their broadband proposal for the full scrutiny of the Australian public,” Senator Coonan said.

“All details in relation to the Government’s new network is in the public domain and we have publicly provided coverage maps and full technical information unlike Labor who has provided nothing but rhetoric since their media announcement months ago.

“Labor claims to have a broadband plan for 98 per cent of Australians but based on any reasonable assessment, their numbers just don’t add up and coverage will only reach around 75 per cent of Australians.

“Which means Labor will leave almost three million Australian households and small business without a fast broadband service.

“Labor’s flawed proposal is now starting to unravel and Labor’s Shadow Cabinet Minister and Member for Hunter, Mr Joel Fitzgibbon MP has well and truly belled the cat with his comments in a media doorstop in Canberra today:

JOURNALIST:

Who misses out in that region under your plan?

FITZGIBBON:

Well I am not aware that anyone in my region misses out under our plan because...

JOURNALIST:

You said most people would get it.

FITZGIBBON:

Well those things are yet to be tested; we will roll out fibre to the node right through out the Hunter region. Obviously there may be some people excluded from that. We haven’t… don’t have the technical backing to make those final conclusions.

“It is clear Labor don’t have a genuine broadband strategy for Australians beyond the CBD of our major capital cities,” Senator Coonan said.

“We now have a Shadow Cabinet Minister on record confirming that Labor’s plan excludes unspecified number of homes from fast speed broadband and freely admitting that they simply haven’t done any of the technical work necessary to back up their poorly detailed proposal.

“Forget a so called plan for the future, Labor’s broadband has been shown up as fraudband and they want to throw billions of taxpayer dollars at an idea that even they have admitted today  doesn’t have the technical backing.

“It is absolutely clear today that this is an inexperienced Labor team who don’t have the necessary policy or economic clout to manage a trillion dollar economy and their only solution has been to raid the Future Fund and put at risk Australia’s future prosperity to band-aid over their lack of policy work,” Senator Coonan said.

“Whilst they have criticised the Government for an eight month process to prepare, cost and technically assess our broadband plan, I make no apology for doing the hard work necessary to ensure our plan reaches all Australians, regardless of where they live.

“It’s patently clear Labor’s plan is just a reaction from a poll driven Opposition Leader - it is light on detail, has no technical backing and is just another example of Labor’s inability to understand how the private sector works,” Senator Coonan said.

“The Rudd Labor Opposition is not ready for Government, they have admitted today that they have not done the hard policy yards and they have been trying to hide the fact that a quarter of Australians will miss out under their fraudband broadband plan.

“Only the Howard Government has a commitment to provide affordable, high speed broadband to 99 per cent of Australians and our plan is costed, budgeted, technically sound and rolling out immediately.”

Ends