Senator the Hon Helen Coonan
Minister for Communications,
Information Technology
and the Arts
Deputy Leader of the Government
in the Senate
Building a Communications Alliance
Sydney
31 August 2006
Thank you John (Kranenberg) and thank you to SPAN for inviting me to address you again.
The SPAN awards are the telecommunications equivalent of the Logies and we have many worthy winners here tonight.
Before I begin my remarks I would like to acknowledge one of those winners – Rosemary Sinclair – the new telecommunications ambassador of the year.
Rosemary has brought great understanding, energy, leadership and vision to her role at ATUG and she has made a consistent and substantive contribution to the telecommunications policy debate both in Australia and internationally.
On a personal level she has been a source of advice and encouragement to me. I appreciate her contribution and celebrate her achievements tonight. Congratulations Rosemary.
Towards T3
Well, it has been quite a big week for telecommunications with news the Government will proceed with a public Telstra share offer.
An offer of around $8 billion in shares later this year represents the largest share offer in Australia since 1999 and is the biggest telco share offer in the world since 1993.
The Government is proceeding with the sale as we believe that we can achieve an appropriate return for shareholders and more broadly the Australian people at this time.
Our sale advisers have been closely analysing the market and their unanimous advice to the Government is that there is sufficient demand to support an offer of this magnitude and it can be done at a fair price.
This decision will put in train the process to end the longstanding conflict of interest the Government has endured.
Once the sale proceeds and the remaining shares are in the future fund we will no longer be both the major shareholder in Australia’s largest telecommunications provider and the regulator of more than 150 telecommunications providers in Australia.
But, importantly, our robust regulatory safeguards will remain.
We do not need to own Telstra to regulate the telecommunications industry – our consumer safeguards are enshrined in legislation and enforceable by law.
The Universal Service Obligation, the Customer Service Guarantee and the Network Reliability Framework will all remain as will un-timed local calls, price parity for people living in rural and regional areas and price caps on call costs.
And, of course, the Government will continue to roll out affordable broadband, improve mobile phone services and ensure people living in all areas of Australia can access the best possible telecommunications services irrespective of where they live.
We will do this through the historic Connect Australia package comprising $1.1 billion investment over the next three years and the $2 billion Communications Fund which is invested to fund future upgrades of telecommunications services.
Access to high quality, affordable telecommunications services is more important than ever if Australia is to keep pace with other industrialised countries.
The telecommunications policies of the Government are designed to give all Australians equitable access to telecommunications services, and to ensure that Australia, as a nation, takes full advantage of the benefits that new technology can bring with increased productivity and better delivery of services.
We are committed to continuing to encouraging competition and providing targeted Government investment where there is evidence of market failure, most notably but certainly not exclusively in rural, regional and remote Australia.
Through our continued investment in telecommunications services the Government will ensure that Australia becomes a world leader in the effective use of broadband.
Broadband is not optional – rather it is critical infrastructure. But we need to do more than just provide the infrastructure.
Consumers don’t value the infrastructure – they value the services and the applications that the infrastructure enables them to access.
They value the fact that those services can make us more competitive, more socially inclusive, can help us better deliver essential government services, can enable us to start our own businesses and can improve our quality of life.
It is not just access to the technology – it is how we use it. Technology for technology’s sake will not be enough to deliver the productivity gains we desire to meet future challenges.
Already Australia is a world leader in the use of technology.
We rank third behind only the US and Canada in the 2006 Information Economy Index published by my Department.
This index measures online access and equity, intensity of Internet use and business online.
Australia also ranked third in Accenture’s 2005 E-Government leadership report and sixth in the Global E-Government Readiness Report published by the United Nations in 2004.
Almost every day, new broadband services emerge tangibly demonstrating the personal and national productivity gains that are possible.
But it also important to understand that in discussing Australia’s future broadband requirements, we are not talking about a one size fits all approach or a one speed fits all.
The requirements for broadband speeds and services differ for different communities and different sectors of the economy.
For example, it is not uncommon for all members of a household to use the Internet for a wide variety of purposes.
This can include education, daily information, e-mail, VoIP, online shopping, online banking or accessing Government services.
Others seek enhanced bandwidth to get access to innovative applications such as streamed video or digital television.
But access to higher bandwidth services should be seen as more than just allowing Australian consumers to access entertainment services.
Therefore the Australian Government is doing more than just connecting ordinary Australians to broadband.
We are helping to build super fast broadband backbones to connect our universities and hospitals and revolutionising the way we can diagnose and treat patients and assisting our researchers to continue with their breakthroughs.
The previous iteration of what is now known as Clever Networks – the Coordinated Communications Infrastructure Fund – has produced some tangible examples of how fast networks can make a social and economic difference.
Queensland Health’s NorthernNet project provided broadband services to 36 remote regions of northern Queensland for the first time.
This infrastructure is improving the lives of those local communities by enabling Queensland Health to better services such as radiology, ophthalmology and remote consultations.
Education Queensland has also been able to extend its virtual schooling capabilities and increase access to online services for high school and TAFE students.
Another CCIF project in NSW in partnership with Optus offers distance learning by satellite.
The satellite network extension reaches 200 isolated homes, 211 remote schools and 15 rural Indigenous communities in NSW.
The CCIF also funded the installation of a 10 kilometre fibre optic link from Alice Springs in the Northern Territory through Heavitree Gap to the Desert Knowledge Precinct.
This broadband connection has direct educational benefits for students at the Charles Darwin University, and will also enable contributing agencies such as NT Parks and Wildlife to engage in more collaborative projects.
These are the real success stories of Government investment.
While providing Australians with the capacity to access faster downloads and more entertainment services is part of this story, we can and must do more.
We want these connections to make businesses better, to facilitate better education services, to deliver real time medical support to communities and enable our Indigenous communities to access services other Australians take for granted.
These are the measures of success in Government investment.
Clever Networks
That is why I am pleased tonight to be able to officially launch the $113.4 million Clever Networks program to build on the success of the CCIF.
I am releasing the guidelines for the program and can announce that applications for the first round of grants will close on 28 November 2006.
Clever Networks will support sectors such as health, education, community and emergency services to utilise advanced broadband technologies to enhance the delivery of key Government services in rural, regional and remote Australia.
As with the CCIF, the significant investment from Clever Networks will leverage additional investment from State and Territory Governments as well as the private sector.
As with our approach to Broadband Connect, a consortium approach is being encouraged with Clever Networks to support partnerships and collaborations to deliver projects of sufficient scale and scope to build on our earlier successes.
Clever Networks is a key element of my vision to drive next generation broadband capability to underpin Australia’s social and economic future – it is an essential part of making Australia a world leader in the effective use of broadband.
This is a uniquely Australian story that will use technology to bridge the vast distances and meet the challenges of connecting all of us irrespective of where we live.
I look forward to receiving many proposals for innovative investments that will make a real difference.
Merger of SPAN and ACIF
And now finally I would like to acknowledge the successful merger of ACIF and SPAN to form the Communications Alliance.
This merger indicates how the communications industry has matured in recent years.
Although we hear a lot about the differences of opinion between various participants, little attention has been paid to the tremendous amount of cooperative activity that takes place behind the scenes.
As the industry moves into the era of convergence and Next Generation Networks, there will be an even greater need for cooperation and collaboration because of the complex challenges that lie ahead.
The Communications Alliance will provide a forum for resolving many of the issues that will be encountered in the transition.
More importantly, it will offer industry leadership in developing NGN transition strategies in conjunction with the Government, the ACCC and ACMA.
At such a challenging time in our history there is a pressing need for the industry to demonstrate its maturity and its ability to work together for a common goal.
By voting in favour of the merger to form the Communications Alliance, ACIF and SPAN members have shown they are prepared to do just that and they should be congratulated.
The new Communications Alliance will provide a unified and powerful industry voice.
I would like to congratulate SPAN and ACIF on this merger and thank both organisations for their contributions over the years.
And now it is my great pleasure to officially launch the Communications Alliance and I look forward to continuing to work with you.
Thank you.