5AA SA, Interview with Amanda Blair

AMANDA BLAIR: Now that I've just revealed my new strategy for the Liberal Party ads, I thought it would be very fitting to get the Communications Minister in, Helen Coonan. Hello, Helen.

HELEN COONAN: Hi there, how are you doing?

AMANDA BLAIR: Did you like my ad idea, where you just have like the shark music, and you just have, you know, Kevin Rudd's tongue, coming out like a big lizard? Pass that on to John, would you?

HELEN COONAN: I'll pass it on, but I don't know that it would scare anybody, it just annoys people, I think.

AMANDA BLAIR: I think it would be pretty scary if it was used in the right way. Now obviously busy times for you, you're in Adelaide today, doing what?

HELEN COONAN: Releasing and launching more broadband, because we know that certainly in a country as vast as Australia, and a big locality like Adelaide really needs fast broadband, I mean this is really what young people need, they need to be - have always on, almost instant, downloads, and they need to be able to do this now, and that's what we're offering, we're rolling out a nationwide broadband plan, nobody has to wait, we'll have the whole thing rolled out by mid-2009, whereas our opponents won't have it done until 2013, so we think that by that stage, whatever they're going to do will be a white elephant in technology terms.

AMANDA BLAIR: Absolutely, it's like getting an i-pod now and popping it in the cupboard for six years.

HELEN COONAN: Absolutely, you've got to do it now, and we're right on to rolling out this new nationwide network at affordable prices, and making sure that peoples' mobile phones work, because I mean that's not a luxury, it's something that's absolutely critical, that people have a decent phone. And there's been a bit of angst about the CDMA network being turned off, and so we've got a safeguard there for consumers, and it won't be turned off until Telstra's new network provides equivalent or better coverage.

So they're the sorts of things that I do, regardless of an election, I go round the country, trying to help people to get their communications in a form that suits them.

AMANDA BLAIR: How much money is it costing the government to have this new broadband system?

HELEN COONAN: This is a total of about $2 billion, about $1 billion from the government and $1 billion from the private sector who are investing in it. We think that that model actually works well in rural and regional Australia, because obviously big companies won't come out to areas where it's not going to be commercial, and they don't make a profit, so there's a very good case for taxpayers' money, where people otherwise wouldn't get decent services, so we make sure that regardless of where you live, you'll be able to get a service.

But we've got a very different approach in big cities, where we're rolling out, and we have an expert taskforce to roll out a new fibre to the node network, and we know that companies will do that as a commercial proposition. The Labor Party wants to raid taxpayers' money, and put $4.7 billion towards rolling out a commercial network in the big cities, so we don't think that that makes any sense at all.

AMANDA BLAIR: Have your glass of water, poor Helen, she's a bit sick.

HELEN COONAN: I've got a bit of a cold.

AMANDA BLAIR: I know, I think everyone's got it, I've had it for two weeks.

HELEN COONAN: It's not fun, is it?

AMANDA BLAIR: It's not fun at all, particularly when your job's talking, as yours is, it's not actually that great.

HELEN COONAN: I'm sorry listeners, that I'm a bit croaky, but anyway, look, the message is that we do think that in big cities, obviously, that's not where you put taxpayers' money, that's how we differ from the Labor Party.