The Government has ratcheted up its attempt to neutralise Labor's popular broadband policy, with a bill to be introduced into parliament today designed to starve Labor of the funds it needs for its plan.
The Government has ratcheted up its attempt to neutralise Labor's popular broadband policy, with a bill to be introduced into parliament today designed to starve Labor of the funds it needs for its plan.
Legislation to block Labor from spending the $2 billion Communication Fund on building a broadband network will be introduced into parliament today, Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan said.
The bill will be called "The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Protecting Services for Rural and Regional Australia into the Future)" and the government says it will ensure that regional Australia’s perpetual $2 billion Communications Fund cannot be "pillaged."
The legal limit on withdrawals by future governments will be $400 million per three-year period, which is the interest earned on the $2 billion, ensuring that the principal savings can't be touched.
“Labor has committed to drain the entire $2 billion from the Communications Fund, rob the bush of its ongoing funding, and squander it on a commercially viable network estimated to reach around 75 per cent of the population," said Coonan.
“And not content with pillaging the Communications Fund, Labor has also promised to grab a further $2.7 billion from the Future Fund, for a total of $4.7 billion to waste on a broadband network that the industry says it will fund itself,” Senator Coonan said.
Labor's shadow minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner, said he hadn't yet seen the bill so couldn't comment on its specific contents, but pointed out that "Parliament can change any law at any time", so a law instituted by the Government probably wouldn't hinder Labor if elected.
Senator Coonan called on the Labor Party to "come clean with full and proper detail on their broadband plan."
“It has been 90 days since the Labor Party put out their proposal and still no detail has been provided."
“I repeat my clear challenge to Mr Rudd and the Labor Party to provide the costings, coverage maps and technical information about their broadband proposal for the full scrutiny of the Australian public.
“All details of the Government’s new national broadband network are in the public domain but we’ve heard nothing but rhetoric from the Labor Party since their media announcement months ago.
“It’s clear Labor don’t have a genuine broadband strategy for Australians beyond our major capital cities. Their plan has no detail, no technical backing and no plan for the 25 per cent of the population that Labor will leave stranded without a service.”
Labor's Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Conroy, told APC, "Despite the Minister's desperate histrionics over the cost of Labor's National Broadband Network, Labor's costings are consistent with the only previous industry modelling of the cost of a national fibre to the node network covering 98% of Australian homes and businesses.
"Unlike the Howard government, Labor is proposing a nation-building National Broadband Network roll out and as such has not produced cynical electorate by electorate maps of the network's coverage. Labor has a vision for a national broadband roll out, not a cheap political focus on the next election."