Subjects: Visit to Marcus Oldham College; the Coalition’s plan for fast broadband and an affordable NBN; car industry; Ford Territory; Julia Gillard's carbon tax; the Government's failed border protection policies.
EO&E...........................................................................................................................................
TONY ABBOTT:
It’s really good to be here at Marcus Oldham College. I want to thank Simon Livingstone, the staff and the students for making Malcolm Turnbull, Sarah Henderson and myself so welcome. This is a very important educational institution. It’s a key part of our agricultural future and if this institution is to flourish, obviously it needs better broadband services and it needs them now. We will deliver fibre to an institution like this very, very swiftly because our system, the Coalition's National Broadband Network, is about using the right infrastructure to the right place. That is what we're on about. By putting fibre to some 60,000 nodes, as opposed to some 12 million households, we can get a real, effective National Broadband Network up and running much more quickly and much more affordably than Labor. This is the commitment that we give to the Australian people. Under the Coalition, you’ll have much, much faster broadband much more quickly and much more affordably than under the current government.
I am proud of the work that Malcolm Turnbull has done. Malcolm has put together a really outstanding policy and I would urge people to read the full policy documents. They’re available on the Liberal Party's website. This is a very sophisticated piece of work, as anyone who looks at it carefully will know. It's very important for our country that the public know that the Coalition is ready to govern and this policy is proof positive that we have real solutions for our country. We are ready to give Australia the better government that a great people and a great country so badly need right now.
I am going to ask Malcolm to say a few words, then Sarah, and then obviously we will take some questions.
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Thank you Tony and like Tony I’m delighted to be Sarah at Marcus Oldham. As I said earlier, the approach that we are taking is one that will ensure that we get the right type of technology, the right type of infrastructure to the places where it's needed and is most cost-effective. The extraordinary thing about Labor's NBN, and it's worth reflecting on, is that they are proposing - they're not actually getting it done of course, that’s another matter - but they are proposing to take fibre into every flat, every cottage in Australia - even if there's only one person living there or even if it's vacant they will put fibre in there, but to this agricultural college, with hundreds of students who need access to very fast broadband, there is no plan to bring fibre to this institution at all. No plan at all. It just shows you how hopelessly skewed and confused their priorities are. This is not a business-like government. It is not a competent government. What are offering in our approach to broadband is the latest technology, the latest techniques and common sense and competence. That's what's in short supply in Canberra.
TONY ABBOTT:
Sarah?
SARAH HENDERSON:
Thank you very much, Tony. Malcolm and Tony, thank you very much for coming down. Just a couple of quick points. I am very proud that the NBN will be prioritising rural and regional Australia. Under Labor, country communities have been left out in the cold and it is a very poor reflection on the local member for Corangamite Darren Cheeseman that he has not been out fighting to deliver the NBN here in Corangamite. 90,000 people in Corangamite will not be receiving the NBN any time soon and frankly that is a disgrace. Unlike Darren Cheeseman, I will be standing up for the people of Colac, of Grovedale, of Highton, of Belmont and most other parts of Corangamite that have been left out in the cold.
Thank you.
TONY ABBOTT:
Ok. Do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Mr Turnbull, just in regard to some comments in The Australian, do you think there needs to be a shake-up of the NBN Board and management?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well, yes what I've said - and shake-up is someone else's words - but what we’ve said is that we would expect to see considerable changes both at to see both at board level and in the management of the NBN, absolutely.
QUESTION:
Mr Turnbull, have any Nationals MPs raised concerns that broadband will cost more for people in country than in the city under the Coalition’s plan?
MALCOLM TUNRBULL:
I've talked about it with my National Party colleagues and of course Luke Hartsuyker, who’s the Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, was involved in the formulation of the policy. So, we are very focus on regional and rural Australia. I was talking to one of our colleagues, Bruce Scott just this morning who is delighted as indeed are some of his local communities in Maranoa, about the opportunity for co-investment because there are local communities there who want to put their own money, local councils want to put their own money to enhance wireless coverage and broadband coverage generally and we’ve got a flexibility in our policy to accommodate that. So, that’s an example of National Party MPs and it's obviously not just Nationals but Liberals as well have had through expressing the concerns and priorities of their regional communities have had a real input into the policy.
But I just want to recap what I said about regional Australia and just bear with me, three points: one, broadband will be cheaper everywhere - everywhere - under our policy. It will be much cheaper than it will be under Labor. Labor will see broadband prices treble over the next decade. That is what they're saying about their prices. That’s not our calculations. That’s what they’re saying and we have set all of that out in the policy. That is point number one.
Secondly, there will be a uniform wholesale cap set, not by the NBN, but by the ACCC. So, country people cannot be charged more simply because it is, as we all know, much more expensive to provide telecommunications in the bush.
Thirdly, the biggest problem in the bush and regional Australia is very poor mobile reception. That is what people complain about all the time. Incredibly, the Labor Party is spending a fortune on fixed wireless broadband or proposing to, which involves building lots of towers etcetera and none of that is going to enhance mobile services as well. Now what we have said in our policy is that we will ensure that any money or the money, there will be lots of money, going into fixed wireless broadband via the NBN will also be used to enhance mobile services in the bush as well and we have set out some of the ways we can do that.
The final point I’d make is that the NBN fibre footprint, fibre only goes to communities or towns with 1,000 premises or more. There are a lot of smaller towns with less than 1,000 premises that would be on wireless or satellite under Labor’s NBN. Those communities are eminently suited to the fibre to the node approach that we’ve described, so, our approach - and it’s not an accident. I mean, we have by far the biggest representation of regional MPs and Senators in the Parliament. Our roots are in regional Australia as a political movement, as a Coalition. So, we are listening to those regional MPs in those communities and they have contributed to the formation of our policy.
QUESTION:
Is there a risk that we might have to do this all again sometime in the future, going with your option; fibre to the node rather than fibre to the home? Will we end up spending more?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well, let me make a couple of points, I was with Alcatel-Lucent just the other day, one of the biggest technology firms in the world, and they confirmed that their advice to telecom companies around the world is the most cost-effective way to build these high speed networks is to do fibre to the node; build it with the option, with the potential, of going fibre to the premise if demand increases over time build that into the design and then make that final investment to fibre to the home later. So, you see, the point is if you do fibre to the node now and you build in the capacity to take it to fibre to the premises in ten years’ time perhaps, you are then in position where you can constantly upgrade your network. This is a very important point. Stephen Conroy likes to say that our approach is like building the Sydney Harbour with one lane. That is absolutely untrue. I mean, he doesn’t have a great familiarity with the Harbour Bridge, I suspect. But the point is that infrastructure like that, the bridge, is very hard, if not impossible to add to incrementally. Telecommunication networks are like organisms, they grow. So, what you do is, because you have got so much change in technology coming up down the track, you build into your network design the optionality, the flexibility, to increase it as the demand comes along. So, when somebody says to you, you should make the investment today to cater for the demand that will come in 30 years’ time, they are showing that they would absolutely fail the management course here at Marcus Oldham because if you think you have got demand coming in 30 years’ time, the time to make the investment to meet that demand is maybe in 29 years’ time or 25 years’ time. You know the time value of money. We said all of this, we have got a page that sets all this out in the policy and I’d encourage you to read it.
TONY ABBOTT:
In a nutshell, what this Government is doing is it is investing too much, too soon, too incompetently and we want to avoid those terrible mistakes.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, just on another matter. If elected will you commit to the $1.5 billion of car industry assistance beyond 2015 and will you give Holden the Federal Government money which is I think $215 million after 2015?
TONY ABBOTT:
Look, there are only two differences between us and the Government - well, actually there are three differences between us and the Government on the motor industry. First and foremost we are not going to hit the motor industry with a carbon tax and the carbon tax is adding $400 to the cost of every car manufactured in Australia. Second, we think that $1 billion should be in the automotive transformation scheme as opposed to the Government’s figure and third we think that in 2015 there should be a Productivity Commission Review. In every other respect we support the current level of assistance to the industry.
QUESTION:
Are you concerned with jobs in Geelong? We have got Ford losing jobs. People are affected in this region with Holden and also the Shell announcement from last week. Geelong is doing it tough at the moment, isn’t it?
TONY ABBOTT:
I am very concerned for the people of Geelong who have been let down badly by this Government which has promised a lot and delivered nothing. When the Prime Minister recently announced increased assistance to companies like Ford, she said that jobs would increase there. Instead, jobs have decreased there. Now, we will ensure that our assistance is linked with credible plans to get the industry to a state where it is sustainable and it will be sustainable because our great Australian cars will be more exported in the future then they are now. I know the excellence of the Ford product of Geelong because I drive a Ford Territory and the Ford Territory is arguably the best car ever made in this country. It is a much better SUV than most of the SUVs that sell for much higher prices. We need to get the Ford Territory exported to the world. It is a world-beating vehicle. Let’s get it out there and let’s beat the world.
SARAH HENDERSON:
Just one comment to make on jobs - wherever I go, from the big manufacturers to the small businesses, I’m hearing one message: the carbon tax is a tax on Geelong and a tax on jobs and a tax on local prosperity. It is causing enormous damage out there everywhere I go.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, you were talking about how the Territory is your favourite car to drive for an SUV. If you win the September 14 election, would you be looking at maybe making a lot of the government fleet cars, Ford or Holden, make them home-made?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, it has long been government policy that if you are out there in the market to purchase, there should be a preference for the local product and yes where an Australian car can do the job, an Australian car should be purchased by the Australian Government.
QUESTION:
Mr Turnbull, just going back to the NBN for a second, a CSIRO expert says technology will soon push the limits of the Coalition’s plan. Is there a chance your alternative will be obsolete before finalised or finished?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
No, not at all. In fact, what’s happened with the technologies for VDSL which is the system, the protocols that are used to transmit broadband over legacy copper systems, that's like the highest evolution from the ADSL services that people are getting today, these VDSL services are getting better and better and again as I was saying to the young lady here, we are in a position where we will have the flexibility to go fibre to the premise when and where the demand arises. Obviously there’ll be fibre to the premise in new developments, there will be fibre to the premise in areas where there is real demand, but what has been interesting and I’d encourage you to look at the material out there on the internet. Alcatel-Lucent has got a lot of good material published. The improvements in the VDSL technology, particularly coupled with a technique called vectoring has made dramatic changes to the point where a number of carriers now are offering 100 megabits per second over fibre to the node which would have been thought inconceivable a few years ago. You know, a lot of the commentary you see in the press from some of the academics in Australia - I’m not talking about this gentlemen at the CSIRO by the way, but some of the others - is based on a view of technology that is out of date. Belgacom, the Belgian Telecom is delivering 100 megabits per second. Deutsche Telekom is doing VDSL with vectoring now with that goal in mind. China Telecom has been trialling it. British Telecom is upgrading to vectoring now. They’re already offering 80; they’re planning to offer another 50 per cent over that with vectoring. So, it’s a very dynamic area and it gets back to the point I was making that if you want to not waste money, if you want to be smart, if you believe that taxpayers’ money is a scarce resource and you should use it prudently, then you invest to meet the demand of today and in the foreseeable future and give yourself the flexibility as demand changes and as technologies change to upgrade in the most cost-effective fashion. So, when I saw in one of the papers that was saying that our plan would see broadband speeds frozen, I mean, that is the complete opposite of what we’re saying. You know, the amount of deliberate misinformation that is out there is extraordinary. Of course, the best one - Tony, I don’t know if you saw it, and Sarah - but the Labor Party had on Julia Gillard’s own website a little ad that actually if it was done by a private company, it would be in diabolical trouble with the ACCC - serious trouble, serious legal trouble - and the little ad said, 'connecting to Labor’s NBN is free.' Free! $94 billion cost? Tripling internet charges? I mean, really.
QUESTION:
Mr Turnbull, you were talking about the benefits to regional Australia. What about for small businesses?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well, small businesses will benefit from better internet access and under our approach, many small businesses - particularly if they’re located in business areas - will be getting fibre to the premise, fibre to the business park, or commercial park anyway…
QUESTION:
What about people who operate small businesses from home?
MALCOLM TURNBULL:
Well, the speeds that will be offered under fibre to the node are very high, very high, and my view is that the vast majority of small businesses operating from home would find them perfectly satisfactory, well in excess of their requirements. If however you had - and this will be a tiny percentage of people; this is in some sense theoretical - but if you had someone who as operating from home, let’s say it’s an architect and she is communicating with her partners in Shanghai and she’s uploading very big design files and downloading them – she wants a lot of bandwidth for her and she’s working from a home in the suburbs where everyone else is very happy with the product they’ve got. Under our system, she would be able to get fibre on demand to pay several thousand dollars and then the fibre would be pulled through to her house and again that’s not an outlandish suggestion. That is exactly what British Telecom is doing now. They’ve got that product available. Not many people take it up I might say, but it is available.
TONY ABBOTT:
And this idea if I may add that everyone under Labor will get fibre for free is laughable. That’s $60 billion more that will be spent under Labor to give every premises fibre and that works out at roughly $2,000 per Australian, man woman and child. Now, this is an extraordinary additional expense to give every premise a speed and a connectivity that they almost certainly will never need.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, David Johnston says a fleet of drones worth $1.5 million dollars is needed to monitor asylum seeker boats. Can the budget afford it?
TONY ABBOTT:
Well, we’ve been saying for a long time now that we do need unmanned aerial vehicles to ensure that we’ve got proper surveillance over the approaches to Australia. We’ve been saying that for a long time now, but the basic problem here is not lack of equipment, the basic problem is lack of will. We’ve got a government which has essentially surrendered to the people smugglers on the task of border protection. Let’s never forget that the Howard Government found a problem, crafted a solution. This government found a solution, created a problem and now the problem is far worse than it ever was before. We will fix this problem. We will fix this problem. There is no more important task of government than border protection and we will make our borders secure again, by rigorous offshore processing at places like Nauru and Manus; temporary protection visas to deny the people smugglers a product to sell; the willingness to turn boats around where it’s safe to do so, and the Sri Lankans are effectively doing this in many cases already; and we will have a much stronger relationship with Indonesia.
I applaud the Prime Minister’s recent efforts to improve our relationship with China – good on her for making the effort. I deplore the serial neglect of the relationship with Indonesia. The low points were obviously the live cattle export ban disaster – one of the most calamitous foreign policy decisions that we’ve made in decades and, of course, the megaphone diplomacy over the Oceanic Viking. So there is a big challenge here - a big challenge here - but we are up to it.
Thank you so much.
Location:
Federal