Additional Comments –
Australian Greens
The
majority report reads as a balanced summary of the evidence submitted to the
Committee, and the Australian Greens are largely in agreement with it. We are
even reasonably comfortable with the majority's sole recommendation concerning
the public release of the underlying assumptions and calculations that resulted
in the Implementation Study, and their use in a cost-benefit analysis. Putting
these details in the public domain would be a worthwhile exercise in transparent
governance and would facilitate a more informed public debate.
As we
have made clear in the committee's previous reports, we do not subscribe to a
view that a cost-benefit analysis would result in an unequivocal answer about
the value of the government's plans for the NBN. It would involve some highly
speculative predictions of benefits and their arbitrary and abstract
monetisation. Provided that these leaps and assumptions were explicitly
acknowledged and explained however, such an analysis could be a useful
articulation of precisely what considerations have informed the government's
decision to proceed with this project. Those considerations would then
undoubtedly be endorsed, challenged, re-evaluated, augmented, etc in the public
debate, which is a healthy symptom of an open and democratic political culture
and may well give rise to useful new insights and suggestions.
In our
contributions to the committee's previous reports, we raised the issue of the
geographic and socio-economic 'digital divide' and the importance of building
bridges across it. During the most recent round of submissions and hearings,
some interesting comment was made on the ubiquity of online services that is
relevant to this issue. ACCAN remarked, in the context of endorsing the
Implementation Study's recommendation that the Universal Service Obligation
(USO) be reviewed, that we are already well on our way toward ubiquity:
Online
services are already a practical necessity in everyday life because there are
so many basic transactions that are exclusively or preferentially performed
online. Access to the internet is already a matter of social inclusion.[1]
The
Northern Territory Minister for Information, Communications and Technology
Policy urged the Government to pursue ubiquity to make the NBN 'a truly
visionary and transformational nation building initiative'. The Minister
cautioned against the Implementation Study's cost-saving recommendation that
premises only be connected to the NBN on demand, commenting that:
The fundamental
value proposition of the National Broadband Network isn't so much its speed
(although important), but its potential ubiquity...
It could
connect the 25-30 per cent of homes that are not internet connected and enable
a whole range of services, including some government services, to be delivered
to householders regardless of whether they have subscribed to a retail
broadband service or not.
...every
child's school computer could be substantially enhanced if they could all use
them on an education internet at home.
...governments
and other organisations could deliver services to homes, rather than
continually expanding hospitals, prisons and schools...
To ensure
the success of Smartgrids and government delivered services to the home, I
would welcome an exploration for ubiquitous National Broadband Network
connections.[2]
If we
place these two contributions side-by-side, it is clear that ubiquitous access
to a national broadband network is in the interests of social inclusion and it
enables the more transformational benefits the Government hopes to achieve with
the NBN. A truly ubiquitous network offers the potential for significant
government savings on service delivery, better demand management in our energy
sector, enhanced education outreach, and many other benefits, while
simultaneously ensuring that the socio-economically disadvantaged are not left
behind. We strongly recommend that the government gives due consideration to
this fortunate alignment of interests. This might be achieved through a
revamped USO, or via some other mechanism. The outcome is obviously the
important point.
Senator
Scott Ludlam
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