Wireless Threat to National Broadband Network

The Gillard Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN) is an expensive, short-sighted project that will be outdated before it even completed, said the Federal Member for Mitchell, Alex Hawke.

“The Government through the NBN is dictating what internet technology people should use rather than what they want,” Mr Hawke said.

“Many local residents have told me they don’t need the NBN – they prefer their own wireless internet connection to meet their online needs.

“Why is the Gillard Government determined to impose this limited technology on Australia? “Why is the Government setting up an enormous monopoly to do so?

“Ten years ago many people in the community had no knowledge of the online environment, let alone broadband. The dynamic nature of the online environment means new technologies are emerging all of the time. Yet the Gillard Government is locking us into an expensive program that many people in the community don’t want.

“As I told Parliament last week, President Obama made it clear that innovative wireless solutions are the United States way forward. The Gillard Government should be more open to new technologies and not the blinkered thinking that has produced this NBN.”

Mr Hawke said the NBN involved enormous sums of taxpayers’ and borrowed money, at present around $37 billion.

“Since 2007 we have seen the Gillard and Rudd Governments throw billions of our dollars at projects and schemes that had been poorly planned and not thought through,” Mr Hawke said.

“Following on from the failed Home Insulation (pink batts) program, the waste under the Building the Education (school halls) program, and the Green Loans scheme, we now have the National Broadband Network,” Mr Hawke said.

“Instead of learning from their mistakes, the Gillard Government is determined to keep on spending away our future. The NBN has the potential to be Labor’s greatest white elephant of all.

“Once again taxpayers in the Hills will be slugged to fund an ill-thought out and rushed scheme. Once again, future generations are being encumbered with the consequences of Labor’s haste to spend billions of borrowed dollars,” Mr Hawke said.