Mr BALCH - 2000-08-10
Last week the new Cable & Wireless Optus exchange was officially opened by the Chief Minister. This extra infrastructure has been installed only because of the voice and data contract entered into between the Northern Territory government and Cable & Wireless Optus. Can the minister inform the House of some of the benefits the Territory is receiving as a result of this agreement?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is a first-class example of benefits very quickly rolling out, not only to this government but also to the community, as a result of the pro-active approach adopted by the Northern Territory government. Yes, last week a new telephone exchange was opened here in Darwin at a cost of about $10m to Cable & Wireless Optus. This exchange would have taken about 12 months to construct down south, but up here it took 5 months. That, for starters, is an excellent example of how we simply get on with doing things in the quickest possible way.
But the good news to come out of this scenario was that it also signalled the roll-out of the fibre-optic cable loop throughout the CBD, out to the major business centres in Casuarina, past the University and right up to Royal Darwin Hospital, which has ensured that Darwin has become among the most wired cities in the world. That was something in fact that ...
Ms Martin: You still can’t get decent television reception in Tiwi.
Mr ADAMSON: I acknowledge that the opposition did finally asked me a question, which was very nice, I thought. Issue of technology and communications are is normally totally ignored in Question Time by the opposition.
Chris Anderson, the CEO of Cable & Wireless Optus, before a business gathering including the member for Arnhem, who I saw hoeing into lunch, announced that we had among the most wired technology in the world. That is great not only in terms of what the opportunities mean for business, but also in the way it was done. Down south, similar roll-outs have caused chaos in almost every city. They have seen Optus going down one side of the street in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane and Telstra going down the other side of the street, digging up highways to lay this cable. We have had this cable laid without almost anyone realising what was going on in terms of disruption. We can get this infrastructure in place without those problems.
We now have it acknowledged that we have a city that is wired for the present and the future, that is as good as or better than most places in the world. I notice the member for Stuart has to interject once again. He would like to see people go back to the old days of the PMG, no doubt, and all that sort of thing.
He makes a comment about business. We are out there talking to IT businesses, which the member for Stuart finds very hard to do. Two years ago he and I and the former member for Wanguri were returning from Alice Springs to Darwin on a flight. For a bit of fun I organised the seating arrangements so I sat next to the member for Wanguri and he could squirm for the two-hour flight back. The member for Stuart was sitting next to one of the IT leaders of the Northern Territory in row 1. Half an hour into the flight he stood up, walked down to me and said: ‘Could we change places, please?’ He didn’t want to talk to this person, who was at the forefront of information technology in the Northern Territory. He had nothing in common with this person. He wanted to talk to his Labor comrade. So I swapped. We compared notes and in fact got a lot of business done.
Here was a great opportunity for the member for Stuart, someone who purports to be interested in these sort of things. But he had nothing in common, nothing to talk about with this person. No doubt he and his colleague plotted and schemed and wished the Berlin Wall was still up and all that sort of thing, while we spoke about business and furthering the economy of the Northern Territory. It is typical of the man.
This government is a doing government. We have rolled this out, and rolled it out with an absolute minimum of fuss. We have the opportunities flowing on to business. We will continue to do that. The other side even refuses to talk to those very same business people.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, this is a first-class example of benefits very quickly rolling out, not only to this government but also to the community, as a result of the pro-active approach adopted by the Northern Territory government. Yes, last week a new telephone exchange was opened here in Darwin at a cost of about $10m to Cable & Wireless Optus. This exchange would have taken about 12 months to construct down south, but up here it took 5 months. That, for starters, is an excellent example of how we simply get on with doing things in the quickest possible way.
But the good news to come out of this scenario was that it also signalled the roll-out of the fibre-optic cable loop throughout the CBD, out to the major business centres in Casuarina, past the University and right up to Royal Darwin Hospital, which has ensured that Darwin has become among the most wired cities in the world. That was something in fact that ...
Ms Martin: You still can’t get decent television reception in Tiwi.
Mr ADAMSON: I acknowledge that the opposition did finally asked me a question, which was very nice, I thought. Issue of technology and communications are is normally totally ignored in Question Time by the opposition.
Chris Anderson, the CEO of Cable & Wireless Optus, before a business gathering including the member for Arnhem, who I saw hoeing into lunch, announced that we had among the most wired technology in the world. That is great not only in terms of what the opportunities mean for business, but also in the way it was done. Down south, similar roll-outs have caused chaos in almost every city. They have seen Optus going down one side of the street in Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane and Telstra going down the other side of the street, digging up highways to lay this cable. We have had this cable laid without almost anyone realising what was going on in terms of disruption. We can get this infrastructure in place without those problems.
We now have it acknowledged that we have a city that is wired for the present and the future, that is as good as or better than most places in the world. I notice the member for Stuart has to interject once again. He would like to see people go back to the old days of the PMG, no doubt, and all that sort of thing.
He makes a comment about business. We are out there talking to IT businesses, which the member for Stuart finds very hard to do. Two years ago he and I and the former member for Wanguri were returning from Alice Springs to Darwin on a flight. For a bit of fun I organised the seating arrangements so I sat next to the member for Wanguri and he could squirm for the two-hour flight back. The member for Stuart was sitting next to one of the IT leaders of the Northern Territory in row 1. Half an hour into the flight he stood up, walked down to me and said: ‘Could we change places, please?’ He didn’t want to talk to this person, who was at the forefront of information technology in the Northern Territory. He had nothing in common with this person. He wanted to talk to his Labor comrade. So I swapped. We compared notes and in fact got a lot of business done.
Here was a great opportunity for the member for Stuart, someone who purports to be interested in these sort of things. But he had nothing in common, nothing to talk about with this person. No doubt he and his colleague plotted and schemed and wished the Berlin Wall was still up and all that sort of thing, while we spoke about business and furthering the economy of the Northern Territory. It is typical of the man.
This government is a doing government. We have rolled this out, and rolled it out with an absolute minimum of fuss. We have the opportunities flowing on to business. We will continue to do that. The other side even refuses to talk to those very same business people.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016