Ms BADGER – Minister, as a part of the Marinus whole‑of‑state‑business case, the fibre optic cable that is proposed as a part of the power generation aspect wasn’t considered. I’m wondering if you could talk us through.
Ms OGILVIE – What do you mean ‘wasn’t considered’?
Ms BADGER – Some of the benefits. For example, what kind of private investment that there might be, what that would mean for the actual business case of Marinus. I’m wondering if you can give us an outline of where your discussions are up to on the Marinus fibre optic cable, and how you see, as it stands at the moment, that will be operating to Tasmania?
Ms OGILVIE – I can speak in broad terms, not being the minister for Marinus, but having a deep interest in subsea cable. This journey that we’ve been on as a state for many, many years to get additional subsea cable connectivity in Tasmania is something that I’ve taken on at a personal and passionate level. This is to give you the overview.
We’ve had a number of efforts to connect into projects that are being rolled out both nationally and internationally with subsea cable. I’ve written many times to the federal government requesting their support for additional investment into cable. I’ve been rebuffed, but I am like a terrier and keep going back in asking again. I’ve brought some of those letters here. Happy to share them, if you wish.
Telstra would say – and I know them well – that there is additional capacity already on their two cables and they’re not at end of life as yet. We have the old Basslink cable, which I think APA now owns, being run by AARnet, so there’s capacity there.
The Marinus Link cable – which I understand is in plans – I have met with Marinus and asked them specifically about the cable. The challenge with cables that are connected, with electricity subsea cables, is that they are part of one cable; they’re intertwined. So, we’ve seen that challenge when Basslink went out. You’ll recall having to repair that. That takes your telco cable off at the same time. Generally, the telco cables are used to manage the reporting on electricity cables. They’re pinging, so you know how much electricity is going backwards and forwards. The good news is that the Marinus optic cable is big. That is going to help us as a state. It won’t be the ultimate solution but it’s certainly going to assist us with capacity.
In order to commercialise an optic fibre cable, it doesn’t have to sit outside that organisation, but it probably needs some telco skills. I do know that they have a particular group within Marinus who have those skills to commercialise that. Then you have a question of whether you do it on a wholesale basis or whether you do it at a retail basis.
My view of the world is that we still could do more. We welcome Marinus cable, but we could still do more with direct international connectivity. I have some other views about what we could do for scientists on the island as well with big data, AI coming, data centres coming, et cetera.
Ultimately, Marinus sits with Mr Duigan, but that gives you a good perspective on how involved I’ve been over a decade.
Ms BADGER – Sure. I wanted to clarify on that. Ultimately the fibre optic component of this would fall to Mr Duigan, not yourself. Am I hearing that right?
Ms OGILVIE – Yes. Currently, it sits within Marinus, which means it sits within his portfolio. Having said that, I have involved myself in the dialogue.
Ms BADGER – Fantastic. As a part of that dialogue, going back to the original question, to clarify, the whole-of-state business case says that at the moment the Tasmanian government has no plans to use the Marinus Link’s telecommunications asset to address the current limitations and risks with Tasmania’s subsea fibre optic backhaul infrastructure.
Ms OGILVIE – You said the Tasmanian government?
Ms BADGER – Yes. Are you advocating to change that circumstance?
Ms OGILVIE – Let’s hear specifically about what the government’s need for capacity is.
Dr THURLEY – Through you, minister. In relation to the use of particular services and particular infrastructure, we don’t actually mandate or suggest that we use a particular carrier or pathway for our services. We just go to the services and it’s up to the industry to decide how it builds those pathways.
We do place demands on our service providers to provide certain levels of resilience, redundancy and availability. That would, of course, invoke that when those services are available, the suppliers would use those services. For example, Telstra may have a few links that go across Bass Strait. They may rely on them for their resilience and availability. However, we also have Basslink in the mix there, too. They would take services from Basslink to ensure that they have at least three levels of redundancy, I would suggest, in that instance.
We have other suppliers, but it depends on the demands that we place on them for availability and resilience in relation to government services. I won’t speak on behalf of what the rest of the community needs, et cetera ‑ that would be for State Growth.
