Ms BADGER – Minister, the federal government was running matched funding for all states for land‑based fibre-optic cables specifically through the NBN. I suspect this is going to be something we’ll need to table because it’s very specific data. How much funding did Tasmania request through that matched funding scheme in the last decade?
Ms OGILVIE – Match funding for terrestrial fibre?
Ms BADGER – Yes, through the federal government.
Ms OGILVIE – To get the actual figure we’d have to seek that information, so how many years?
Ms BADGER – The last decade, so 10.
Ms OGILVIE – The last 10 years? We will take that on notice.
Ms BADGER – Great. Thank you. Back to the cables, this is the second private cable that has been rejected by either the state or federal government in the last 10 years.
Ms OGILVIE ‑ Federal government.
Ms BADGER ‑ Yes, I’m really looking forward to that letter being tabled because some claims have been made publicly that it was Tasmania that did it, not the federal government, so we’d like to clarify that.
Ms OGILVIE – I can clarify that.
CHAIR ‑ Sorry, minister. Can interjections both ways stop?
Ms BADGER – The $11.5 million remains as a commitment moving forward, but what other contingency plans do you have in place? For example, the old technology of the cables that we have means that there’s not a circuit breaker in between, as you might see in more contemporary cables, so if a section of it does break, a boat has to go out and then it’s going to take some time to try to fix it. Is that on hand? What’s the Tasmanian government doing to ensure that if that goes down ‑ bearing in mind we’re only two failures away from the stone age in this state ‑ what is in place?
Ms OGILVIE ‑ Right, well, I don’t think we’re two failures away from the stone age.
Ms BADGER – I hate to break it to you, we are.
Ms OGILVIE – If I may respond, I think we have a matrixed level of services that are provided to the state, including satellite, Starlink, subsea cable, terrestrial cable; it’s a complex network that we have in Tasmania.
In relation to the cables that are owned, at the heart of this problem is the fact that small states and territories that don’t have deep commercial environments into which private sector telecommunications providers can come and get a commercial return on that investment, we are stuck with what we’ve got. It’s not just us, it’s the NT, SA, and rural and regional Australia is suffering from this problem. We’re entering a zone where we’ve got a two‑speed telecommunications economy in Australia and we know that to lift Tasmania up right across science and technology, education, environment, research, ICT, everything that we do in government, we need to be able to participate in that digital economy 2.0.
I’m going to say again, the federal government, which is responsible for telecommunications, we are urging them – and I will continue to urge them – to come to the table to help us find a solution to this challenge. Tasmania put $11.5 million on the table. Our proposal was rejected. I haven’t given up. We will keep going to find a solution.
Ms BADGER – That didn’t really answer my question. What’s on hand contingency‑wise and mending the cables if one goes down?
Ms OGILVIE – I am in communication with them directly. They own the cable and they’re responsible for managing the cable.
Ms BADGER – Okay.
