Dr MIKE KELLY (Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) (2:54 PM) —We have heard further contributions from the opposition today. We have tried to convey to these people on the opposition benches exactly what the technological aspects of what we are talking about are. But it seems to me that, no matter how much you try to educate these people, they do not seem to understand what this is all about. They say that the technology of wireless networks would be adequate for regions like mine, but that is simply not true. We know that a wireless-only network would be greatly encumbered, greatly slowed down, by the volume of traffic that would be put on it. Not only would it be greatly slowed down by the volume of traffic, but the further you move away from the tower the worse it would get.

If you do not have an optical-fibre spine supporting a wireless network—where wireless is required—then it is just completely fallacious that you can get the sorts of speeds that would be necessary for the businesses that would like to use it. Under our scheme, 12 megabits a second will be available for the wireless network. But you would not be able to employ the level of staff that would be required by, for example, the call centre I mentioned that wanted to set up in Eden without speeds approaching 20 megabits a second, which are simply not possible with a wireless network. There are basic physical limitations to what can be obtained through a wireless network; that is just the state of the science.

Opposition members interjecting—

Dr MIKE KELLY —I know these members of the opposition would like to invent some fantasies about that, but, as I mentioned, the truth of it is that there is nothing faster in the universe than the speed of light. That is one of the first principles of physics. Unless we recognise the fact that this underlying principle of physics underlies the governments proposals, we cannot move on in this debate. When we have that underlying spine that delivers that speed—

Dr Jensen interjecting—

Dr MIKE KELLY —The speed of light is 300,000 kilometres per second. I would like to educate you in some of the physics that apply in this universe, because you seem unable to accept these basic principles. Once we have that underlying spine, we know that, over time, technology improvements can be made to the sorts of service arrangements that would apply at either end of it. The boxes at either end will improve over time. There will be all sorts of improvements in technology to take advantage of what we cannot now imagine. We cannot imagine how we could use the full expanse of 1,000 megabits per second, but it would open up all sorts of possibilities for our people.

I did not have time to go into some more detail about the e-health arrangements in the regions. The government has stepped forward on making provision under Medicare so that joint consultations could be made with GPs and specialists. This is a tremendous breakthrough for people in my region, who would have to travel hours in cars, over roads covered in snow and ice, to get that sort of consultation. To be able to, for example, go down the road to the GP superclinic that will be built in Jindabyne will mean that they will not have to take those risks. They will not have to confront kangaroos, deer, wombats and all the rest of it—even if they were up for that sort of trip. Most of them are ageing and frail in health and find it really hard to make those journeys. If you can have that consultation in the GP’s clinic in Jindabyne, all of that goes away.

Through our e-health system we will also be able to eliminate mistakes. We know that up to 80 per cent of mistakes in the treatment of patients are made through poor record-keeping. Duplication of services in the system is massive because of poor record-keeping. We could save an enormous amount of money in our system through the rollout and implementation of an e-health system. Citizens will be able to plug in anywhere throughout the nation with their health data—a massive amount of data can be stored, including high-definition visual images—and get support and advice from medical practitioners, wherever they are in the country, based on that data. No mistakes are made when you are able to do that. We will certainly see a huge reduction in the number of mistakes that are made in the treatment of patients and great savings in the health system. Wireless will not be able to deliver that, so we have to go down this road.