Newly appointed South Australian Minister for Science and Information Economy Paul Caica had told The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide that federal policy changes meant that broadband projects set for the Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills and Yorke Peninsula would not proceed.
He said the “cessation of the (Federal) Broadband Connect subsidy has had an immediate and unwelcome effect on several South Australian projects”.
But Senator Coonan dismissed the concerns, saying the issues had been dealt with by a series of national initiatives announced in the past two weeks, accusing Mr Caica of playing politics.
“The new South Australian Minister is obviously looking to boost his profile with a local scare campaign and I want to assure all South Australians that their access to broadband is now actually guaranteed under the new program, the $162.5 million Australian Broadband Guarantee announced by the Prime Minister two weeks ago,” Senator Coonan said.
“Australia is now one of only a handful of countries to guarantee broadband access to all citizens, regardless of where they live,” she said.
Senator Coonan said the Broadband Connect had been a successful program, but was never seen as a long term proposition, and that registered providers under the scheme were told of the finite nature of the funds.
Government announced its intention last September to end the scheme, and said in the event that money available under the scheme dried up before the end of the financial year, she said providers were assured “transitional arrangements” would be put in place.
“This is what I have done (announce transitional arrangements) with the release of draft guidelines last Friday for the Australian Broadband Guarantee,” Senator Coonan said.
“However, rather than provide broadband users with information about the new Australian Broadband Guarantee or indeed the transitional arrangements, the South Australian Labor Government is predictably playing politics,” she said.
The transitional arrangements will allow registered providers to recoup the costs of infrastructure that was recently installed under the Broadband Connect incentive program.
The Australian Broadband Guarantee will commence on 2 April and providers will be able to claim incentive payments for connecting customers to newly installed infrastructure as soon as they have signed a funding agreement with the Australian Government.
Senator Coonan also said today that if providers are able to demonstrate there has been no reasonable opportunity to connect their planned number of customers to recently installed infrastructure, then it will be considered for inclusion under the Australian Broadband Guarantee on a case by case basis.
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