Senator the Honourable Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Professor Glyn Davis, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, The University of Melbourne
Professor Rod Tucker, Director, Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society and your Institute colleagues.
We are living in a time of sustained global transformation where the nations that survive and prosper are those that modernise their economies.
We face an ageing population, increasing globalisation and the currency impacts of our mineral exports.
We can only meet those challenges if we increase our productivity.
And that means envisaging a whole new economy.
A high tech, high skill, clean energy economy anchored in innovation and creativity.
Boosting Australia's productivity doesn't mean cutting wages and conditions, as if shaving a dollar or two off the hourly rates of shop assistants will make a bit of difference.
It isn't about snatching a few lazy moves out of the Thatcher-Friedman play book.
The big movers of productivity are the capacity investments like quality infrastructure, a skilled and flexible workforce and the ability to innovate and capture new opportunities.
Few investments will bring us a greater return than broadband.
The United Nations has stated that “broadband is the next tipping point, the next truly transformational technology.”
That's why this Government has put the National Broadband Network and our Digital Economy strategy at the heart of our policy program.
The NBN will make Australia the most connected continent on the planet.
Broadband is an economic game-changer.
Allowing us to do old things better, and to do new things not even yet imagined.
A Deloitte-Access Economics Report released in August estimates that the Internet contributes around $50 billion a year or 3.6 per cent of Australia's GDP.
That's the same size as our agriculture industry.
And it's set to grow by around 7 per cent a year by 2016.
Further, research being released yesterday in Europe by Ericsson and Arthur D. Little finds that every doubling of broadband speed increases GDP by 0.3%
To put this into perspective; the basic service offered under the NBN has a speed of 12 mega bits per second - significantly faster than the 1 to 5 mbps speeds most Australians experience today.
And think about this:
The single biggest driver of business productivity isn't cutting wages or working longer hours.
It's information technology.
Working smarter.
Information Technology drives 78% of productivity gains in service businesses and 85% in manufacturing businesses.
As exposure to the global market grows, only businesses that innovate and build new capacity can prosper and survive.
We know that embracing new technologies is one of the best ways to achieve that.
Clearly more businesses are making the attempt; clearly many need more help to login.
The most recent ABS survey of business IT use reveals that just 40 per cent of Australian businesses had some sort of web presence in 2009-10.
And among our smallest businesses, the figure was just 29 per cent.
These businesses should not be left behind.
If a search engine can't find you - then it is most likely that your customers can't either.
And yet, here we are in the second decade of the 21stcentury, and more than half of all Australians businesses aren't on the Web.
A recent global study by McKinsey found that SMEs with a strong web presence grew more than twice as quickly as those that didn't.
They also had twice the export revenue and twice the jobs growth.
For businesses, the online environment renders distance irrelevant and opens up once unimaginable national and international markets.
Like digital supply-chain systems that allow bottlenecks to be identified in real time and shortfalls in stock to be met.
These are the very real benefits available to business today.
But think of the next wave of innovation that will develop as the NBN brings high speed broadband to all Australian homes and businesses.
The NBN will provide the basis for new methods, processes and products to drive efficiency and productivity growth.
To create and commercialise a whole range of new products and processes that enhance the way companies go about their business.
We know that not all businesses have the skills and confidence to participate.
That is why the Government has committed funding to the Digital Enterprise program, and its predecessor - the Small Business Online program - which Senator Conroy will speak more about shortly.
But there are many businesses who are ready to take the next step and see their ideas become reality.
This is why I am delighted to be here today for the launch of the Australian Broadband Application Laboratory.
This laboratory - ABAL - will enable the application and development of new broadband ideas and service offerings.
It will provide the right environment to help companies turn their ideas into new products and services.
And I congratulate the Victorian Government for its funding and support not only of this laboratory but also their ongoing support for the Institute for a Broadband Society.
Friends, we know Australians have great skills.
We are smart, innovative, adaptive people.
But our people and our firms need the framework and the opportunity to prosper.
We celebrate stories like Bill Gates the university drop-out who'd started mucking around with computers as a 13-year-old kid.
Or Steve Jobs, building the first Apple computers in his parents' garage.
I sincerely believe that there are people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in this country.
In our schools and universities and businesses.
But they need the hardware and the innovative climate to succeed.
People like Lars and Jens Rasmussen who invented Google Maps in their Sydney garage.
They are the sort of people who are writing Australia's economic future.
Just like ABAL will.
Productivity begins here.
In our labs.
In our classrooms.
In our small businesses
In our minds and our creative instincts.
We need a new economy.
It is Australia's non-negotiable passport to the future.
To be up there with the best.
Not stuck behind with the rust bucket, smoke stack economies of the past.
It will be an amazing journey.
The Australian Broadband Application Laboratory will help take us there.
And I very proudly declare it launched.