Murwillumbah
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard today announced that the fibre rollout of the National Broadband Network is coming to the Far North Coast of NSW.
The Government will be releasing its next three year plan shortly, with Murwillumbah to be the first of many places to receive the fibre network.
Construction will commence to around 5,000 homes and businesses in the 2015-16 financial year.
The NBN will be a great boost to the local community. It will revolutionise how residents work, access healthcare and education, and do business.
The NBN is ensuring that we have the infrastructure for this century that our nation needs.
It is impossible to imagine us being a strong, productive economy in the future if other nations have the benefit of high-speed broadband and we do not.
It is also wrong to deny pensioners, to deny people in their homes, or to deny students who want to learn, the benefits that come from the services that can be delivered using the NBN.
Our children will not get a world-leading education if other children around the world have the benefit of learning through broadband and our children do not.
Our older Australians deserve to have the benefit of the state-of-the-art technology that enables them to stay in their homes longer, with their medical conditions and welfare appropriately monitored.
The NBN will mean that regional Australia should no longer feel the tyranny of distance. Businesses in Murwillumbah and surrounding areas will be able to compete with businesses around the world in the same way they could if they were in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane.
Last month the Government also announced that the NBN's fixed wireless and satellite services, which will be delivered to parts of rural and remote Australia, are being upgraded so they can provide a better broadband service than what is available to most people on the ageing copper network today.
These services will deliver a 25 Megabit per second download and 5 Megabit per second upload, meaning all Australians can gain the benefits available through the NBN's high speed affordable broadband.
Only Labor will deliver the National Broadband Network.