Subjects: information technology
E&OE..................
Thank you very much Mr Knott, Mr Pat Field, the Mayor of Ryde, Ivan Petch, ladies and gentlemen. Over the last year or two I';ve come to a succession of opening events here in North Ryde in what we choose to call in the local lingo the Silicon Valley of Australia because it is a part of Australia which has attracted a large number of high tech leading edge companies and enterprises of all different sizes and of all different varieties.
But today is really something very special in that list and that succession of important openings of leading edge companies or expansions of existing companies which are at the cutting edge of the characteristics of the information technology age in which we all live. And it really is something of a feather in the cap not only of North Ryde but also of Australia that I should be opening here today what will become the largest hosting centre in the worldwide network of the largest global network carrier. Now that is something quite remarkable. And to me and I';m sure the significance of it is not lost on you, it is a metaphor for the way in which Australia is at the very forefront of the information and computer technology age in which the world is now living.
Those who suggest that we are dragging our feet and behind the game and missing out should come here today and observe what we are marking because what we are marking is really a triumph of the capacity of our country to take advantage of all of the opportunities that modern technology offer the world and offer the people of the world. In a moment I';ll be throwing a switch, turning on an illumination which will drive home to all of us and to people around Australia that right here in Sydney in North Ryde we are opening a centre which in every sense of the word is the nerve centre of information and computer traffic around the world. Now that hasn';t happened by accident. It';s happened because we have the people, we have the incentives, and we have the beckoning climate in so many other ways for companies to see this as an ideal location.
Australia is a very fortunate country largely because of its people. The greatest asset that Equant has, the greatest asset that any company has is the ingenuity and the intelligence and the commitment of the people who work for it. And over the last decade Australia has embraced the information and computer technology age with gusto matched by few countries in the world. Our rate of take up of things like personal computers, mobile telephones, our Internet usage, our e-commerce usage, our capacity to adapt, our capacity to take advantage of the fact that in an information and computer technology era it really doesn';t matter where you are in the world, it';s how well you do it that matters.
If ever anything has demolished that famous remark of Geoffrey Blainey';s about the tyranny of distance it is information and computer technology. And the amount of Internet traffic, the amount of data that is passing through this centre, the fact that your company has this remarkable array of clients including the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and all that secret foreign Affairs traffic, all of the traffic coming out of the national Parliament. And heaven knows we generate a lot of traffic particularly when we meet. Some of you may wonder about some of the traffic we generate but we generate traffic and traffic is business and you';re not complaining. And you';re probably pleased to see us meet even more often.
But ladies and gentlemen this is a real day of celebration and success. Because it';s yet another reminder of how well Australia is doing in what is the technology of our age and of our era. Those of us in the room who are over the age of 50 of which I am one indeed over the age perhaps of 45 will know of the absolute transformation in lifestyle that the Internet and information and computer technology generally has bought to the world. The difference it';s meant to the generations but pleasingly the capacity of older people in the community to adapt, to enjoy, to utilise and to employ is quite remarkable.
Yes it is true that these things are second nature to the young, but they can with a fair degree of concentration and application also in time become second nature to the older section of the community. And they open up opportunities and what IT is doing and what the communications revolution is doing is, and it';s a revolution that is ongoing that is opening up opportunities which are going to change the way and have already changed the way in which so many of us live. We do live in a very technologically sophisticated country. We live in a country of incredibly talented people. Here I am opening this largest hosting centre of the biggest global provider of this service. A couple of weeks ago we had the, I think the metaphor for the great talent of Australia';s medical scientists - when I was a young person, if you needed a miracle operation you sent your child to England or America. They now come from countries like that to have the miracle operation performed in Australia. It is another reminder of just how talented we are, we have so much at our disposal. We have the challenge and the responsibility to keep those talented people in our country, but to recognise of course that part and parcel of living in a globalised economic and social environment is that people will always go to other countries for a period of time and equally people will come to our country. We should never be so insular, so provincial and so selfish and inward looking as to imagine that it';s not part of the work experience of a talented person to spend some time in another county. The important thing is that Australia must have the capacity to take advantage in a second to none way of the state of the art technology. Now what we';re witnessing here today is a dramatic illustration of our capacity to do that.
When it comes to information and computer technology it doesn';t get any more impressive than what we're seeing here with Equant to provide this hosting centre to have been chosen by the company we here in North Ryde, we here in Australia, to have been chosen is quite a tribute to the workforce, it';s quite a tribute to the congeniality of the economic environment in Australia and I put in a plug for that. I think it';s very good indeed. And I think anybody who doesn';t invest in Australia at the present time is very ill-advised. Very ill-advised indeed. We';ve got low interest rates, low inflation and a booming economy.
I';ll rest my case on that ladies and gentlemen but can I say to Equant thank you for your confidence in our country and particularly for me as the Member for Bennelong thank you very much for bringing your activities here to North Ryde. And with that I have very great pleasure in declaring open this hosting facility for Equant, well may it remain at the forefront of the information and communications technology revolution.