The “information
superhighway” sounds quaint 20 years on, but at the time it represented the
federal government’s first major effort to consciously map a digital future for
Australia.
Later iterations of this
policy would lead to the establishment of the NBN and, learning from earlier
experiences of allowing Telstra to keep control over the infrastructure, the
Rudd government would pursue the establishment of a separate company to run the
broadband network.
But back to 1995.
Since 1990 Telstra’s
monopoly over telecommunications services had been progressively dismantled.
The internet was rapidly evolving. But in 1995 most Australians who were
accessing it were using old copper phone lines at dismally slow speeds.
How then to drive investment by Telstra in broadband and
encourage rapid uptake by industry?
In 1995 the cabinet
commissioned an expert group to peer into the future. In April of that year it
considered several submissions, including the broadband services expert group
report.
“The ‘information
superhighway’ is a powerful enabling tool that is driving and shaping
traditional industries as well as being a progenitor of a whole new range of
products and industries,” the industry minister, Peter Cook, enthused in his
submission.
“Information and communications will be a key driver of
business efficiency and international competitiveness.”
Cook warned it was a
global race to remain at the cutting edge.
“The infrastructure to
establish the information superhighway in Australia is in place or under
development. While broadband services in Australia are currently at an
embryonic stage, the telecommunications carriers are installing broadband cable
capacity, which will provide more sophisticated delivery of information
services to business and for interactive communication.”
Cook said there was strong
case for the government “to channel and accelerate the process to ensure the
widest possible uptake and best use of these new technologies in both the
public and private sectors”.
Cabinet agreed that the
prime minister would make a statement at the end of the year, but in the
meantime ministers were urged to look at how government services could be made
more efficient by the use of broadband. Central to the statement would be a
commitment to access and equity, the cabinet note recorded.
The cabinet was obsessed
with innovation, but getting meaningful investment could be tricky.
In 1994 it considered a
request by the German government to land a space rocket at Woomera, with the
minister for science arguing it could lead to future industry collaboration.
The foreign affairs department worried that it might undermine Australia’s
credentials on non-proliferation if the Germans were really testing ballistic
missile technology.
There was less enthusiasm for
Australia’s domestic national space program, begun in the late 1980s. In
deliberations over the 1995-96 budget cuts to the program, the finance
department said: “Since its inception in 1986 the National Space Program has
not achieved any sufficiently tangible benefits to warrant its continued
separate support outside the range of general, non sectoral industry and
science assistance programs.”
The government’s plan for
the so-called Multifunction Polis on the fringe of Adelaide was also
struggling. The MFP concept was first suggested by the Japanese government
during ministerial discussions in 1987 and was intended to “be national and
international in scope”.
The futuristic city was meant to have 100,000 residents and
be a magnet for high-tech industries. But by 1995 the cabinet was grappling
with where the project was going.
The cabinet was told the
first stage of the MFP development had evolved into an estate “expected to
house some 10,000 to 12,000 people over about 12 years”.
“It will demonstrate the capacity
for ‘clever’ (technologically advanced), ‘greener’ (environmentally sensitive)
and ‘richer’ (in this case socially) community development. Fibre optic
communications … will enable a range of leading edge urban services such as
telecommuting, education, business services and entertainment.”
But it was never to be. It was abandoned in 1998.
Source:
