Nationals senator Matt Canavan says the Albanese government should “put aside their egos” and partner with Elon Musk’s Starlink internet operators in order to boost the capabilities of the National Broadband Network.
His comments come off the back of Labor’s announcement to inject a further $3bn into the government-owned broadband network, which would allow 95 per cent of premises, or about 622,000 households, to upgrade to speeds of up to 1 gigabyte-per-second.
While the Coalition has said it “won’t be standing in the way” of the funding bid, Senator Canavan urged the government to work with the “clearly superior” satellite internet service to boost take-up in the network.
“One of the reasons the NBN is struggling at the moment is because the likes of Elon Musk Starlink is taking their customers, and at least where I live in out in rural and regional Australia, the services of Starlink are clearly superior … that’s the feedback I get,” he told Sky on Tuesday.
“The question for the government, though, is why aren’t they talking to Elon Musk and maybe partnering with Starlink to get better value for taxpayers.”
He added that any hesitancy from the government was likely due to its political differences with the conservative business magnate, who also owns social media platform X and is a key Donald Trump ally.
“You’ve got to think that one of the reasons perhaps this government won’t talk to Elon Musk is they just don’t like his politics, and that sort of stubbornness is coming at the cost of billions of dollars of losses for the Australian taxpayer,” Senator Canavan said.
“So put aside your egos and put the Australian taxpayer first.”
While Peter Dutton did not directly support involving Starlink in the NBN, he said there was a lot of “competition in the marketplace” and criticised the government for not upgrading the NBN network sooner.
“You need to have a product that is affordable, a product that is market leading, and consumers will decide, as they do online now,” the Opposition Leader said.
“Consumers have made decisions to move to Starlink already, or to other third party providers, and many of them have moved away from NBN, and in good part that’s because this government has been asleep at the wheel.”
However, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said foreign-owned Starlink posed “a risk” in “areas where there is no credible substitute”, such as remote and regional areas.
“Fibre continues to be the standard when it comes to capability, to speeds but also in terms of long-term reliability,” she said.
“It is impervious compared to other forms of technology.”
https://thewest.com.au/news/albanese-government-urged-to-partner-with-elon-musks-starlink-to-boost-nbn-services-c-17382109
