Question Time

Gig City Network

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Leader of the Opposition) (14:19): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation a question about the Gig City network.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY: The Gig City Adelaide network was announced in June 2016, with the aim of delivering internet speeds more than 10 times faster than the NBN and at least 100 times faster than the national average. A media release from Investment Attraction South Australia on 9 December last year states:

Fourteen sites will receive infrastructure to enable them to connect to GigCity Adelaide via the SABREnet dark fibre network that runs north to south of the city centre. They include TechinSA, Innovation House at Technology Park, Tonsley innovation district, Adelaide Smart City Studio, the South Australian Film Corporation and Techport Australia. This phase of the GigCity program is expected to be complete by June 2017.

My question to the minister is: given we are less than a fortnight from this deadline, has the first stage of the Gig City rollout been completed, or will it be completed by the end of June this year? Other than St Paul's Creative Centre, how many of the fourteen sites have received infrastructure allowing them to connect to the Gig City network?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:20): I thank the honourable member for his question and his interest in the Gig City project in South Australia. He describes much of it quite correctly, which I compliment him on—his rare foray into accuracy. The Gig City network builds on the SABRENet dark fibre network we have across Adelaide.

Our three universities in Adelaide, about a decade ago, teamed up with the state government to create SABRENet, a network of fibre-optic cables that runs from the south past Noarlunga up to the north of the greater Adelaide area and connects our three tertiary institutions with a number of other government institutions, including some schools, teaching hospitals and other institutions. It meant that when we launched our Gig City program, with the state government being one of the partners to the SABRENet network, we were able to leverage off the network that was already there to look to connect up with other innovation projects.

It is unique in Australia in that there are a number of other capital cities around Australia that have a network that connects tertiary institutions, but I understand Adelaide is the only one that has the state government as a partner in this. This has meant we were unique in being able to leverage off this. What it does mean is, as we are now part of the Ignite Network—a network of Gig cities across the US that partner with each other in terms of the applications—that they use their gigabit-enabled network to produce innovations and smart solutions.

When we became partnered with the US Ignite Program, we were the first jurisdiction outside the US to do so. So, it is a significant achievement.

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway interjecting:

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I am glad the honourable Leader of the Opposition is so interested in these questions and in Gig City. I am happy to give him plenty of background information because I know he is very, very interested. Over the course of the last year, a number of the locations have had the physical infrastructure—that is, the cables that come off the SABRENet network—connected up to them. Certainly, St Paul's is one of them. I know that quite a number of the others now have the physical cable rolled out to them. I am happy to go away and get the exact number, but I know it is quite a number of those 14 sites.

The department has embarked upon a rigorous tender process for an internet service provider to light up those cables that have already been rolled out to many of the innovation precincts, and we are within weeks away from finalising that tender process to light up those cables. As the honourable member pointed out, and I thank him for the credit he gave us, they have speeds of up to hundred times faster than the Australian average to these precincts. It will make us a leader not just in Australia but in our part of the world.

As the honourable member has pointed out, the virtues of this will mean that people who need quick connection via the internet to the rest of the world will, whether they are a start-up or a business expanding, have Adelaide at the forefront of their mind, given the speeds that we will have very soon in many of these precincts.