Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (10:27): On behalf of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications I wish to make a statement concerning the committee’s inquiry into IT pricing in Australia in order to update the House on the progress of the inquiry. Clearly the complicated issue of IT pricing in Australia balances consumers, industry, copyright holders and the good of the general economy. So far we have had 93 submissions and four supplementary submissions. In particular, there has been strong interest from consumer groups—both individuals and …

Australia has its eyes on becoming one of the world’s leading digital economies, for example, aiming for us to be in the top five OECD countries by 2020 in relation to the number of businesses and not-for-profit organisations going online to become more productive, expand customer bases and boost jobs.

But we’re not going to get there wishing for that to happen – it’s going to take some work to match the vision, which is why our government developed the National Digital Economy Strategy.

The NBN delivers …

On Friday 6 July the first stage of submissions will close for a parliamentary inquiry into IT product price differences.

The Inquiry was set up to get answers to a question consumers and businesses have been asking for some time: why does IT software and hardware cost so much more here, compared to other countries such as the US and UK?

Besides examining costs of major items of hardware and software used by households and businesses, the inquiry will also look at prices of products such as …

Last night I spoke in Parliament about the growth of the digital economy in Australia, with a special focus on my own region: Western Sydney.

I also talked about the establishment of our new Labor Digital Economy Group.

A copy of my speech can be found here.

The foundation stone of my contribution last night was the powerful impact of the internet on our economy.  Some of the stats are staggering.

For example IBM’s recently released report “A Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050″  indicated that ICT, enhanced …

Today the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut the cash interest rate by 25 basis points – great news for Western Sydney, whatever way you look at it.

It’s something I called for a few weeks ago in an op-ed I wrote for the Daily Tele. Here’s a copy if you’re interested ‘West has vital interest in rates coming down’, The Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2012

But here are, from my perspective, some more points worth making about today’s rate cut:

At 3.50 per cent the official cash …