NZ breaks ground as Australia hangs up on Norfolk Island

PRESS RELEASE
23 November 2016

NZ breaks ground as Australia hangs up on Norfolk Island

NZ Prime Minister John Key today celebrated at the official groundbreaking ceremony for the Hawaiki undersea telecommunications cable. In his speech at the event, Key explained that due to ever increasing demand, telecommunications infrastructure is an area where “you need to keep investing”. He also spoke of the jobs and development that projects like this bring to regional areas.

Also speaking at the event was NZ’s Communications Minister Amy Adams who expanded on Key’s comments by saying there’s clear evidence that “businesses cluster around cable landing points”.

The Hawaiki cable will connect NZ, Australia and many Pacific islands including New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, and American Samoa directly with the USA, enabling vastly superior economic and social opportunities at much lower ongoing costs compared with any satellite alternative. Hawaiki is passing within 100km of Norfolk Island, and the company has offered the island a chance to connect.

As of 1 July this year the Australian Government assumed responsibility for national and state level services for Norfolk Island on the basis that Australia can do it better. Yet in telecommunications all Australia has offered to the island is NBN SkyMuster rooftop satellite dishes, ignoring the island’s existing underground copper and fibre fixed-line telephone network, putting it at risk.

Last week, Australia’s Minister for Regional Communications, Senator Fiona Nash, issued letters stating that Australia will not support a cable connection to Norfolk Island. The Senator's decision flies in the face of her September media release that said “I aim to help build the kind of country communities our children and grandchildren want to either stay in or come back to, and good telecommunications is a big part of that.”

Norfolk Island has a shrinking population as the island's children and grandchildren have drifted away for offshore work, an issue which can be best addressed by good telecommunications infrastructure investments for the island. The island has excellent telecommunications assets to complement a cable connection including an existing cable station, underground copper and fibre fixed line voice and internet network for its 2200 residents and tens of thousands of tourists who visit annually.

The total costs of a cable connection would be less than satellite alternatives over time, while offering far superior latency, capacity and speed. The savings and benefits brought by cable would accelerate the stated reform agenda for Norfolk and lessen the danger that Australia’s management of the island will become an expensive burden to Australian taxpayers. A cable connection would transform the island's underdog economic and social situation for decades to come while maximizing the value of the island’s existing telecommunications assets.

Australia has recently provided US$1.5M to Samoa for a similar cable connection. A cable branching unit to Norfolk Island could be secured for less than AU$1M as insurance to ‘future proof’ the island by allowing it the chance to connect later.

Hawaiki Cable company has given a final deadline of 15th December to Australia to decide on the Norfolk Island connection or it will be too late to include the island in the rollout plans, leaving Norfolk Island one of very few south Pacific island communities without a cable connection.

Given Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's championing of information and telecommunications as a key enabler for the future, Australia should change its mind and support the connection of Hawaiki to Norfolk Island.

END PRESS RELEASE

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