Premier David Bartlett on Basslink (Excerpt)

The original interview can be found here.

Listen to the excerpt here:

Transcript

(Introduction, then edited break until 12m8sec into the ABC interview)
 
Tim Cox: Do you ah have somewhere near the top of your agenda, I don't know that you've ever been into the new office yet, to fix the fibre-optic cable ?
 
Tasmanian Premier, David Bartlett: Well look, Michael Aird is taking responsibility for that project and is doing a great job at it. There are significant complexities about it, but as I have said I want a Tasmania that is both clever and kind, but I also want to Tasmania that is connected. And when I say connected --"
 
TC: Literally connected ?
 
DB: I mean, I mean, connected within our communities, I mean our government and public institutions connected to their people, but literally through technology connected to the globe - and this is very important to me and obviously from a background in that area it will be - it was - I make no bones about it, a key part of the reasons I wanted to run for Parliament and when I made that decision back in 2001, ah, and ah, it will remain a key part and I'm going to work very closely with Michael Aird on making sure that Tasmanians over the coming years have access to highly competitive, high bandwidth, wi-fi enabled, the best technologies in terms of communications and running our businesses.
 
TC:  Because we're a Third World country at the moment really aren't we ?
 
DB: Well I've been on the record as saying that I don't believe Telstra in Tasmania does Tasmanians any great favours. I want to see Telstra sharpen their pencils - it's a significant cost of doing business in Tasmania; it's a significant cost to our schools and to our hospitals, and I don't believe, ah I believe, without a competitive environment here Telstra will never deliver for Tasmania and that's what I want to see.