The offshore island, to the south of the Australian mainland, was largely cut off from digital services at the start of the month.
Now Slattery is promoting a plan to build extend HyperOne, a new Australian fibre network, from Tasmania to the mainland, and is calling for government support for his project.
He said: “Tasmanians cannot and should not have to wait until 2027, at the earliest, for new fibre connectivity to their state. Recent Telstra outages have shown that new connectivity links are urgent for Tasmania now.”
He said the outage had cost more than A$20 million (US$15 million), and he called for A$30 million support for a new cable to Tasmania.
“With a commitment from the federal government, we can bring forward fibre construction to Tasmania. We can start now and have it built and operating in 2024,” he said.
Slattery also committed to dedicate 400Gbps of this to the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet) to help foster research and innovation in Tasmania, creating more high paid jobs for locals.
He said: “400Gbps of new fibre for AARNet is a gamechanger for research in Tasmania. Secure fibre can bring so many new, exciting innovations and jobs. It’s time to get this done now.”
In January Slattery unveiled Soda, his new launchpad for investments in Australia’s digital.
Soda, which stands for Slattery Office of Digital Assets, formalises the group’s strategic vision to focus on innovation and investment in three core pillars across the country.
