Australia has a deadline of 15 December to decide whether it will supply a cable link to Norfolk Island, with the official ground-breaking ceremony for the Hawaiki underea telecommunications cable taking place on Wednesday.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key was the chief guest at the ceremony. The Hawaiki cable will connect New Zealand, Australia and many Pacific islands including New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, and American Samoa directly with the US.
Hawaiki is passing within 100km of Norfolk Island, and the company has offered the island a chance to connect.
Australia assumed responsibility for national and state level services on Norfolk Island on the basis that it can do it better.
{loadposition sam08}But as far as telecommunications go, Australia has offered the NBN SkyMuster rooftop satellite dishes to Norfolk residents, even though the island has an existing underground copper and fibre fixed-line telephone network.
Australia recently provided US$1.5 million to Samoa for a similar cable connection.
A cable branching unit to Norfolk Island could be secured for less than A$1 million as insurance to "future proof" the island by allowing it the chance to connect later.
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.
In September, Nash had 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.”
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has backed the provision of a cable link to Norfolk Island.