The Australian Government's Innovation Report

Broadband Subscribers
A new indicator introduced in the 2006 scorecard is the number of broadband subscribers per one thousand
of the population. As ever increasing amounts of sophisticated economic and social activity occurs on the
worldwide web, the speed at which businesses and consumers can connect and do business is becoming more
important. Figure 15 shows that, using 2006 data, Australia is above (12%) the OECD average for broadband
subscribers, ranking 17 th in the OECD.
The number of broadband subscribers has displayed the highest growth of all the indicators in this scorecard.
In 2006 Australia had 174 broadband subscribers per one thousand population, which is substantially up from
77 in 2004 and 35 subscribers per one thousand population in year 2003. This trend suggests that Australia is
rapidly improving its position to take advantage of new commercial opportunities online.
FIGURE 15: Broadband subscribers per 1000 population compared to the OECD average
100
Percentage difference from the OECD average
80
60
40
20
0
-20
-40
-60
-80
-100
Denmark
Netherlands
Iceland
Korea
Swizterland
Finland
Norway
Sweden
Canada
United Kingdom
Belgium
United States
Japan
Luzembourg
Austria
France
Australia
Germany
Spain
Italy
Portugal
New Zealand
Czech Republic
Ireland
Hungary
Poland
Turkey
Slovak Republic
Mexico
Greece
Source: OECD. Data from 2006
Investment in Machinery and Equipment
The extent of investment in new machinery and equipment provides an indication of the ability of the economy
to take advantage of innovations embodied in that machinery and equipment. In the 2006 scorecard, Australia’s
level of investment in new equipment was 7.8% of GDP. This was above the OECD average and ranks
Australia 12 th .
Chapter 4 - Australian innovation scorecard 137