The short answer is no. The short-ish answer is sort of, but it probably doesn’t matter anyway. The long answer is complicated.
The short answer: no
The idea of rights gets thrown around more and more in contemporary discourse, often with very little clarity about what we mean by ‘rights’. When we say someone has a right, it could mean many things: a human right, a legal right, a moral right or something else entirely. Most Australians would be surprised to hear that the majority of the legal ‘rights’ they think they hold are not written in any Australian legislative document or Bill or Amendment: most exist as implication, case law or in the uneasy legal grey-area of UN covenants and conventions. The Australian Human Rights Commission is mostly tasked with the prevention of discrimination, and while Australia is a signatory to most of the major international human rights instruments, they have never been made domestic law. So it seems safe to assume Australians have no legal right to internet access.
The short-ish answer: maybe
But, when we talk about ‘fundamental human rights’ usually we mean those moral freedoms or entitlements we hold due to the sheer fact of being human. A citizen of an oppressive regime may have no legal right to freedom of speech, but we acknowledge that they are still owed that right – just that the legal system is committing a moral wrong against that person if the right isn’t upheld.
Could we consider internet access a ‘fundamental’ right in this way? In and of itself, I would still say no. The internet isn’t fundamentally good any more than electricity or cars are. It’s simply a mode by which we can use or express other rights, such as the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, right to education or right to social security. If we deny someone access to the internet, we are curtailing these other rights. But, if we imagine the internet could only be used for playing online poker, finding bomb recipes and watching pornography, we probably wouldn’t think curtailing access was a breach of rights. So there’s no fundamental entitlement to internet access, just to those things that we can get via the internet.
Does it even matter?
I think a more important question is: why do we care if internet access is a fundamental human right or not? Presumably, because we think that if someone is denied internet access, some social or personal harm could come about and that harm should be prevented. Because we want some real action to prevent disadvantage.
Any agreement among people that there exists an abstract right to the internet might, through some kind of knock-on effect, prevent this disadvantage but not quickly or efficiently. Theoretically, we have a human right to necessary housing (UDHR, article 25) but homelessness is an ongoing problem. Is the solution to homelessness to convince Australians that housing is a human right? Probably not.
If we want to address the lack of internet access in our communities we shouldn’t be spending our time philosophising about fundamental human rights, we should be talking those affected, conducting research and developing creative solutions that will connect all people with the digital resources they need to conduct their lives with “the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women … determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (UDHR, Preamble).
Girl Grabbing A Lion 