Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise today to talk about the great big announcement about black spots and the funding that the government has announced for mobile phone towers. I am one of the regional MPs. We received funding for two black spots for the whole of central Victoria—one in Mount Macedon and one in Guildford. I do welcome the towers for those areas, because they are in need of extra support and service. But I have to say that it is not going to go down well in my electorate, because what my area is crying out for and what my electorate has been wanting for a very long time is fast broadband. Bendigo and those two areas were knocked off the rollout map by the minister. So I believe that what has happened today is a fabulous smokescreen for the real communication issues that we have in our region. Telecommunications is not just about being able to use your mobile phone; it is also about having access to the internet. That is what I believe the government has lost sight of in its announcement today. One of the reasons why we have so much pressure on our mobile phone network is that people do not have access to decent fast broadband. We have mobile phone black spot issues in the heart of Bendigo. We have mobile phone black spot issues in Woodend. The previous speaker talked about having to walk up the top of the hill to be able to make a phone call. I have to walk out of my house and on to the street to make a phone call on my mobile phone, and I live in the heart of Bendigo. That is because of the number of users that we have in the area.

We have a problem in central Victoria—a triple problem. First, we have had the explosion of smartphone technology, iPads and tablets. Because we have had that explosion and houses have gone from having one device to having four or five, in some cases up to 10, all trying to access the mobile phone coverage continuously, we have more users in an area. Second, we also have unprecedented growth in central Victoria. We welcome people moving to central Victoria, but we have more people with more devices trying to access an ageing network. The third problem we have is the ageing infrastructure. What the government is not telling us today is that if it had continued with Labor's plan to build the NBN—the fast broadband fibre to the premises—that would have taken pressure off the mobile phone network. We have households in the Bendigo electorate who are told that there is no internet access available to them—that they need to rely on the mobile network. There is no ADSL1, no ADSL2 and no dial-up option; they need to rely on the mobile phone network. If we just got on with building the fast-speed broadband, putting Bendigo back on the map and getting us fibre to the premises like they have in Shepparton and Ballarat, then we would not have the mobile black spots problem that we are experiencing today.

I agree that it is good that our telcos have come on board and are co-funding in some of our regional areas where they otherwise would not have invested to build mobile phone towers. I welcome that. That is a smart project. It is good to see that areas like Guildford in my electorate, which is a smaller town, will have a tower. I welcome that. But let us not pretend for one moment that this is the silver bullet that will fix all of the issues—just build more mobile phone towers—because it is not. It cannot be done in isolation. The government should not pretend that today is a great day for telecommunication. In areas like my electorate, where we got two mobile phone towers, what we have not got is a rollout plan for the NBN—and the rollout plan for the NBN is what will make the real difference to my community. That will make the difference to the businesses who cannot connect to the internet. That will make the difference that allows manufacturers, whether they be small or large, to get their product to their customer more quickly. That will make the difference to the households and families who rely on broadband for schoolchildren to be able to do their schoolwork. That will make the real difference in moving our communities forward and making our economy truly productive and innovative. We will hear more and more from government members about how great this is. I would not say it is great. I would say it is needed. But a lot more needs to be done by the minister before we fix the telecommunications crisis in this country. (Time expired)

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