Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was pleased earlier today to join with many colleagues for the announcement by the Minister for Communications and the parliamentary secretary to him of the important mobile phone black spot program funding. As you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the at the table, know, in outer suburban rural and regional electorates, such as those we represent, this is a vitally important issue. I want to speak today about the two communities I have worked very closely with that have received funding for base stations. It is going to make a real difference to mobile phone connectivity.

I will speak first of the Steels Creek community. The Minister for Communications mentioned this in question time today. Back in March 2013 I drove the now minister to Steels Creek to meet 30 or 40 locals who were desperate to see what they could do to get a mobile phone tower. There was little coverage in the area. In fact, most people had no coverage at all at their residence. They were understandably passionate about this issue in the wake of the Black Saturday bushfires that had such a devastating impact on the Yarra Valley and the Steels Creek community in particular.

That meeting with the minister and subsequent meetings over the course of 2013 helped form the basis of the policy that we took to the election that led to the funding commitment, the assessment and the announcement of the locations today. I want to pay particular tribute to some of the leaders in the Steels Creek Association—Eva Matthews, Allan Giffard, Jo Spears and Athel Smith—and many others in that association for all of their hard work. They will be very pleased with the announcement today and even more pleased when the mobile phone tower goes up. In April of the same year, I attended a large and robust community meeting in East Warburton, where similarly mobile phone coverage was negligible or nonexistent for many residents, as it is today. A group was formed out of that public meeting. I want to pay tribute to them: John Harry, Noel Arnold, Roger Lynch and Jane Halper, who I have spoken with at that meeting and subsequently.

Having gone to those meetings and seen those two priority areas, when the program came into existence when we formed government I met with the Yarra Ranges Council when the time came for submissions. I want to pay tribute to the council. In electorates like ours there are lots of challenges with mobile phone connectivity. If submissions for tens of areas were put in it would not be as effective as if we could agree on the two priorities. The council agreed that Steels Creek and East Warburton were the two most important locations at that time and joined with me in putting in a joint submission to the department on those two locations, which have now been funded. I thank the chief executive officer, Mr Glenn Patterson, for his intense interest, and Ali Wastie, the director of social and economic development. I thank the two councillors representing those communities—Councillor Jim Child, who represents East Warburton and the upper Yarra Valley, and Councillor Fiona McAllister, who represents Steels Creek and the Yarra Glen and Healesville area. And I thank the mayor of the Yarra Ranges, Maria McCarthy, for her ongoing interest in and vigorous representations on the issue. This is a wonderful program and it is a wonderful day for those two communities of Steels Creek and East Warburton.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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)