Pat Conroy (Charlton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rarely a week passes in my electorate office where complaints are not received about inadequate or intermittent internet, mobile phone or digital television reception. These are longstanding issues, and I am determined to work to find a solution for affected residents. The government and the Minister for Communications should work with me in this cause—though it is unfortunate that in my experience so far the people of Charlton are not getting what they deserve from this government.

Last year I lodged a petition on behalf of 155 residents of the Morisset peninsula who were experiencing serious interference with television reception. A month later I wrote to the Minister for Communications again, bringing to his attention the serious deficiency with mobile phone reception in the area. I drew his attention to the Martinsville area in particular, which in my opinion presents a public safety risk, given the isolation of the area and its proximity to the national park and state forest, which are popular with four-wheel drive enthusiasts, motorcyclists and bushwalkers. It is also a bushfire-prone area.

On numerous occasions, I have made representations to the minister about the lack of decent internet infrastructure in parts of the electorate. A proliferation of pair gains and premises that are too far from an exchange have seen a large number of households in my area unable to connect to adequate or affordable broadband.

It is this situation that prompted me to launch a digital communications survey to gain further feedback on the state of these services. I received 317 responses which is, of course, just a small snapshot. Hearing these stories has been overwhelming. So many people have told me they are frustrated and angry; and many have exhausted all their options, received conflicting advice, or have been presented with a costly solution that is not possible for them to undertake.

I have heard from families who spend hundreds a month so their children can have internet access to study. I have heard from a small business owner who spends more than $1,000 a month on 4G, yet still experiences interruptions. I have heard from seniors who feel isolated without television reception and who cannot afford to subscribe to pay TV.

These services are not a luxury; they are a necessary part of the way we live and work. In regional areas, this is even more pronounced. I have asked the communications minister for very specific support to alleviate these problems. I have asked for digital television reception issues to be referred to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for field testing and for the matter to be raised with the regional broadcasters' authority, RBA Holdings. This has not been done.

I asked for upgrades to the mobile telephone network in south-western Lake Macquarie through the Mobile Black Spot Program; yet not a single dollar was invested in my area through the first round of this program. The latest NBN rollout figures show more than 100,000 homes in the Hunter and Central Coast will be left waiting longer than they were promised for a connection to the NBN. Of course I am disappointed by the Liberals' changes to the National Broadband Network, because this will result in an inferior outcome; however, any infrastructure program that delivers higher internet speeds to homes and businesses in my region is welcome, and so far the government has failed in that regard also.

The minister's response to my survey was appalling. Save for a longwinded letter of little substance, he has shown absolutely no interest in working with me to address the issues and has failed to refer the matters to his department for further review. To make matters worse, he was in the Hunter just a couple of weeks ago, announcing around half a million dollars in federal funding to upgrade the television transmitter in the Paterson electorate. He quite literally drove up the M1 motorway, passing many of the towns I have pleaded with him to consider supporting, so that he and the member for Paterson could hold a press conference.

I would hope and expect that the communications minister would do the same for the people of the Charlton electorate. I would also expect that he support my calls—to regional broadcasters, to telecommunications companies and to the government—to start working together to find a solution to these problems. So far, we have been ignored. It is not good enough. It reeks of political opportunism, and the people I represent deserve better than that.

In this House we often have conflicts over politics—over delivery of programs—but access to basic services like free-to-air television in towns less than an hour and a half from Sydney is a basic right in a developed nation. It is a right that should not be politicised. I would be very happy for the minister to come up and announce investment with me being nowhere near—in fact I will promise to be out of the electorate that day, if it means he can come up and grab the glory of delivering these improved services to my region. Too many constituents of Charlton suffer from slow or non-existent internet, no TV reception and no mobile phone reception. In the 21st century, that is unacceptable.