Cathy McGowan (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to tell the House about a new mobile phone tower at Mount Dorothy in my wonderful electorate of Indi, in the shire of Murrindindi.

Residents in the Mount Dorothy area near Yea can now use their mobile phones with much greater reliability, thanks to the installation of the new Telstra base station. Congratulations to the local community for calling for the Mount Dorothy tower be activated. Particularly, thanks to Telstra for all the work done in getting it built.

I visited Mount Dorothy on Saturday 28 August with Telstra central Victorian area manager, Steve Tinker, to see how improved coverage will mean fewer call dropouts, increased data speeds and improved service to all the people in the area. Under the federal government's Mobile Black Spot Program eight towers will be constructed in the Murrindindi shire. Many people know that this area was devastated during the 2009 bushfires. This will mean the saving of many lives.

These locations will get mobile phone coverage for the first time. Communities in the Murrindindi Shire nominated these areas as part of round 1 of the Mobile Phone Black Spot Program. In this program, colleagues, Indi received the third-highest allocation of all towers across Australia. This shows that the process of consultation and community engagement works. Thanks to the Department of Communications and Telstra for their fantastic work, together with the Indi Telecommunications Action Group, that worked so hard to make this happen. (Time expired)