Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

There are a range of questions there. Let me come first to the question raised by the member for Mayo in relation to community radio. The position is that the government will provide $15.491 million in 2016-17 to support the community broadcasting sector, including $2.28 million for community digital radio. This funding will continue to be administered by the Community Broadcasting Foundation. There is ongoing funding at the rate of $2.28 million per year for the digital radio project to support the digital community radio services operating in the five mainland capitals.

In relation to your specific question about Adelaide Hills FM, I will ask Minister Fifield to come back to you with a response on that. In relation to your question about Ashbourne and Stokes Bay, I am advised that those were probably under round 3. I will get some more advice about the timing of that and come back to you.

The member for Corangamite asked what progress is being made in relation to the Mobile Black Spots Program round 1 and the rollout. That rollout is gathering momentum. When last I checked, I think, it was 69 base stations that have now been rolled out, and both Telstra and Vodafone are continuing to roll out base stations.

Ms Rowland interjecting—

That is absolutely correct, Shadow Minister. Well done. Both Telstra and Vodafone are continuing to roll out base stations, and so the program is proceeding in a very satisfactory fashion.

That leads me to the issues raised by the member for Whitlam. I want to put on the record a number of extracts from the Australian National Audit Office report in relation to the Mobile Black Spots Program:

The department established the key elements that would be expected to form part of a competitive, merit-based grants programme …

  …   …   …

The department appropriately identified black spots to guide the location of proposed base stations to be funded under the MBSP through its Database of Reported Locations …

  …   …   …

The department developed programme guidelines that reflected the objectives of the programme and contained an appropriate range of information about the programme to facilitate the submission of applications …

Let us go to the question that the member put, which was: are taxpayers getting value for money out of this project? The funding commitment from the Commonwealth government was $100 million. The ultimate amount of money which is being expended to deliver base stations is $385 million. That reflects the fact that the program was carefully designed to attract private sector investment from the mobile operators, and both Telstra and Vodafone put significant dollars on the table. It also attracted significant funding from state governments. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and WA all put money into the program, and we quite carefully designed it so that the state and Commonwealth money could work together so there was an efficient and competitive process.

The member for Whitlam goes to what is an important point: the fact that there is a competitive imbalance and Telstra has the largest network. One way we could have designed this program would have been to say, 'We will allocate all of the money in one big lump.' We chose not to do that. We very specifically designed a base-station-by-base-station competitive selection process, and we specifically allocated points in the process for co-funding from other sources. So the member for Whitlam is right: there is an important competitive issue to address. The program was designed very carefully to try and maximise competition, and it succeeded in that regard. Vodafone came in and put competitive pressure on Telstra, and that secured a much better outcome for taxpayers: 499 base stations was well at the top end of anybody's expectations. This was a great outcome for rural and regional Australians.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:29.

See this speech in context