Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Being disconnected is a horrible feeling: that anxiety when you think you've lost your phone, or when you run out of battery and you're out at dinner, or—as we experienced in this place just last Thursday—when you get an SMS to tell you that the email server is down and they don't know when it's going to be put back into service. The government's handling of the CapTel service is worse than any of these feelings. It has left hundreds of Australians feeling disconnected and uncertain about whether the government actually understands how this service works or what they use it for.

I moved this motion because of a woman in my electorate, Peggy, who lives in Inglewood, just around the corner from my electorate office. She wrote to me and said: 'I can't believe the government is shutting down this service.' When I first read her letter I thought: 'I think and I hope that Peggy is wrong.' But Peggy was 100 per cent right.

The government is sending the users of the CapTel service back to using 1980s technology. I loved my Nintendo Entertainment System as much as anyone. I loved Game Boy and its old-school physical link cable. And I played—I can't remember the name of it—that helicopter game you played on the Apple Mac classic, the first computer to come into my household. I loved all of those pieces of technology. But I don't use them in 2020. This is like asking people who rely on this service to use Betamax to watch a 4K movie.

There are so many people who have been using their voice on this issue for a number of months now. I commend the Facebook group Save CapTel, who have been campaigning vigorously and enthusiastically, trying to get their voice heard. These are people who rely on services that thankfully most of us in this place don't need to rely on to be able to communicate with the outside world. You get a sense of desperation from the users of this service. Joan writes on the Facebook group: 'I lost my CapTel service yesterday and the alternative on offer was so antiquated and difficult to navigate I refused to accept it.' These are long-term users of this service refusing to accept the dodgy alternative being provided by the government. Karen writes: 'The new system is not available for my father because he is in a nursing home. It means no more phone conversations for us. I live in a different state to him. He is 93. He may never hear me again.' And Nola writes: 'I need my CapTel phone. It's the only way I can ring anyone.'

Another person who has been in contact with my office is Dr Alex Harrison. He told me: 'I am the first and only profoundly deaf veterinarian in Australia. I use my CapTel phone every day.' He uses it for his work. Now that it's not available he is relying on FaceTime and other devices, which causes a lot of problems for some of his customers as, if they're not on the Apple network, he can't communicate with them. He says that he's had to wait in queues for an operator. He can't be waiting for 30 minutes on this dodgy second-rate service to talk to a pet owner in an emergency situation. For those of us who love our pets, for those of us for whom they are members of our family, to be stuck in a situation like that—again, because of the government trying to make a small, insignificant saving on an important service—is simply not good enough. That saving? Eight million dollars. They are cutting the service. What they save doesn't, in any way, justify cutting the quality of the service. Surely, if the government wanted to find efficiencies, they could have found many more places to start than switching off the CapTel service on 1 February this year.

I want to commend the member for Greenway, the shadow minister for communications, for her ongoing advocacy on this matter. She's been a champion for CapTel users, fighting to protect vulnerable Australians from these cuts. I want to end with a quote that I think sums things up. The minister for communications part-acknowledged what the problem is, but, in saying that he acknowledged it was hard, he said:

I certainly acknowledge any transition of this kind is challenging, particularly for older Australians who may not be as familiar with technology.

The reality is that it has been challenging—so challenging, in fact, that Australians have had to rely on the charity of a US corporation—that is, the CapTel service provider—to continue this service while the government continues to sort out a mess entirely of its own making.

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