Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Janelle Ruggeri and Graeme Kruger just brought along to my office some very impressive young people: Nathan Crawley, Emily Marston, Sarah McCaskie, Thomas Hatty and Daniel Andreazza from Griffith and Tocumwal. They're not from my Riverina electorate per se, but they certainly are from the geographic area of Riverina. They are rice growers. You might wonder why I'm raising this—before I get a point of order on relevance from the minister at the table—as part of the debate on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025. Like the member for Macquarie, I appreciate that farming requires good telecommunications, and every place needs the very best telecommunications and the utmost safeguards for consumers. That is why the coalition supports this bill's second iteration. It has been enhanced by an amendment—an excellent one, at that—moved by the shadow minister for communications and shadow minister for women, the member for Lindsay. I acknowledge that she has put that forward, and I very much commend it to the House.

These young rice growers, who are part of the Ricegrowers' Association of Australia's Next Generation Leadership Program, emphasised to me the importance of technology in what they do. They absolutely have to have the very best telecommunications as they do research into lowering emissions from their paddies and maximising every precious drop of water. They still call them paddies even though they're doing a flush method rather than a pond method on some of these modern rice farms these days out in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area and in Coleambally. But they can't do their research, and they therefore can't be even more environmentally sustainable than they already are, unless they have good telecommunications to be able to pass on the data, the analytics, the knowledge and the updates. Then they can have it at one central point so that they can learn from their research and their farms can be more profitable, sustainable and progressive.

I really commend the work that each and every one of those young farmers are doing, because they are the future. It doesn't matter whether you're growing rice, or whether you are indeed growing any sort of food or fibre, you need to have the very best of telecommunications. What we're seeing these days is farmers using groundbreaking GPS technology on their tractors and equipment so that they stay in line, each and every bit of valuable soil is utilised to its maximum benefit and each and every valuable droplet of water is used to its maximum benefit. That only happens when you've got the very best of technology, the very best of global positioning systems technology and good mobile communications.

The member for Macquarie mentioned her electorate and the fact that the geography and topography of her electorate is wide and varied, which is very similar to the Riverina electorate that I now serve with the new alignment of boundaries of the Australian Electoral Commission, which came into effect at the May election this year. I've now retaken the Snowy Mountains, Kosciuszko and beyond. We've got hilly terrain. The high point of Australian politics is Kosciuszko. The mountaintop, the summit, is in the Riverina electorate. I'm very proud of that fact. The fact is that they are very prone to fires and very prone to having emergency situations. We need the best telecommunications to enable our emergency service workers to communicate, get help and save people's lives when things happen. If you think about it, at the moment, we've got Australia's largest manhunt happening in Porepunkah in north-east Victoria, and they no doubt need good telecommunications, too, as they search for the killer of those two brave police officers.

When we have a rollout of telecommunications in the bush, we need to be fair about it. I know many members have come in and talked about colour coded spreadsheets. The sad reality is that the colour coded spreadsheets for the telecommunications towers, in the first term of this government, were all red. They claimed that they were, as part of the rollout of towers, simply honouring election commitments. But they need to be fair about this when it comes to the spread of telecommunications towers, because everybody needs good telecommunications not just Labor electorates. I would urge and encourage the new communications minister, to consider that when they are funding those towers, which not just provide convenience and data sharing but indeed save lives—they absolutely do.

The member for Macquarie also mentioned an important part of this telecommunications bill we are debating—domestic violence and scams. I do want to commend that aspect of this bill and the fact that, if there is a partner who is being subjected to domestic abuse, particular numbers will not showing up on telephone bills. That's absolutely, vitally important. Anything that can be done to protect and safeguard particularly women in domestic violence situations, obviously, is to be applauded and encouraged.

When we come to scams, I would urge and encourage people to avail themselves of a copy of The Little Book of Scams. It doesn't matter who's in government—I actually had the former member for Whitlam come to my electorate and run a very worthwhile scams seminar in Wagga Wagga, and he was fabulous. These days, the scammers are so professional and so adept at separating people from their money for their own graft and gain that it is quite remarkable. The Little Book of Scams is good reading. It's sobering reading. It's actually helping people spot and avoid scams. And, when it comes to scams, telecommunications are the preferred method of choice by a lot of these people who would steal people's money. It's white collar crime and it's on an industrial scale. These nefarious characters are coming in from overseas—they're operating from overseas bases. They're also very much operating right here at home. They prey on older people. They prey on vulnerable people. I would advise people to take heed of what the government says when it comes to text or SMS scams, email scams, phone scams and website scams. Because money's hard enough to earn in this cost-of-living crisis; you don't want to be giving it up to somebody who is not earning it but just wants to separate you from your hard-earned wealth. So I commend that particular publication to everybody.

The Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 before us does create a register of carriage service providers. It does enable the direct enforcement of industry codes and increases the maximum penalty amount from a quarter of a million dollars to $10 million. That might seem a lot of money, and it is, but corporations have an obligation to do the right thing and to put in place the provisions, the measures and the personnel to ensure that customers are safeguarded—that the consumers who use their services are kept as much as possible away from those activities and those people who would otherwise do them harm. It also amends the existing two-step process for the application of penalty amounts for infringement notices.

I had a visit to my parliamentary office yesterday by Chris Taylor and Christina Cawkell from Telstra, and it was good to get an update. I commend Mr Taylor for the work that he has done in my electorate and others besides to ensure that he keeps members of parliament and moreover—very much moreover—members of the public updated with what the big telco is doing when it comes to services. Ms Cawkell is looking after the shires I've just taken over—Snowy Valleys, Yass Valley and Upper Lachlan shires. She has others in her care as well. I respect the job that they're doing, and I emphasised again that there are still communities that are hurting from the changeover from 3G. I know Telstra very much acknowledges that and are working on it, but there are people—the member for Macquarie mentioned people on landlines—who are relying on their landlines.

I know that in my electorate there are people out Ardlethan way, in Ariah Park, Beckom, Kamarah and that district, who have to climb up on top of their silos, would you believe, to get a signal. You could imagine climbing up a silo, with one hand on the ladder and one hand on your phone, just to get a signal. That might be to be able to sell your grain, to be able to get the best price for your stock or whatever the case might be, but it might also be to get an ambulance. When it comes to getting help for these little communities and these farmers who do so much for our nation, just to try to get an ambulance is an exercise in itself—let alone having to climb a silo to do it. We need to remember that and we need to reflect on that. Particularly when the Minister for Communications is designating funding for vital telecommunications upgrades, that is so very important.

The new carriage service provider registration scheme is going to require all telecommunications providers to apply to the Australian Communications and Media Authority for registration to operate in Australia. It should have always been the minimum, quite frankly. This will provide ACMA, as the regulator for the sector, with visibility of all operators in the Australian market, of which there are an estimated 1,500 at the moment. It will ensure that ACMA is able to monitor, to educate and, where necessary, to take rapid enforcement action for any breaches of any codes or standards.

I know that this particular legislation passed through the House before. It lapsed, but it is good that it has been able to return. Should providers breach their obligations—or, indeed, pose a risk to consumers—ACMA would have the ability to cancel their registration to operate. This should be an absolute minimum in this day and age, because telecommunications are far too important to have people operating in the industry or the sector who could probably otherwise best be described as cowboys. People who are operating in this sector need to understand that there are minimum standards and that there are high fines now able to be imposed. They were high before; they've now very much got into the area of very severe, as they should be.

These arrangements are similar to those in the energy sector, where the Australian Energy Regulator has the power to forbid operators from operating in a market where there is risk to consumers. They can't determine the price of power, unfortunately, but they're able to do that. This telecommunication amendment is good legislation. It's worthwhile legislation, but I do commend to the House the amendment put forward by the member for Lindsay.

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