Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Mallee for this motion. It's a very important one, because the reality is—as we on this side talk about often—the phone lines working can be the difference between life and death. When Australians pick up the phone and call triple 0, they expect that the phone will be answered and that they will get the help that they need, and it's not a political line. Many in my community, including me, were impacted by the June storms of 2021. We were blocked into our home, with trees across the front of our driveway, unable to get out. When the power ran out—which it did, late in the night—we woke up early that morning and had no phone reception. There is not a more vulnerable feeling that you have as a husband and as a father than knowing that, if a disaster had happened and if a tree had fallen across our house as it did to many in our community, I wouldn't have been able to call triple 0 to get the help my family needed.

We had situations where our CFA brigades, who were not trained in storm recovery or helping people in storms, were navigating in pitch dark, and CFA communications officers were having to try and text message other brigade members to make sure they could know where they were and what was going on. One of the brigade communications officers shared a story with me at that time about how they could not move their phone for want of losing reception. If they moved it a centimetre, they would lose reception. That's what we talk about and that's why we're so passionate on this side about making sure we have strong communications in this country. And we have a minister that is failing the Australian people. We just heard it from the member for Leichhardt. They are so quick to blame private enterprise—Optus, Telstra et cetera—and they absolutely have a role to play, but there's a little bit of a hint in the title: Minister for Communications. That makes this government and the minister responsible for making sure the Australian people get the communications they need.

This minister has failed when it comes to triple 0 and has failed when it comes to 3G. It's a pity the member for Leichhardt has left because I would've loved to have reminded him that this government has been in power for 3½ years. He seemed very generous in giving them a leave pass. But we will see as we move forward. He'll learn very quickly that this government is big on spin but low on delivery. I'm going to look forward to tracking the reception in Leichhardt, and when it doesn't improve, which I'm very confident it won't, because we know it's spin from this government, we will see whether the member for Leichhardt will call out the failures of this minister. I will watch with interest.

This minister was warned about the 3G network. This minister has been warned about triple 0. And what has been the minister's response? It has been: 'I'm sorry. I'm a new minister.' That's what we have had from this government. This is time urgent. This is not a time for politics; this is a time for making sure the Australian people have the support they need. We are now into November. We are now entering the disaster season for all Australians. I've been lucky enough and honoured to attend a lot of CFA annual dinners in my community in the last three to four months, and the messaging from the district commanders and the captains has been consistent: stay safe and look after yourself, because the conditions we see this summer are some of the most dangerous we have seen since Black Saturday and Ash Wednesday. That's the reality. It is why we are urging the minister to act.

But we get talk of roundtables. Roundtables aren't going to make sure that, when someone who was on the 3G network needs to call triple 0, it's going to work now. We have a minister who's obsessed with the spin and is happy to fly to New York to talk about the social media ban. It's important—we absolutely support that—but not at a time when the triple 0 network is failing. It is about priorities. It is about making sure the Australian people are safe, and this minister has shown time and time again that she does not have the ability to deal with these issues. She does not have the ability to call Optus to account. She is afraid of transparency. She has refused to attend the Senate hearing into the triple 0 failures. The Australian people can have no confidence in this minister or this government, and that is a shame because it is the Australian people who pay the price for their continual failures.

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