Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's really good that we're here talking about connectivity and about old technology being phased out for new. I appreciate the member for Mallee's concerns about 3G, but, essentially, the needs of Australia's modern economy and the broader community outgrew the capabilities of 3G. It's not the first time we've had to shift technologies and it's not the last time that we're going to have to shift technologies. So that's what I want to focus on.

It is really important that we learn the lessons from every one of these experiences. They're all going to be different, and 3G certainly had its challenges, but I have to say it isn't the biggest challenge in connectivity my community faced then or now. There continue to be challenges in staying connected. This government believes that there should be coverage that is reliable and resilient, and I want to see that reliable and resilient coverage across the 4,300 square kilometres of the electorate that I represent. It is vital when there is a bushfire or a flood or a big storm that you have that connectivity.

I don't say that just as someone who can look at it objectively and say, 'Oh, it must be really important.' I've actually been in the circumstance where I needed to use mobile coverage to contact my then 18-year-old, when he was at home with a bushfire burning very near to him, to work out how quickly he could get out and what he had time to take. Yes, he took the cat. That was a good thing! But those conversations are not hypothetical for people who live in the Blue Mountains or Hawkesbury, whether it's fire or flood. They are conversations that many of us have had, and we've only been able to have them because we have connectivity.

In the case I experienced—this is going back to 2013—we could not communicate by voice, repeatedly. Texts had a better chance of getting through. Lines were very busy. You didn't actually know if your text message was getting through. They are really scary times for people, and that's why I had always known, theoretically, how important connectivity was. But it is absolutely a life-and-death matter in electorates like mine that the network is connected, reliable and resilient, and that's what I've been fighting for the 15 years I've been in politics but most particularly nearly 10 years I've been in this parliament. When I was in opposition I pushed hard to have that additional mobile funding we needed to deal with some of the black spots. When the Liberals gave up and took away a new mobile phone tower from Mount Tomar, which is on the Bells Line of Road that heads west from Sydney, the telcos decided it was a bit hard to install, so the Liberals agreed for them to take it away from our community, after we had fought—I thought—to get it back. I am very pleased to say that I understand the connection to power is imminent and that community and everybody who passes through that busy stretch—years and years after it should have——will soon have mobile coverage across that whole section.

When fires and flooding in the Macdonald Valley in the northern part of my electorate of Macquarie made it impossible for the Liberals to ignore our telecommunication needs, they provided funding to the Hawkesbury council. Hawkesbury council had minimal experience and expertise in mobile phone installations. However, that was a decision and a commitment the Morrison government made, and then they lost that election.

On coming to government, even though we had been assured that things were in place, no movement had happened on that—the funding hadn't even been properly secured—so we worked hard to secure the funding and to bring council and Telstra together, along with some very savvy Macdonald Valley association members, to deliver some improvements. Even now, we are still waiting on two parts of the project in the valley and one section of a project on the Bells Line of Road at Berambing. They weren't completed before the funding expired. I am still to this day fighting to get that one back on track because my community needs those bits all linked up.

We have Hawkesbury Heights with a new tower operating, Yellow Rock is about to get its new tower, and those things are the difference between life and death. (Time expired)

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