Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

An elderly lady is frantically trying to ring triple 0 as her neighbour has a heart attack but she can't get through to emergency services. A mother is frustrated as she is unable to pay her household quarterly electricity bill, as the two-factor authentication text isn't coming through from the bank. A worried father drives 40 minutes down the road to be able to call the local GP practice to book an appointment for his sick daughter. A community is furious that they are unable to make calls or text for weeks over Christmas, as their local mobile phone tower is down from recent rain. An exhausted small business owner places a 'cash only' sign on the front door of their shop as the eftpos machine has been dropping out all week. This is the reality of telecommunications in rural and regional Australia in the electorate of Flynn.

I strongly support the member for Mallee's motion that notes the following:

(a)the 3G telecommunications network was switched off on the Government's watch in 2024;

(b)the interim report of the Senate inquiry into the shutdown made clear recommendations about the impending shutdown, recommending that the Government delay the shutdown until it was satisfied that 'the 4G network provides coverage equivalent to or better than the coverage provided by the licensee's 3G network';

(c)the Government relied on the assurances of commercial operators to ensure equivalent mobile coverage after the shutdown but despite promises, regional Australians have been detrimentally affected and thousands of consumers have been left with worse, or no, coverage at all;

(d)furthermore, there have been reports of poor handling of consumer complaints about their loss of service post 3G shutdown; and

(e)the Government has failed to take responsibility for the fallout of the 3G shutdown in regional Australia, and its response to the final report by the Senate into the shutdown was again lazy and noncommittal, failing to agree to any new actions; and

(2)calls upon the Minister for Communications to take responsibility for the botched 3G shutdown and its impact on the connectivity of regional Australians by:

(a)providing transparency regarding the crowdsourcing component of the National Audit of Mobile Coverage and expanding it to include off-road areas (including on private land such as farming and grazing properties) to ensure an accurate picture of the impact of the shutdown on mobile coverage is attained; and

(b)thoroughly addressing the first recommendation of the final Senate inquiry report to 'establish a program to help customers that have lost mobile phone coverage since the 3G shutoff'.

Telecommunications have gotten so bad in my electorate that my 3½-hour commute to my home town of Taroom from my Gladstone office can take up to six hours, as I have to pull over frequently to take calls from constituents and so forth. Not having a dependable phone service is undoubtedly isolating for individuals, stifling for business and potentially dangerous in any emergency. Landline telephones are often the only form of communication between one cattle station and its neighbours and the outside world, and these are in disrepair and can take weeks and sometimes months to fix when things go wrong. In rural areas, people are significant distances from service centres and even further from regional towns, and the need for reliable phone coverage is paramount and even more essential than in the cities. With banks and other essential services pushing for online over face-to-face assistance and closing branches in regions, there needs to be wider-spread phone coverage instead of reductions.

It's simply unthinkable that those in rural and regional areas are to be left with no communication capabilities or to face extortionate prices to gain access. It's quite clear to me that, in regard to the big telcos, the telecommunications issue is one of economics rather than service delivery. I would argue that, because of the enormous progression of technology and the cost, telcos are not interested in providing communications to communities where is little or no economic benefit for them. This is why all service obligations should be reviewed to provide better communications outcomes, particularly for isolated communities.

I invite the Minister for Communications and the CEOs of Telstra and Optus to the Flynn electorate to see how dire the situation really is. They need to speak to our regional communities and understand the impacts the 3G shutdown is having now and how telecommunications continue to get worse. (Time expired)

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