Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025, a bill that the government says will strengthen consumer protection and ensure Australians can rely on their mobile phones when it matters most. This bill, in terms of the stated obligations presented by the government, is long overdue, and I speak from experience in my electorate of Monash, particularly the broader South Gippsland region, where residents live daily with frustrations caused by poor connectivity, unreliable reception and black spots that put lives at risk.

In Corinella, Waratah Bay and Walkerville, residents often go months without reliable phone access. I have constituents contact me every couple of days about a new example. Brian, from Corinella, recently contacted my office, saying:

Mary, if this keeps on going this way, someone in this town will die because they cannot call an ambulance.

These are not isolated incidents; they are the reality for many Australians living in regional and remote areas. Wendy, from my electorate, recently wrote to me as well:

Mary, can you look into the black spot of mobile reception along the Sth Gippsland Hwy at Grassy Spur?

This part of the Hwy is notorious for car crashes, yet there is no reception to call for help. Prior to 3g being turned off there was only a small section of a couple of hundred metres where you had no reception.

It is from the bottom of the hill to the top of Foster north on the Leongatha side and kilometres long.

This is the reality for residents in my electorate of Monash and residents who live in regional communities right across our country. This is the reality of regional communications under this federal Labor government. We're in Labor's no-care zone when it comes to digital connectivity.

During the election, Sussan Ley joined me in Korumburra to announce support for addressing mobile black spots across South Gippsland, West Gippsland and the Bass Coast, which is a key issue for our region. I was pleased to be able to announce a $3 million commitment to address specific mobile black spot eradication across the Monash electorate that the coalition would support, and I commit myself to working every day in this place to deliver on mobile black spot eradication and better regional connectivity for all Australians. The focus of this funding that was announced was on improving connectivity in areas, like Korumburra, where we have frequent service dropouts, particularly on the road to Leongatha. I want to give a shout-out to the local florist in Korumburra, who spoke with Sussan Ley and me about some of the issues that she had servicing customers and making sure there were secure and reliable phone connections in her business.

I've consistently raised this issue because, under the current Albanese Labor government, digital connectivity and mobile phone reception are not being addressed significantly. In fact, we're seeing a widening of the gap in digital infrastructure between metropolitan and regional areas. I was pleased that the initiative aimed to support local businesses and farmers, such as those in Korumburra, who struggle with unreliable phone and internet coverage, which really does impact on their day-to-day operations.

These challenges go beyond just my community. The 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review and data from the Regional Australia Institute shows that regional, rural and remote communities are falling behind in digital connectivity, with the digital divide widening as technology advances. I'll repeat that: the gap between those in our cities and metropolitan areas and those in regional communities, who I represent, is widening. Their access to adequate technology and services is getting worse, not better. I'll give some examples of these deficiencies.

While urban areas are able to access high-speed, reliable and affordable internet, regional and remote communities are struggling with service quality, reliability and affordability. A 2024 OECD report confirmed that connectivity gaps between urban and rural areas are increasing. Absolute chaos ensued after the 3G shutdown in 2024, of course, and many regional users of the 3G network were significantly impacted. Some of those communities were left without coverage or forced to rely on expensive and often unreliable alternatives.

We've also seen, according to a number of reports, an increasing trend of complaints. For example, between 2021 and 2024, the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman received over 51,000 complaints from regional consumers regarding poor service, outages and unreliable connections. There's also been an increased gap for remote and rural communities. In 2022, the Digital Inclusion Index found a 12-point gap in digital inclusion between major cities and very remote areas, with the gap in access being as high as 18.2 points.

There's an infrastructure strain as well. The sea change and tree change migration trend that we've seen through COVID to many regional and peri-urban communities like mine has put additional pressure on existing, already weak regional infrastructure. Whether it's telecommunications or housing, we see this a lot. State Labor governments are asking regional communities and peri-urban communities to host additional infrastructure, but they are not supporting those communities with increased investment in infrastructure. That infrastructure is not keeping pace with new population and additional demand.

In the last seven months, I've had nearly 50 people contact me about mobile black spots and connectivity issues. These are local residents, small businesses and emergency service providers, and they all tell me the same thing: we've got to improve connectivity to regional communities. Peter from my electorate reached out regarding his two elderly parents, who were among 24 residents in Buffalo left without a landline for over a month. I'll repeat that. Peter's two elderly parents in Buffalo were left without a landline for over a month. That is not good enough and that is not acceptable, but that is the reality under the Albanese federal Labor government. They're real people in real communities facing real risks—particularly in an emergency or accident—because of the gaps in our telecommunications infrastructure, and this is getting worse. It is not improving.

I'm proud to represent a region that grows, makes and manufactures things the rest of Australia relies on. When our region succeeds, the rest of Victoria does very well, and Australia looks to us to provide those first-class products. I looked at an analysis of digital intensity requirements for our food and fibre sector right across the Gippsland region, because that sector will rely increasingly on digital services over the next three to five years. As their technology advances and changes, as they tap into new markets and as they adopt different ways of doing things, they need affordable, reliable and modern technology infrastructure.

They've got to be able to do that to provide those products to the rest of our state and across Australia. But we are, of course, a net exporter of everything that we grow, make and manufacture in this country, so, to be able to remain competitive across the globe and to be able to keep living up to that great reputation Australia has as a maker, grower and producer of very fine things, farmers, small businesses and manufacturers in my electorate of Monash desperately need better digital connectivity. I looked at a couple of things that will form part of the key primary production drivers in the region over the next couple of years, and already it's a pretty stark finding. A hundred per cent have a major supply shortfall in fixed access broadband services for business users, and 60 per cent have intermediate supply shortfall for LPWAN supported services. For these reasons, Committee for Gippsland—I used to very proudly serve as its CEO—has done some excellent work on digital connectivity across the region.

I want to commend the Gippsland Local Government Network and those individual local government organisations, like Baw Baw Shire, City of Latrobe, South Gippsland Shire and Bass Coast Shire, who have worked very hard to map, plan and prioritise those digital connectivity needs. They've been able to prioritise a number of those areas for the next round of the Mobile Black Spot Program, the Regional Connectivity Program and the Connecting Victoria program.

This bill, along with the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, seeks to provide critical reforms that will help prevent situations where consumers are put at risk or are not able to access the services that they need and should be able to rely on. The bill says it will create a register of all carriage service providers, giving ACMA full visibility of operators in the Australian market. It says it'll make compliance with industry codes mandatory and enforceable without the delays of the current two-step warning process. This is a good thing. If you can have light-handed, industry-led regulation, that's a great outcome, but not in all cases is that achievable. Making that a mandatory and enforceable industry code is a step in the right direction. Requiring providers to report cybersecurity incidents and take swift remedial action is an important reform, particularly in the age we live in, where a growing number of cybersecurity related breaches and threats posed to consumers, small businesses and lots of companies across the board that deal with sensitive consumer data is important. This bill says it will seek to increase penalties for breaches from $250,000 to $10 million, with the possibility of even higher fines based on the provider's turnover or benefit obtained from the breach.

These measures are important because, for too long, compliance with industry codes has been seen as voluntary or a bit optional, even where those breaches affect people's safety. A good example is the emergency call database rules. These require providers to maintain accurate telephone numbers and addresses so that when a person calls triple zero—and we've seen multiple failures in that area under this government—emergency services arrive at the correct location the first time. You can't take a set-and-forget approach. In 2024, ACMA issued seven notices for breaches of these rules, but, under the two-step system, no financial penalties were applied immediately. People's lives literally depend on these rules being enforced and adhered to, and it's good to see tougher compliance being presented.

Another example is phone scams. In 2024 alone, Australians lost over $107 million to scam calls and messages. ACMA issued 10 directions to comply with the Reducing Scam Calls and SMS Code, but the two-step process delayed enforcement. This bill removes that delay, enabling ACMA to take immediate action to protect consumers.

The bill also strengthens ACMA's powers to monitor and enforce compliance across the sector similar to how the energy sector regulates its operators. Providers who pose a risk to consumers can now have their registration cancelled. Telecommunications companies will be required to report those cybersecurity incidents and to swiftly mitigate them.

One of the most important things I want to see prioritised under this federal government is better, more secure access by consumers in regional and rural communities for digital connectivity. They've been ignored for too long. They deserve far better, and I'll continue to fight for their access to improved digital connectivity and mobile black spot eradication.

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