Tom French (Moore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Another wild ride in the chamber! I rise to speak in support of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. On its face, this appears to be a technical reform, a structural amendment to telecommunications legislation. But when you strip away the statutory language and regulatory framing, the underlying proposition is remarkably simple: in modern Australia, if you're standing outdoors, under an open sky, you should reasonably expect to be able to make a phone call or send a text message, not stream a film, not upload gigabytes of data, not conduct high-definition conferencing—just call or send a message. For the first time, mobile voice and SMS services will be brought within Australia's universal services framework. That is not symbolic; it is structural and it reflects something fundamental. The way Australians communicate has changed dramatically. But, until now, the legal framework governing universal access has not fully caught up.

In this building, we often refer to a statistic that approximately 99 per cent of Australians live and work in areas that have terrestrial mobile coverage. That is correct, but that statistic only tells part of the story. Geographically, traditional terrestrial coverage extends across roughly one-third of Australia's landmass. Two-thirds of the continent sits beyond conventional tower infrastructure. That means there are millions of square kilometres where, if you are standing outside with a standard handset, you cannot make a call. In many of those areas, you cannot contact emergency services. In a small, densely populated European nation, that gap might be marginal. In Australia, it is consequential. We are a continent. We have freight corridors stretching for hundreds of kilometres. We have pastoral leases larger than some countries. We have remote Indigenous communities. We've mining operations operating continuously far from urban centres. We've tourists travelling vast distances through remote landscapes.

Connectivity gaps in that context are not abstract regulatory issues; they are lived experiences. Before I entered this place, I worked as an electrician across Western Australia, including on remote mine sites. Those sites were disciplined, safety-conscious workplaces, with risk assessments, toolbox meetings, radios and procedures. But mobile coverage was often limited or entirely absent. On more than one mine site, the only reliable form of external connection was a payphone bolted to the wall of an accommodation block—a payphone! That was not nostalgia; that was necessity.

If you walked out into the operational area beyond the camp, your phone would frequently show no service. If you were driving between regional towns, you knew precise sections of the road where reception would disappear—everyone knew. You planned around it. You told family, 'I'll call back once I'm in range.' You accepted it, but acceptance doesn't mean adequacy. It simply reflected the technological and commercial limits of terrestrial infrastructure at the time. It's true. I have the same problem when I talk to my mum in regional South Australia—the phone drops out all the time.

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