Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This legislation is being referred to as the UOMO legislation. It could also be called the FOMO legislation. I appreciate that UOMO means universal outdoor mobile obligation. FOMO, of course, means 'fear of missing out', and there'll be a lot of people across Australia who will have FOMO when they hear what some of the Labor members, and the crossbench too, are suggesting, saying and asserting about this particular bill, the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025.

Here's the rub too. The bill's title says 2025; it's now 2026. Note to those Labor members: this bill, this piece of legislation, was supposed to be brought to the parliament last year. It was an election promise. Indeed, the Labor Party committed to implementing UOMO on 25 February 2025. That's more than 12 months ago. But people out in regional Australia have been waiting for far longer than 12 months.

No doubt Labor will say, 'Well, you were there for nine years. What did you do about it?' I'll tell you what we did about it. We provided fairness and equity when it came to rolling out mobile phone towers, not like Labor. I refer to a media release that I put out on 17 February 2023. In that particular statement, I was very critical, and still am, of Labor's Mobile Black Spot Program. Under the 'improving mobile coverage round' of the program, not long after being elected in 2022, Labor's Minister for Communications directed her department to provide 25 of the 26 available grants to Labor electorates. I reckon that, by the time it actually occurred and by the time we actually got to dig down into the detail, it was every one of them, but let's go with 25 out of 26. That's pretty shameful.

I know Labor said: 'This is an election commitment round. This is what we promised at the election.' But what we did, as Liberals and Nationals, was look at where mobile coverage was most needed and filled the gaps. It was a continuous program. It was ongoing. Yet what Labor did when they came to office was provide almost all, if not all, of the mobile towers to Labor electorates.

Labor often go on about colour coded spreadsheets. There's just one thing wrong with Labor's colour coded spreadsheets, and that is that they're just one colour. They're all red. As the member for Riverina and, indeed, as the Deputy Prime Minister at the time, I can recall how many of the member for Indi's constituents benefited from the Mobile Black Spot Program that we put in place, because we did it with fairness. We did it with equity. We did it based on need.

But not Labor—oh no. Yet they've come in here this afternoon talking about, as the member for Macquarie just said—I'm not quite sure she actually meant it. She said that this legislation sends a 'strong signal'. I don't know whether it was a clever play on words. Let's go with that. There will be people out there who are waiting for a very strong signal on one of their devices when this legislation is implemented and has had a chance to bed down.

That time will come. I dare say that Labor will still be in office, because they're going to be in office for at least another two years. That will be time enough. I know they're very fond of looking back and regurgitating history. They've been in there for nearly four years now. By the time the next election comes around, they'll have been in there for six years. That gives them time to put their money where their mouths are. That gives them time to build the infrastructure that they are so critical about.

We built infrastructure, whether it was mobile phone towers, roads, bridges, highways or byways—even in the member for Nicholls's electorate; I know I went there often. We got it done. We delivered. Labor's pretty fond of going to our electorates and cutting ribbons, yet they haven't got much to show in the infrastructure space or in the regional development space for their nearly four years of government.

This legislation provides that opportunity. It provides that opportunity because the ALP members are coming in, whether they're from Western Australia, as we heard before, or from the Blue Mountains, in New South Wales, to talk about the importance of mobile phone connectivity. I agree with just about every word that's been said. Certainly, when it comes to fires, floods and natural disasters, you need to be able to make a triple zero call, because it is a matter of life and death.

I want to refer to a particular hero of mine and indeed of the Riverina: Aaron McCarthy. In a harvest accident in December 2021, Aaron lost a leg. Luckily, he had his phone in his pocket when the accident occurred, but he had limited reception. Aaron lived in the shadow of The Rock. Mr McCarthy said:

I saw that it had at the top, emergency calls only, so I rung triple-0. We have terrible service so I think I yelled at them four times who I was, where I was and what had happened.

Aaron was quick to place a tourniquet on his leg with his shirt. Emergency services then called his wife, Tahnee. Ms McCarthy said:

I was in the house and got a phone call and as soon as I left the house my emergency services call dropped out. The last thing I heard a lady say was 'he might not respond, he's in a bad way'.

Indeed, he was in a bad way.

But Aaron turned adversity into opportunity. He will attend the winter Paralympics. Well done to him. That's an incredibly brave story. He will go to the Milano Cortina Paralympic Winter Games in Italy. Just four years after the freak accident involving a header saw him lose his left leg, he was selected in the men's banked slalom and snowboard cross in the SB-LL1 class for snowboarders with moderately affected movement in the knees or legs or the absence of one leg above the knee or two legs below the knee. He's 31, so he's still a very young man. He's got a young family and he's a brave fellow, but it could have ended much worse because of the limited reception that he had where he lived. I hear Labor members saying that mobile coverage is—and they're using the present tense—in 99 per cent of where people live. It's not where Aaron lived and it's not where so many others live.

A good mate of mine, Tony Keremelevski, who hails from Goobarragandra, battled for years and felt joy when, finally, the mobile phone tower was opened. I remember being with Mark Coulton, the former member for Parkes, in his ministerial capacity at the time when we made a call. It was the first call available via that tower on the day. It was such a sense of relief not just for Mr Keremelevski but indeed for the people who visit that area, particularly recreational fishers, caravaners and the likes going on adventurous excursions. The difficulty is that, when you go to one of those areas in the beautiful Snowy Mountains—in the foothills at Tumut et cetera—you face the prospect of not having coverage or having very limited coverage.

I hear Labor members talking about coverage in 99 per cent of where people live, and I look forward to that. I will be making sure that I keep in a folder all of the contributions that Labor members make to quote back at them in the future, because I welcome what is being proposed here.

I know that my predecessor, the former member for Riverina Kay Hull, who has great respect in this place and is a former president of the Nationals political party—the immediate past president—actually crossed the floor over the sale of Telstra. I know that, when you cross the floor in this place, you get sent to Coventry for a while. You do. Labor members cross the floor and get expelled from their party; we just get a bit of—

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