Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to rise to support the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025, and I'm proud to be part of a party that is committed to keeping Australians connected, no matter where they live.

This bill will give the telecommunications industry regulator, ACMA, the tools and the powers it needs to be effective. It displays this government's commitment to protecting Australian consumers from poor and harmful practices in the telecommunications industry—and it's high time, too.

For nine long years, out-of-metro and regional communities were sorely neglected under successive coalition governments. Australians watched as they delivered the dodgy Mobile Black Spot Program funding only to Liberal and National seats. While they spent their time feathering the nest for the member for New England, who has since deserted them—he's run away—the rest of Australia was left in a lurch. In McEwen, we were constantly ignored. We were punished because we weren't a National or Liberal seat. Places like Gisborne South and Woodend felt the brunt of it. Communities across McEwen were left out of funding rounds for mobile towers. We're one of the most fire-prone areas in the country—74 per cent of our electorate has been burnt out in the last 25 years with fires—but we could not get towers under the program.

I saw the damage firsthand. Telecommunications barriers shifted the playing field, making it harder for people to live and work in our towns and suburbs.

Over those nine long years, I heard from countless frustrated constituents who faced mobile phone problems. Weekends were worse, particularly with the surge of visitors coming into our beautiful part of the world, and businesses had problems relying on 4G EFTPOS facilities that were often unusable, causing major frustrations for traders and visitors alike. However, the most consistent message I received was this: 'My telecommunications provider has failed me and I can't get them to fix it.'

There are countless examples. One constituent had no choice but to have their service with Opticomm, a wholesale provider that operates in many estates in our area. The customer wanted just a simple, stock, standard job: the delivery of fibre to the premises—a pretty basic task, provided daily in homes right across our nation. They were charged $550 for the service. The technician arrived, stayed for 10 minutes and then shot through. He told the customer he couldn't get it working due to a 'blockage' and that he would need a civil engineer first. Opticomm took the money, as if they had completed the job, and left this customer hanging. He couldn't get anyone, and he couldn't get his money back. It's not good enough. Customers deserve better than this. The experience ended with a generic email telling the customer, 'Take the matter up with your builder or your internet service provider'—anyone but the people responsible: Opticomm. Like most people, he didn't have a builder on call; and he couldn't blame the service provider, since he, appropriately, had booked the installation with Opticomm directly. The whole experience left him out of pocket and feeling scammed.

In developing communities like Beveridge, problems with wholesalers and providers need to be tackled. With large new estates, growth has underlined the urgent need for customer support. Recent outages—again, with Opticomm—occurred, along with radio silence from the company. Residents had no indication of the status of the outage or when it would end. This lack of communication and support was both disappointing and stressful for members of those communities. It hampered their daily lives. It hindered their ability to work from home and to complete essential tasks and even school assignments.

Stories like this are as uniform as they are clear. If anything happens to go wrong on the customer's side then it's an extra charge, but if something goes wrong on the operator's side then it's working to their terms, their timelines, their conditions. What is fair for the customer is often the last thing that comes to mind for some of these companies, which is why these laws are important.

So what does this bill do to fix these things? Firstly, it establishes a carriage service provider registration scheme. The message is clear: if you're selling a service to people, you must be able to be seen and contacted by them. We are stopping the operation of dodgy service providers. With the passage of this bill, you can't just disappear into the shadows once you've been paid. Now, visibility requirements will prompt CSPs to deliver messaging to people affected by outages.

Secondly, it updates enforcement action. As I said before, ACMA is the regulator for carriage service providers. Currently, it cannot take direct enforcement action for breaches of the industry codes, no matter how egregious. It can direct companies to comply and issue a formal warning. Big deal! Clearly they take no notice of that. And ACMA can only take stronger measures if the provider continues in its noncompliance. This gives carriage service providers the ability to break whatever code they want, as long as they don't break it for too long. They rinse and repeat, to cut corners, while they protect profits and customers suffer.

Let's look at another local example. And—surprise, surprise!—again it's with Opticomm. At Lorimer, Opticomm bought connections previously owned by Telstra. Where, beforehand, there had been no connectivity issues, all of a sudden the internet stopped working. Cue the following process. A customer attempts to contact Opticomm and is told: 'Call your internet provider. It's not our issue.' The customer calls the internet service provider, and the ISP says: 'Ask Opticomm to get a technician out.' Finally, Opticomm sends a technician out, who can't fix the problem; apparently, they've got to get the more specialised technician required. This happened to a customer three times—three separate technicians over the course of three weeks. The first two came and left without figuring out the problem. It is just not good enough. After the third visit, the technician finally said the issue might be with the fibre cables in the street and that that might be affecting the neighbours too. Opticomm said, 'Well, it might be a couple of days and it might be a couple of weeks to fix.' This tale is told far too often in communities. Given these providers essentially have a monopoly in particular areas, it is up to the government to step in. We need better enforcement capacity, and that is what we will deliver.

Thirdly, we are increasing the penalty for breaches, and modernising the civil penalties framework will make a big difference. It will deter providers from factoring the cost of noncompliance into their profit margins. Under these amendments, we will increase the civil penalties that the Federal Court can issue for breaches of industry codes and industry standards from $250,000 to nearly $10 million. These new laws will also give the court the option to issue fines for regulatory breaches, which can include $10 million, three times the benefit gained for the regulatory breach or 30 per cent of turnover. The government will stop providers from taking advantage of Australians by hitting them where it hurts: their bottom line.

I also want to take note of the protection this bill will provide for consumers experiencing various forms of hardship. Since coming to office, the Albanese government has delivered two new industry standards. One is the requirement that the telecommunications company provide adequate support to customers experiencing financial hardship. The second requirement is that the telecommunications company support and assist consumers experiencing domestic, sexual and family violence. This is so important for people.

Our government, the Albanese Labor government, recognises that we rely on telecommunications connectivity to support our families, our businesses and our communities. We deserve a telecommunications system that is fair, accountable and built on trust. We're not seeking radical change here. This is fixing a framework so that it is consistent with Australian consumer law.

It's also consistent with this government's push for a more connected Australia. Outer metropolitan and regional communities have suffered for too long. We're making the big changes, investing $55 million into round 8 of the Mobile Black Spot Program. This will go a long way to filling the cracks left by the previous pork-barrelling government. We are putting $50 million towards the Regional Roads Australia Mobile Program. Funding here will go towards testing new and innovative solutions for increasing mobile coverage on regional highways and major roads. In round 3 of the Regional Connectivity Program, we have awarded $115 million to 74 projects that will respond to local priorities. These initiatives will deliver economic opportunities and social benefits for regional, rural and remote communities. Through the On Farm Connectivity Program, the government has allocated $43 million across three rounds to enable primary producers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries to extend connectivity in their fields and take advantage of connected machinery and sensor technology.

The amendment carries with it principles of connection, assistance and justice. These were the ideals that were written into the original bill back in 1997, and we're bringing things up to date because of the dodgy operators out there. You don't need to take it from us; you can listen to the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. All were consulted on this bill before it was introduced.

To conclude—I think it's important to recognise the sliding-doors moment that Australia is facing right now. We are seeing great developments in online communication and generative AI technology that improve quality of life. The future is exciting, and it's full of promise. But, as we reach forward for tomorrow, we must also make sure that no-one is stuck with the problems of the past—the problems created under nine years of mismanagement. The Albanese Labor government has listened, and now we are turning what we've been told into action. We are enhancing consumer safeguards and delivering on our promises, and I commend this bill to the House.

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