Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the social, economic and geographic diversity of the Blair electorate, it is no surprise that the concerns of residents often vary according to local circumstances. The challenges facing a farmer in Kilcoy are often different from those of a young family moving into a new housing estate in Ripley Valley south of Ipswich, a retiree in Pine Mountain, a school student in Bundamba or a young woman keen to start a home based business in Brassall. Nevertheless, one grievance unites all the people of Blair: frustration and anger at our telecommunication system.

The undeniable truth is that large areas of Ipswich and the Somerset region do not have fast and reliable telecommunication technology. This hampers local residents, hinders the educational opportunities of our students and harms our local economy. Barely a day passes—certainly not a week passes—without a resident telling me about a problem with their landline, mobile phone or internet service. Last year, these complaints became so frequent that I launched my Blair telecommunications survey so I could get to the bottom of problems for each constituent who contacted me and meet directly with phone and internet providers to push them to lift their game. I have met with a number of them.

Tonight I want to speak briefly about some of the telecommunications problems facing the people of Blair. Landlines still matter to people in Ipswich and Somerset. Despite recent statistics suggesting nearly one-third of adults no longer have a fixed line, these remain a necessity for many people living in Blair. For the elderly, ill and vulnerable in the community, a home phone is the easiest way to contact family and friends. Unfortunately, a home phone depends on an ageing copper network that is in poor condition in many parts of Blair. Recently Telstra admitted that it did not even fully know about the quality of its own network.

What we do know is that faults and failures in the copper network frequently disrupt local phone services. I saw that last year when flooding around Esk caused by the storm and flood conditions we often get in Queensland flooded the Telstra pits. According to Telstra, that was the reason for many people in the Esk region not having access to landlines for about a month.

Poor mobile phone coverage is another common complaint in Blair. While some areas have adequate coverage, there are several notorious black spots, particularly in the Somerset region. Some towns struggle to get mobile reception. This lack of mobile reception is a hand brake on the local economy and a real safety issue for locals and travellers. I was pleased to lobby along with the Somerset Regional Council for $710,000 in the Mobile Black Spot Program funding in round 1 for areas such as Linville, Moore and Somerset Dam. I also lobbied hard in the second round for areas around Coominya, Esk and Toogoolawah to improve mobile phone reception.

However, on 17 February I was frustrated to learn that the Turnbull government had included neither Moore nor Somerset Dam—and that includes Linville—on the program's first six-month rollout in round 1. It means that local residents may need to wait up to a further 2½ years to see mobile coverage improvements in their community. That is simply not good enough, and I have written to the Minister for Communications to urge him to give priority consideration to building mobile infrastructure in Moore, Linville and Somerset Dam by the end of 2016.

The NBN is another bane in the life of people in the region. Under Labor, the country towns as well as Ipswich would all get fibre to the premises and those people living in the rural and remote areas of Blair would also get coverage through advanced satellite commissions and other technology. On 18 February I hosted a public forum in Ipswich to allow people to voice their concerns, and I am pleased that the shadow minister for communications, the member for Blaxland, attended to meet with local residents and business owners to hear firsthand their accounts of phone and internet problems besetting parts of Ipswich and the Somerset region.

We had a good discussion that night, and business owners working in the Ipswich telecommunications industry took the time to come along and talk about their experiences. The member for Blaxland, the shadow minister, heard many stories about the future of the NBN. After two and a half years of the Abbott-Turnbull government, local people were understandably concerned about the NBN—about when they will get it, how they will get it and how fast it will be. They are right to be worried, because it has blown out. Malcolm Turnbull our now Prime Minister promised his second-rate NBN would be built for $29.5 billion. That has now doubled and become $56 billion. He promised his second-rate NBN would reach all homes and businesses by the end of 2016. That has more than doubled now to seven years.

As usual the Prime Minister says one thing but does another. On the NBN, it is simply not good enough for Ipswich and the Somerset region. The Prime Minister should do much, much better.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2007, the House Standing Committee on Family and Human Services—a committee I chaired—brought down a report entitled, The winnable war on drugs: The impact of illicit drug use on families. In that report we identified the evils of ice, which only now seems to be getting the focus that we said it needed. We identified then that it was an issue that needed dramatic action.

We took evidence from a vast number of people and we came down with certain recommendations, 31 of them. One of the main recommendations, and perhaps the main thrust, was that there was a need for a strong advertising campaign which told young people what drugs, and particularly methamphetamines, do to them. We noted that there was a dramatic difference between the success of the antismoking campaign and the way illicit drugs were treated under the harm minimisation concept. We saw that quite strongly when we took evidence from one particular parent who really outlined the sorts of problems that we were to be faced with, and I would like to read one stepfather's story:

I started to get very concerned because Andrew turned around to someone who was parked next to us and started to get aggressive towards him. When the mental health counsellor came out, he did a stupid thing. He stood in front of Andrew, which you never do. You always stand to the side. Andrew is six foot six, and Andrew went berserk. He was flailing his hands around. If Andrew had connected with him, he would have broken his neck. He went away, and all of a sudden we had seven police officers around. It took the seven police officers, one ambulance driver and one of the security guards to pin him down and get the handcuffs on. It was the most terrifying thing. I had never seen this aggression before. He was then admitted as an involuntary patient. They had a lot of problems with Andrew. He refused drug screening. That is the biggest problem.

Problems like that were heard all around Australia, and yet there was a reluctance for action to be taken. We said we needed a campaign of the intensity of the 'grim reaper' campaign, which had such a dramatic effect with regard to AIDS. We said there needed to be a campaign with the intensity and length of the antismoking campaign, with harsh messages similar to those used in that campaign, so that the highly addictive nature of methamphetamines and the consequences of its use could become common knowledge.

We highlighted a program that was used in Montana, where the images they used were dramatic and showed the scabs and picking that went on when people became addicted. The result of that campaign was a 38 per cent drop in the use of methamphetamines by teenagers. In our report we said:

Unlike many illicit drug information sources, which seek to rationalise or ‘balance’ the decision to take drugs by listing the positive as well as negative effects of illicit drugs, there is no recognition of the benefits of smoking, such as a description of its relaxant properties. Nor is there any advice on harm reduction or smoking 'safely’ or ‘responsibly’; rather, the message is that ‘every cigarette is doing you damage’.

That is the sort of hard-line campaign we recommended to dramatically reduce the use of illicit drug taking, particularly with respect to ice.

So many stories have come out now about the risk to doctors, to nurses and to paramedics, yet still we are not seeing the hard-hitting campaign we recommended back in 2007. It is a good report. It contains many stories which can be acted upon and much material that can be used. And it is, I think, timely that we embark upon such a tough campaign because we in Australia are the highest users of methamphetamines and the damage that is being done can no longer be tolerated. We need a hard-hitting campaign like the one that is suggested in this report.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When Malcolm Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott to become Prime Minister last September, Australians breathed a collective sigh of relief. We were told that the days of broken promises and chaotic government were over. We were told we had seen the end of Mr Abbott's extreme hardline ideological obsessions and Mr Turnbull would govern from the political centre in the national interest.

But six months later it is the same reactionary government, the same old obsession with wiping out the progressive gangs of the past. There has been plenty of spin. We have heard the incessant use of words like 'innovation', 'agility' and 'suppleness'. Indeed, Australian taxpayers are paying for it through massive advertising campaigns.

But the only change in substance has been the identity of the man in charge. This government still wants to cut health and education spending. It still wants to undermine Medicare. It still wants to cut pensions and undermine people's job security and working conditions. It still wants to remove penalty rates. Beyond that, it has no plan. Mr Turnbull and his Treasurer have spent months trying to look busy, flying kites about tax reform. But, while they have alarmed pensioners and low-income earners with thought balloons, they have no new policy.

The climax came last week, when the Treasurer attended the National Press Club without making a single announcement of substance. The fact that Mr Morrison had to resort to tortured analogies about cricket and unicorns highlighted something that is dawning upon the entire nation—that this is a government without a plan and without a purpose. We are nearly at the end of the term and we still do not know what this mob stands for.

I often used to say that Mr Abbott had a plan to get into government but no actual plan to govern. Mr Turnbull, as the new Prime Minister, is no different. We got rid of Mr Angry and we got Mr Smiley. But now, finally, we have worked out that we, actually, got Mr Waffle. As each week passes, and as the opposition releases its policies for a better and fairer Australia, this Prime Minister has nothing to say of substance. People are entitled to wonder what the point was of changing leaders, other than a change of the occupation of The Lodge and a confirmation of Mr Turnbull's unshakeable conviction that he was born to rule.

Let's have a look at some of the facts. In unemployment, when government changed the rate 5.6 per cent; today the rate is six per cent. Under Labor we collected 21.5 per cent of GDP on tax in 2012-13; under the coalition it is 22.3 per cent and headed upwards. In government spending, under Labor in our last financial year of 2012-13 it was 24.1 per cent of GDP; under the coalition it is 25.9 per cent of GDP. In new capital expenditure, in terms of public expenditure on infrastructure, it is down by some 20 per cent from the September quarter of 2013 compared with 2015. In private expenditure on capital the figure is even worse—down 24 per cent from the September quarter 2013 compared with 2015. National debt under Labor peaked at 12 per cent of GDP; under the coalition it is 18.3 per cent of GDP.

This is a coalition that has more than doubled the debt. This is a coalition that has presided over a collapse in infrastructure investment and a collapse in policy development when it comes to our cities. We compare this with the fact that when we came into office in 2007 Australia was ranked 20th in the OECD, and when we left office we were ranked first. The coalition has cut investment in infrastructure by 20 per cent, and now it will cut it again to spend $18 million on a propaganda campaign to pretend otherwise. It has failed to deliver actual infrastructure, so instead it will deliver propaganda.