Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about mobile black spots in my electorate. Those of us who live and work in regional Australia, in areas such as my electorate of Ballarat, understand, much more than others, the importance of functioning mobile phone services. The government has recently opened round 4 of its Mobile Black Spot Program, and I've requested some feedback from my community as to where they see the areas of priority are.

One of the first emails I received was from Stephen Lord, from the Rural Fire Brigade CFA in Rowsley. He told me that his brigade area is almost entirely within a black spot area and that, as a rural area, members of the brigade relied on their mobile phones for communications in the event of any incidents. Being in a mobile black spot, can lead, and has led, to delays in their ability to attend incidents in a timely manner.

Sadly, my electorate is not immune from bushfires. As recently as the summer of 2015-16, we experienced fires. In emergency situations, almost 70 per cent of calls are made from mobiles. So it is not only those emergency workers, many of whom are volunteers, but also community members who are affected by the lack of mobile phone coverage. I've also received feedback from community members in Blackwood, Dales Creek, Mount Egerton and Wattle Flat—all areas that would benefit from improved mobile coverage. Whilst we've improved mobile coverage in Blackwood, there are still some areas that are not covered.

Although the benefits of improved mobile phone coverage during emergency situations are clear, we also need to remember that mobile broadband is becoming the standard means by which many people access government services. Something as simple as reporting your income to Centrelink can end up taking hours for people who are forced to report through the call centre due to a lack of access to mobile broadband. We want people to move to our region—it's a beautiful part of the world that we live in—but they need to be able to set up their businesses and be able to work from home. Mobile broadband is very much part of that.

In the 2016 federal election, Labor pledged to match coalition funding for black spot programs. Labor has been pretty critical, frankly, of the government's approach. We know that 75 per cent of the locations announced in rounds 1, 2 and 3 were either in Liberal or National Party seats. I certainly hope round 4 is not reflective of that seat bias. I certainly hope that we continue to see some attention to the mobile black spots in my own electorate. I look forward very much to putting those communities forward for improved mobile coverage and also working in government—if we are fortunate enough to do so—with the member for Whitlam on how we can further improve mobile coverage in regions like my own.