Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards and Other Measures) Bill 2023. Reliable internet access is now an expectation and necessity in 21st century Australia; we're a quarter of the way into this century—wow! Telecommunication access and reliability is vital in much of today's economic, social, cultural and political activity.

We've seen in recent years just how important broadband connectivity has become, with hundreds of thousands of people socialising, working and studying online. That was only heightened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it continues today. The six-hour Tasmania Telstra outage in February 2022 and the more recent 14-hour national Optus outage left people unable to connect with loved ones, TV and radio stations inaccessible and urgent emails unread and unanswered, with the day-to-day routines of many coming to a halt. Such outages cost businesses thousands of dollars when payments cannot be taken, while the simplest of tasks are unable to be communicated to co-workers. It may be seen as a minor hindrance or annoyance to some, but in an emergency communication becomes a critical tool to save property or, above all, life. As the member for a rural and regional electorate, I know this is especially true in the regions.

This bill will deliver certainty to consumers and industry alike around access to these critical services. Through changes to five key areas of telecommunications regulation, the statutory infrastructure provider—or SIP—regime, this bill will also improve safeguards for Australians when they access broadband and voice services. Schedule 1 of the bill refines the statutory infrastructure provider, SIP, regime, which currently ensures all people in Australia can access high-speed broadband wherever they live or work. This will bring private networks for new developments under the SIP regime. Such networks are sometimes deployed in lifestyle or retirement villages or in multiunit buildings and have not previously been subject to SIP obligations. Bringing those areas under this regime will mean consumers serviced by private networks will have greater certainty that they can access broadband and voice at appropriate standards.

Schedule 2 of the bill will provide powers for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to encourage better compliance with requirements for new installations. This will provide a mechanism for SIPs to be required to pay compensation to customers where they do not meet a standard or a rule. While there are no detailed standards or rules in place due to the recent processes to finalise NBN Co's special access undertaking and standard terms, the existence of the mechanism will provide incentives to lift performance.

Schedule 3 of the bill provides powers for ACMA to publish the identities of carriers and carriage service providers in its reports on certain customer service issues and to share information more easily with the government. Importantly, this will allow consumers to make purchasing decisions that are better informed and improve competition and service delivery.

Schedule 4 of the bill will amend the universal service obligation so the minister can determine specific universal service areas in Australia. This will provide flexibility for potential future changes such as bringing Norfolk Island into the universal service regime. While several legislative steps need to be taken for this to occur, this is a foundational step that may assist in the future.

Schedule 5 of the bill makes technical amendments to specific aspects of the regulatory framework. This includes important changes to enhance the enforcement of the carrier separation rules of the Telecommunications Act and the Regional Broadband Scheme, which funds NBN Co's fixed wireless and satellite networks.

I am particularly pleased to see measures in the bill that will give the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman a clearer role in resolving disputes about service connections. Under the new laws, the ombudsman will be able to work with customers and providers to resolve problems. My office often assists farmers and others who live in the most regional part of Lyons who need additional assistance from telcos to make sure they can access the phone and internet services they need. This bill makes it easier for rural and regional Tasmanians to get access to broadband and voice services and empowers the ombudsman to work with both customers and providers should issues arise during the connection process.

At the end of last year in my role as Chair of the House Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts, I had the opportunity to table the committee's most recent report, Connecting the country: missioncritical, from the inquiry into current investment into multicarrier regional infrastructure. The report goes directly to what I am speaking about today—ensuring that the necessary infrastructure and regulations are in place so all Australians, including regional and rural Australians, can reliably access critical telecommunications services.

During the inquiry that informed the report, the committee heard from consumers and industry alike, including state and territory governments, Indigenous communities, primary producers, councils, business chambers, emergency services, health services and community groups. They were a very complex set of hearings and we took a lot of evidence. The overwhelming feedback from across the country was clear: reliable telecommunication services are not a nice-to-have but as essential a service as electricity or running water in our everyday lives. Part of the title of the committee's report—'mission critical'—says it all. I am proud to be part of a government that recognises this and is committed to delivering improved communications infrastructure, services and resilience for all Australians.

I would like to thank the minister for her support through the process. I think she is doing terrific work in this regard. In my electorate of Lyons, for example, I was recently able to announce funding for new mobile base stations in Sheffield, Tea Tree and Ansons Bay through the improving mobile coverage round. This funding delivered my election commitment of a $2.25 million investment by the Albanese Labor government to improve mobile phone coverage in these areas. At the end of last year I met with the Ansons Bay Telecommunications Working Group to discuss the progress of the new mobile phone tower and just how important this project is to members of this isolated north-east community. For those who may not know Ansons Bay, it is a 'one road in and one road out' community. It's a beautiful little spot up in the north-east of Tasmania. It's very isolated and prone to bushfires and so telecommunications is an absolute must.

Residents of Lyons have also benefited from the government's Mobile Black Spot Program, which has extended and improved mobile coverage in Pyengana, Murdunna, Liena, Colebrook. Blackstone Heights, Lachlan and Wilmot, just to name a few. Further, the Albanese government's $480 million investment to upgrade NBN fixed wireless services has meant more than 7,500 residents and businesses across Lyons now have access to uncapped satellite broadband services through NBN Co's Sky Muster Plus product, delivering faster speeds and responding to the demand for more data. That's not to mention the families and businesses in Lyons that already have and those who soon will be able to upgrade to a full-fibre broadband connection as part of the Albanese government's plan for a better National Broadband Network. These upgrades are possible thanks to the Albanese government's $2.4 billion investment to expand full-fibre access to an additional 1.5 million premises by the end of 2025. I think we're a long way removed from the words of former prime minister Abbott, who I think back then said five megabytes or something like that was all you needed in the regions. I can't remember the exact quote, but it's laughable now when we look at the data needs in the regions, not just in homes but also in businesses and on farms, where they are using technology on farm. The communications requirements are just growing and growing. It's fair to say that the telecommunications requirements in the bush are just as critical, if not more so, than they are in elements of the city.

My constituents in Evandale, Longford, Perth, Scamander, Bridgewater, Campbell Town, New Norfolk, Old Beach and Pontville can now upgrade from the slower, less reliable copper broadband network retained by the former coalition government to affordable, reliable, high-speed fibre broadband with no upfront installation cost. It is investments like these that ensure more of my constituents—more Australians—can take advantage of all the opportunities of the digital global economy.

Taken together, the measures in this bill will improve access to broadband and voice services for people across Australia, including in the regions. Australians expect to have access to broadband and voice services and to be able to access these services with a minimum of fuss. They expect the infrastructure to be built and the necessary regulations and consumer safeguards to be in place. This bill is key to meeting those expectations, to improving access to critical communications in Australia and to ensuring certainty for consumers and industry alike of access to broadband and voice services. I commend the bill to the House.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards and Other Measures) Bill 2023. I make the point that the National Broadband Network is critical infrastructure in regional Australia. It connects people, it connects communities and it connects businesses.

Many people will know that the electorate of Nicholls is one of the food bowls, if not the food bowl, of Australia, and agriculture is incredibly important to our region and our economy. The NBN and a reliable internet connection have become a critical element of operating modern, productive and profitable agricultural businesses, whether it be the links between agricultural machinery in the field, like tractors, headers or other machinery that have internet links to GPS or other outside pieces of technology; whether it be access to the Bureau of Meteorology data which helps farmers make decisions; or whether it be, as it was in an occupation I had before coming to this place, using the internet to link together irrigation networks—both networks on farm, where an internet connection can inform farmers of what's happening in relation to soil moisture levels, water and the status of irrigation events, and broader networks. That's a key part of the Goulburn Valley Water and Goulburn-Murray Water connected system. That helps with water efficiency, in that broadband internet networks can talk to each other and can inform Goulburn-Murray Water headquarters when to fill channels because irrigators might need to use that water. Doing that in more of a real-time sense means we have much better water efficiency. A lot of that great technological work and enhancement of the broadband network that led to that being able to be done happened under the previous coalition government.

It's also in terms of manufacturing and service industries. Reliable broadband internet connectivity is critical for emergency service workers to be able to communicate with each other and see what's happening both with weather and with emergency events. In relation to that in particular, I want to make special mention of some of the things that are going on in Victoria at the moment. There are some serious bushfire threats, mostly, as I understand it, in the electorates of Mallee and Wannon, and my thoughts are with those people and the members for those two electorates because they're very concerned at the moment about the bushfires that are happening. A lot of people are also without power in Victoria at the moment as a result of the failure of the network. On the ground in those electorates—in Wannon and Mallee in particular—I'm sure that the enhanced internet access is helping the firefighters and emergency services deal with those problems.

When I was campaigning for the 2022 election, in which I was elected to this place, there was some funding that was committed to enhancing the resilience of some of those broadband networks and the towers, and that has certainly helped in relation to the flooding that occurred in my electorate and also in relation to the fires. That's something that successive governments need to keep doing. They need to look at how we can make sure people have reliable internet not only in the good times but also when they are suffering from some threats.

As at 1 November 2023, the electorate of Nicholls has around 84,000 premises ready connect to the NBN, with 71 per cent served by one of a number of fixed-line technologies, which may include fibre to the basement, fibre to the node, fibre to the curb, hybrid fibre coaxial and fibre to the premises. There are approximately 11,000 premises that are fibre to the node within Nicholls that may be able to access fibre to the premises and an additional 9,700 fibre-to-the-node premises scheduled for an upgrade in the future. Over 6,000 of those are currently under construction. These upgrades have taken place in some of the smaller areas in my electorate, including Cobram, Echuca, Kialla, Kyabram, Nagambie, Numurkah, Rochester, Seymour—which has suffered from some flooding in recent times—Tatura and Yarrawonga, and an upgrade in Broadford is expected to be completed later this year. It's a continuing effort to make sure the latest technology gets, in particular, to the regional areas. This demonstrates that the NBN is not static infrastructure; it is being improved, expanded to more regional towns and growing constantly with new development.

This bill looks to provide a refresh to a system that was introduced by the coalition government, setting out rules for the connection and supply of internet and voice services. It appears to be largely an uncontroversial bill and it will be supported, but there are some issues that we have uncovered that we want to highlight. Firstly, the bill was promised by the minister to be in the House at the end of 2022. That's 2022, not 2023, and here we are now. If there had been comprehensive industry engagement that wound up satisfying or resolving concerns that had been raised, you could understand this delay, but, as is often the case with the Albanese government, unfortunately, there was no such consultation. Even after this delay, the feedback we've got is that the minister did not listen to many industry concerns and failed to properly engage with them.

This bill primarily makes a number of changes to the operation and enforcement of what is known as the statutory infrastructure provider, or the SIP regime. The regime sets rules related to the connection and supply of internet and voice services across Australia and was introduced by the coalition government in July 2020, acting essentially as a universal broadband service guarantee. In the history of telecommunications in Australia, universal service guarantees have played an important part in ensuring that regional and remote Australians such as the people in my electorate of Nicholls have access to quality services. SIPs are carriers that must provide basic wholesale broadband services in the areas they service. The NBN is the default SIP for the vast majority of Australian premises, but other carriers that have installed network infrastructure to connect premises in areas such as new real estate developments, shopping centres or apartments may also be deemed to be SIPs. There are 32 registered SIPs in Australia, covering areas large and small.

The SIPs have obligations under the Telecommunications Act 1997 to connect premises in their service areas to their networks. These obligations include ensuring wholesale services are made available to retailers to provide connections for consumers, including setting minimum broadband speeds. In February 2021 the then minister for communications announced plans to engage industry stakeholders on new standards, rules and benchmarks for SIP networks. This government continued that process, and, in late August 2022, the Minister for Communications announced a new round of public consultation on the laws and invited submissions on a draft bill. The submissions were to close, after a relatively short period, in late September 2022, and the bill was supposed to be before the parliament by the end of 2022. But the bill was finally introduced in the House in the very last sitting week of 2023. Maybe the government were a bit distracted during 2023—I'm not sure. So, a year late, here we are.

The explanatory memorandum makes it clear that, while there was general support for the provisions of the draft bill, concerns raised during the consultation process resulted in amendments and further consultation on changes to the draft bill. Stakeholders—some in my electorate—may have felt that they have been ignored and their concerns about the disclosure provisions haven't been listened to properly. But the coalition generally supports this bill because it provides a range of technical updates to tweak the system which the coalition introduced. Such tweaks are of course normal and expected in such a fast-changing telecommunications environment, where technology is evolving at a very fast pace.

As I explained earlier, digital connectivity and new technologies are very important, especially in regional Australia. This parliament has a responsibility—the coalition did it, and I'm pleased that this government is continuing on with that work—to make sure that that digital connectivity is available to all, not just the easy stuff, which is so often the way. The easy stuff is where the big populations are and you need fewer assets for a higher density of people, so that gets done, and then, where there are low density populations, that gets pushed out or doesn't happen at all.

The coalition will be watching carefully to see what the Senate inquiry comes up with. We've reserved our right to consider amendments recommended by that committee, but we're broadly supportive and we encourage the government to continue to be committed to providing the latest technology and broadband access to those in regional Australian. People in metropolitan areas benefit from that, even though they may not know it. People sitting in some of the metropolitan seats in Melbourne and Sydney are interested in what their broadband speeds are in their own houses or in their own businesses. But, as is so often the case—and we in the National Party are here to explain that and advocate for that across this parliament—what happens in regional Australia affects you in the metropolitan areas. That's because so many of our resources—whether they be in agriculture or mining or a range of other industries—depend on the viability and productivity of regional Australia. It's important that all legislation looks out to the regions as well as the metropolitan areas.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm truly grateful that we've been joined by the Minister for Communications. At the outset, I'm going to be very bipartisan and give the minister some kudos. Her first visit as the minister, I understand, was to the Riverina electorate. We met with Peter, Meegan, Todd and Lily McCarten at Naradhan. The McCartens operate a large mixed farming enterprise. At the time, they'd recently upgraded their internet through NBN Australia's Sky Muster Plus satellite service, and the minister was good enough to not only go and visit them at their farm but also, I understand, follow up with them and with the services that were being provided to that district. That's important. That's what a good minister does.

At the time, the minister also looked at the new solar farm on the Newell Highway just outside West Wyalong in Bland Shire. I can happily report to the minister that that is progressing very nicely. Each time I travel along the Newell Highway between West Wyalong and Forbes, I look at that project and reflect back to that day. Again, it's what can be done when ministers look to regional Australia, as the member for Nicholls has just said. I joined the parliament with the member for Greenway back in 2010. I believe we've got a very good working relationship, and that's important. As the member for Nicholls pointed out, the government should look at every piece of policy through the lens of how it is going to affect regional Australia, because it's regional Australia where the action is. I appreciate, Deputy Speaker Payne, that you're from this fine centre of Canberra. Canberra could not operate without what happens in regional Australia—it just could not. We saw that writ large during COVID. In those very dark days, it was regional Australia that led the way. It led the economy, through providing the food and through providing the resources that kept food on the table and the balance of payments as they should be. That is why communications are also so vital.

Back when my father was farming, if they needed to sell grain or stock, they had to get off their tractor or their farm implement, get in the ute, drive back to the house, get on the landline and hope that it coincided with the time that the seller or the buyer was available. Now they can do it on their tractors. They can do it and keep that tractor, or header or harvester or scarifier or whatever it might be, still operating. They can do it via telecommunications.

And farming is now very much in the digital world. Indeed, the farm equipment is operating with GPS technology. So it's not as it was, back in the day when a young Michael McCormack would sometimes deliberately drive the tractor off-line so that he wouldn't have to do it the next day, and his exasperated father would tell him: 'That was it! You've been banned from doing this until you can get your line straight,' and that was always great! But these days, the tractors literally drive themselves and not a skerrick of property or land is wasted. And that's important. So that's why it is so important that we get communications right and continue that investment. That's why it's good that the minister is here.

This legislation does make a number of changes to the operation and enforcement of the statutory infrastructure provider regime. I heard the member for Nicholls talking about how important communications technology, digital technology, is to the irrigation systems and the channels and the operators within his fine electorate, where they grow so much of the food and fibre this nation relies upon. Again, that is of critical importance.

The SIP regime in this particular piece of legislation was established by the coalition government. It set rules related to the connection and supply of internet and voice services across Australia. The changes in this bill are aimed at providing better access to these services, with additional safeguards—and safeguards are so important—for consumers, and improved recourse in the event there is disputation. The bill seeks to provide clarity and certainty for industry and consumers.

As the member for Nicholls has pointed out, the coalition is broadly supportive of the bill. We do believe it is late. It has been unnecessarily delayed. I get that the minister has had other things on her mind, and I know how busy she would be. It's a big, broad portfolio.

The bill would also confirm the ability of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to deal with consumer complaints on SIP related issues. In addition, the bill expands the powers of the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, relating to reports on the performance of telecommunications companies. That is vital, because the government needs to ensure that companies are kept to their KPIs and are upfront and transparent and accountable to government.

Government makes a big investment in the communications space. I appreciate that telecommunications companies do as well. But the SIP regime, as I say, was introduced by the coalition government. That was back in July 2020. It essentially acts as a universal broadband service guarantee. And those guarantees are necessary.

I know that my predecessor in the seat of Riverina, Kay Hull, crossed the floor on the sale of Telstra because she understood just how important it was, for those universal service obligations, for the biggest telco in the country to ensure that—both then and in the long distance future—they didn't forget the bush and that they didn't ignore their responsibilities when it came to providing those sorts of services. Given the fact that they are, in a sense, relying on government investment, given the fact that they have a lot of customers, some of those communities don't have a lot of consumers. They don't have a lot of people, but their ability to tap in to the economy and provide what is needed is absolutely important.

I'll give you two examples of those kinds of communities. One is Murringo near Young. I can remember the delight of that community when they were put online, so to speak, with a telecommunications tower. It brought them into the known universe. They had felt so isolated. I can remember a number of women in that community coming up to me at the launch and saying how important it was for them to be able to run their little businesses which were selling to the world and how this had brought them online. But it was more important, perhaps, for their children, some of whom were in the vital years of schooling. Every year in education is important, but year 12 of course is a big year. In year 11 and 12, when young people are doing their high school certificate, to be able to learn online and have access after they go home from school when they're doing their homework et cetera is of critical importance to their futures. The people of Murringo—particularly the women of Murringo—were so delighted.

The other community I do want to mention is Goobarragandra. There's a fellow there called Tony Keremelevski and Tony was very concerned about the fact that so many people used that wonderful little 'escape' on the river near Tumut for holidays and camping, particularly during summer but during other seasons as well. The population swelled to double, if not quadruple, during the warmer months, and there were no telecommunications whatsoever. It becomes a safety issue. Not only that, but Tony had family members who weren't exactly in the best of health, and he was concerned that one day there would be an incident either for the visitors or closer to home and they would not able to communicate with emergency authorities.

Tumut went out of my electorate, but I maintained advocacy through the member for Parkes, who was then in a regional development role as minister. We were able to get that communications tower for that community. I well recall ringing the member for Parkes on the day just to prove that the technology worked. It was rather an amusing conversation. I'm not quite sure that the member for Parkes realised that the entire audience there was listening. I think the transcript is available for those who wish to view it. It was rather an interesting conversation. I then announced to him that he was talking to the entire audience, and he changed his conversation very quickly. He was a good regional development minister who understood exactly what was required in these local communities. Murringo and Goobarragandra are vital for different reasons.

As I say, this legislation is important. It is broadly supported by the coalition. The bill does look to provide a refresh to a system introduced by us when we were in government, setting out the rules for connection, supply of internet and voice services. I would impress upon the minister—the member for Greenway—that, in relation to future rounds of mobile phone towers, the people who are ticking off on those should look beyond government electorates. I do think that's important. The member for Indi has joined us. The member for Indi's electorate never missed out under a coalition government, even though the seat was no longer in government when we were running the show. Sometimes I was quite jealous of the number of towers that the member for Indi got, as opposed to the member for Riverina—but that's another story! It was based on need and it was based on geography.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

They were excellent applications!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) | Link to this | Hansard source

I will ignore the interjections! No doubt they were excellent applications—not just by the Independent member for Indi, who is also a good friend of mine.

The member for Wide Bay sits behind me too. He, as much as anybody, understands the importance of good communications not just because of his advocacy for his electorate but because his electorate takes in Noosa. That's important. The number of visitors who go there each summer is incredible. As a former police officer, he would well understand the importance of good communications and good mobile phone technology in a time of emergency and crisis.

This bill is something that the Minister for Communications promised would be in the House by the end of 2022. It is now 2024. I get the fact that she is busy. I understand the fact that this is largely an uncontroversial bill. But I do impress upon the minister—and she understands this because she not only is the communications minister but also communicate with other members—the importance of continuing the investment in regional Australia. This is not just for regional Australia and rural Australia but for remote Australia. I know we went through a complete referendum process last year for a voice to parliament. I'll tell you what's more important than a voice to parliament in remote communities in, particularly, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. I'll throw in South Australia, western New South Wales and even Queensland. Why stop there? What's important is getting Aboriginal communities to be able to have a voice on the phone that can be heard because there's technology there and they can be connected to the outside world. If ever there was importance for a voice for those communities, it's through mobile phone technology.

The bill is important. The bill is supported. Again, I'm pleased that the minister has seen fit to come in and listen to the contributions. That's not always done by government ministers. I know this minister has knowledge across the brief, and I appreciate her for that. I appreciate the work that she is doing. Again, it's so important that regional Australia is front and centre of absolutely anything to do with communications, because regional Australia is where the action in the economy is.

Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the contribution from the previous speaker, the member for Riverina. There's a really good reason why regional MPs are speaking on this bill: it really matters to us. I, too, appreciate having the Minister for Communications and the minister's team in the room to listen to our contributions. Much of what you hear you would have heard before, but you will continue to hear it until we have solved the problem of telecommunications connectivity right across rural, regional and remote Australia.

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards and Other Measures) Bill 2023. This bill makes important reforms to the way we regulate internet providers like the NBN so that the system better meets the needs of a modern Australia. I welcome the reforms to make the internet more available and more reliable, especially in country Australia. I want to put on the record that I thank the minister for her work on this. It's critical because, in regional, rural and remote Australia, the NBN rollout has really been disappointingly slow. If ever there was a case of overpromising and underdelivery, it is the disappointment for rural, regional and remote Australians from the time that the NBN was announced. I will continue to advocate until it is as good as it can possibly be. In Indi towns like Violet Town and across the Strathbogie shire, many residents rely on fixed wireless and satellite. Those who do have access to the NBN face congestion, slower speeds and dropouts still to this very day.

This bill is a step towards strengthening consumer protections when it comes to the internet, because when you pay for a service like the NBN you expect it to work. This bill will improve consumer safeguards through a series of amendments, including: (1) requiring providers to pay compensation to customers if providers contravene a standard, including standards about connecting and supplying internet; (2) expanding the powers of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to resolve complaints about internet connections; and (3) empowering the internet provider regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, to issue notices to developers who do not install functional, fibre-ready facilities in new developments, because, when you move into a new home, you expect your power and water to be connected, and the same standards should apply to the internet. Finally, the bill also empowers the ACMA to publicly identify internet carriers that aren't up to scratch. This will help give consumers more information on how the NBN and other internet service providers are performing, including which are meeting standards and which are lagging behind. And I am always pro transparency.

I am supporting this bill because all Australians deserve better consumer protections when it comes to the delivery and supply of reliable, adequate internet. People across my electorate of Indi work online, study online and keep in touch with family and friends online. Telehealth has made health care more accessible to those of us in the regions, and this is critical; I can't overstate it. Our agricultural communities and our farmers have come to rely on real-time weather information and other internet provided technologies—storm tracking is a case in point in the last 24 hours—to protect their livestock, their crops and their very livelihood.

We rely on internet connectivity to pay at local stores, and even stalls at farmers markets may take cards more than cash now; they have their little squares. At times they've had to stand with one leg facing towards the breeze to try and get connectivity. It needs to be reliable. They rely on payment systems operating all the time, not just some of the time.

Back at home, it's not just one person online, of course. It's often mum and dad in the lounge room, perhaps watching television or potentially doing office work, and their kids in the bedrooms, studying or video-calling their friends.

We especially need reliable phone and internet in times of emergencies, as other speakers have pointed to—something that people in rural and regional Australia know so deeply. Only yesterday those terrible storms and bushfires sweeping across Victoria heightened the awareness of the dependency that we have on internet that works. A survey by the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, ACCAN, a fantastic organisation, found that 88 per cent of respondents expect their phone and internet services to work during emergencies like bushfires and floods.

In every Australian household, and especially in country areas, we're relying on the internet more than ever. It is an essential service. But, with so many households in my electorate relying on dodgy NBN connections or snail-pace ADSL lines, still, clearly regional Australia is getting left behind, and we can't allow that to be the case. I hear from constituents whose ADSL lines are flooded at the first sign of rain, meaning their home internet is offline more than it's online. I hear from constituents whose only option, if they want any home internet at all, is to buy expensive aftermarket satellite hardware. I've heard from a constituent whose job was put at risk because they simply couldn't rely on a consistent connection through the day.

In Mansfield, businesses are having to adjust their schedule based on when the internet connection is fast enough to handle videoconferences with their clients. In Kinglake, in the south of my electorate, Pam Lawless lives just off the main road, but NBN Co says it has no plans to connect her to the network. Despite living less than two kilometres from the outskirts of metropolitan Melbourne—it's extraordinary, really—the best that NBN Co can suggest is that she look into satellite options. She finds it frustrating that, despite living and working on the fringes of a major city, she and her neighbours feel like they're being left behind.

That's why in 2022 I introduced my Faster Internet for Regional Australia Bill. This bill would have required the NBN and internet service providers to do better by regional Australia. My bill would have required internet providers to provide average speeds of 25 megabits per second all day, every day. It would have ensured regional customers aren't waiting a month to get connected, when people in the cities get connected in a day. Even where people have an NBN connection, there is no guarantee they'll get what they pay for. Broadband providers often advertise speeds which do not match what customers actually receive. The standard of 19 days to provide a new service in regional Australia and up to three days to fix a network fault is simply too slow to attract businesses to come to regional areas with confidence. It's clear to me that the NBN rollout has not been delivering for regional Australia, and we have to keep on this; we have to make sure it does. It's very encouraging to see the government moving on this issue; it truly is.

In addition to this bill, I note new industry standards on how telcos manage financial hardship. So many families are truly doing it tough now, and paying these bills is a real hardship. Ensuring those trying to balance their budgets are not disconnected from study, work or just staying in touch with family shows the government can listen and design fairer processes for people doing it tough, and I congratulate them for that.

The School Student Broadband Initiative has also been so valuable in the past few years, and I'm glad to see the government recommit for another two years. It's really important, and I thank them for continuing this program that was started by the coalition—so credit where credit is due across the board. The program provides free NBN access to families who are otherwise struggling to afford it on their own. With over 40 per cent of beneficiaries from this program coming from the regions, this is a commonsense policy for ensuring our kids in rural and regional Australia don't miss out on their education. We've seen horrifying data in the last few days indicating that rural and regional kids are behind, and we cannot reinforce that disadvantage by not having access for every single child to this fundamental and essential service. Unfortunately, the very need for this program shows that rural and regional Australia is still missing out on world-class connectivity.

Another positive development is the new special access undertaking, or SAU, which was finalised only last year. The SAU expands the powers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the ACCC, to oversee and regulate the service standards of NBN across Australia. This is a really important part of making sure internet users get fast, reliable and affordable internet. When this SAU expires in 2040 it's expected that NBN Co will make more than $100 billion from consumers—so they need to deliver on the promise. It's only fair that customers are getting what they pay for, which is why the SAU requires NBN Co to consult with consumer advocacy groups to make sure the standards are actually working. To make consultation truly work, I'd like to see the government fund a communications consumer organisation to lead engagement with NBN Co and ensure the interests of all Australians, including and especially those in the regions, are well represented.

The SAU also means the ACCC can now oversee and regulate the NBN's minimum service performance benchmarks. For anyone listening at home, it's acronym city here! I apologise for that; there needs to be a glossary of terms at the end of this speech! But it underscores that this is a complex but critical area of public policy. It is really important that these minimum service standards improve because, right now, they're just not good enough for people living in regional, rural and remote Australia. Internet connectivity especially continues to be a daily challenge; it really does.

I will continue to advocate—and the minister knows that—a better NBN for the regions, whether that be through mechanisms like the special access undertaking from NBN Co, the universal service obligation or the guarantee that a person will receive phone service—that's under review right now. I'll continue to work with local councils and with the Indi Telecommunications Advisory Group, or ITAG, which the member for Riverina was just referring to. The extraordinary success that Indi has had in being funded for mobile telecommunications towers isn't an accident; that is a very deliberate collaborative approach across my electorate, with nine local governments and me working together to put in top-quality applications to government funds and to do everything we can as a community to identify where there are problems and work with government—whoever's in government—to try and get them fixed.

I'm very, very proud that through ITAG we were able to secure funding for key NBN infrastructure just a couple of months ago, such as the more than $2 million announced last year to establish fibre-to-the-premises NBN in the tiny little alpine village of Harrietville as part of the Regional Connectivity Program. Those people are absolutely delighted. They've waited a long time. I urge the government to continue funding this program in the next budget—please, do that—to make sure we can continue and finish the job of connecting regional, rural and remote areas to the internet.

When the NBN isn't available, I want to see better satellite and mobile broadband solutions because my constituents are tired of hearing that because they live in a regional area they must accept the NBN may not make it to them. It's not good enough. We must make sure that, if it is to be satellite, it's absolutely top class. This issue is so important for the development of the regions. We can't let them fall behind the cities because they can't connect. It's absolutely critical to my electorate because it's a disaster prone area. I know I'm not the only one in that situation. The Black Summer bushfires, the Black Saturday bushfires 10 years before that, flooding, catastrophic storms and so on absolutely underscore the critical nature of this. This is not just for a Netflix connection, even though I'm the first to want one of those too! People rely on phone and internet services to keep themselves and their families safe. They just do. I know the minister knows that.

Throughout my career as a nurse, a midwife, an academic researcher and an MP, I have learnt that you don't stop until the job is done. That's my message to the government. The reforms in this bill will benefit consumers across Australia, but there is much more to be done before we can say with confidence that all Australians have access to reliable, affordable, fast internet.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to commend the member for Indi for her contribution. The member for Indi is correct. There is a common theme coming through from the speakers on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards and Other Measures) Bill 2023, and that is regional and rural Australia. I'll add another element to that—the peri-urban regions as well. The members for Riverina and Indi have both paid compliments to the Minister for Communications, and I want to do that as well. Communications is such an important issue that should be bipartisan, and it's a credit to her that she is here today to listen.

I'll talk a little bit about what's happening in my community today. I've been inundated with calls and messages. I know it will mean a lot to them that the minister is here to listen, because it is such an important issue, particularly in emergencies. I will give the minister and her team fair warning that there is some correspondence coming following up our correspondence earlier this year looking at eligibility around the Dandenong Ranges. I know and appreciate the minister acknowledged the concerns about resilience in peri-urban areas and having to look at the boundaries of the funding schemes and how we can resolve these. We will be looking forward to working with the minister's office on how we can find funding for peri-urban areas. It's a continual frustration for my community in the Dandenong Ranges, the Upper Yarra and the Yarra Valley. It's a 40- to 50-minute drive with no traffic from the CBD, but anyone who visits knows it's not suburban. It is beautiful nature. It's farmland, agricultural land, mountains and challenging terrain. There are a lot of beautiful trees. There are a lot of tall trees, hundreds of feet high. The problem is that, when there's a storm, lots of trees fall down and we lose power. When we lose power in our community, we lose communications.

There are about 70,000 properties that are without power today across my community, including many community groups and many schools, including my own children's school. I want to pay tribute quickly to all those teachers that I know are teaching and doing the best they can today without any power at the schools. I say thank you to them and all the community members who are rallying around to make sure we can get through. Hopefully it will be only a couple of days or the next week or so without power and communications.

I also need to acknowledge that for many people today is actually going to be a tough day. It's going to bring back some trauma from the June storms of 2021. Anyone that lived in my area and community then was impacted by those storms. We were three weeks without power ourselves, but that was nothing. Many people in the Dandenong were three months without power and, 2½ years on, they haven't rebuilt yet. So I want to acknowledge that for those people, who might be okay physically and whose house might be okay, there will be a lot of trauma. It's important we rally around and support each other.

I want to share a couple of stories of my experience on that day but also from the CFA with the minister in the room so she can understand my passion and my community's passion about why we need strong, resilient emergency services. On that day, my wife and I were blocked in our house for about six to eight hours. Trees had come down at the front of our road, so we couldn't leave our house. The CFA came and checked on us within a couple of hours. We were really fortunate. The scary part about that experience is that we had quite a few trees around our house. No trees fell down on the house, so we were safe, but we had that conversation because, while phones are very convenient, when there's no internet and no phone reception, they're the most useless things in the world. Like many houses, we don't have a land line, so we had that conversation in that moment. If a tree had fallen on our house and my wife, our children or I had been hurt, we'd have had literally no ability to get out or to get help. The cars couldn't leave the driveway. It's a moment where you realise how vulnerable you are.

Bushfires are another significant threat in our community. I lived through Black Saturday. The 2019 bushfires live with us all. The CFA have said we were fortunate, in a way, that the storms were a static event. It was a significant event, but it wasn't a dynamic, fast-moving event. Communication was a significant issue, but it wasn't as significant as if it were a bushfire and we were trying to get updates on the spot. That's what we're talking about.

To highlight the challenges from an emergency services perspective: I spoke to Sarah, who's a friend of mine I have known for many years from the Sassafras-Ferny Creek CFA. During the storms, the only way they could communicate was by having her mobile phone placed on one little spot in their station. She was trying to text people. If she moved it even a centimetre, she said, it felt like it would drop in and out. That was how the CFA across the Dandenong ranges were trying to communicate with each other in the middle of the night with trees continuing to fall down. The Emerald SES had one of their vehicles crushed on that night. By luck, the two SES members weren't in the vehicle, but, again, if they had been and they'd been hit, they'd have had no ability to call for support or for help during that storm.

So I do want to pay tribute to all our volunteers. They don't get paid for this. They are volunteers that have left their families in the middle of the night, in pitch dark, to go help other people, to put their lives on the line. What we need to do as governments—and this is not a criticism of the government; this is bipartisan, because I acknowledge it is a challenging situation with the terrain and the topography. It's not about politics; it's about working in a bipartisan way to make them as safe as possible so that, when they risk their lives to protect our community, they have the communications they need to call for backup. I understand it's challenging, but the frustration my community has—and it's happened previously; it's not about this government—is about things like the Mobile Network Hardening Program. When the community is not able to get funding and is told it is a metropolitan area, it furthers that frustration for us. I am really grateful; I didn't expect the minister to be here, but I'm glad I could share those stories on behalf of my community. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with you on that.

We've got people that are lucky, but it's also about resilience and the reality that NBN and communications are essential services in emergencies but also day to day in our community. Belinda Young, from Mums of the Hills, has been an amazing advocate for this. You need to understand: if you live in the Dandenong Ranges or you live in the Upper Yarra or Yarra Valley, your neighbour is not 15 or 20 metres away; they are kilometres away. Even if they're next door, you've got a couple of kays up your driveway and a couple of kays around. You cannot just walk to your neighbours. Isolation, for mums in particular and young mothers at home with their children, is a significant issue. Being able to communicate with their friends on their phones through Facebook and social media is so crucial.

I want to share how Mums of the Hills started, because it's an important story that highlights how important communications are. Belinda founded Mums of the Hills because she'd moved to the area and her husband was at work. She was at home with their young son and she fell off a ladder and hurt herself. She was lucky that it wasn't significant. It was in that moment that she realised she didn't know anyone in the area that could support her. She literally couldn't walk, but even if she could, she wouldn't have been able to walk to the neighbours because she was living in the Dandenong. That's how she founded Mum of the Hills, as a Facebook group to support mums as they go through challenges and to build that connection. This is the only way, as I said, that these mums can initially communicate.

I didn't stay at home, but my wife reminds me often that, even if you can duck out, with a couple of young kids, it's not five minutes; there is a process you need to go through. This network of friends, through Facebook, is really important. They got through COVID as a community, and they continue to support each other through financial challenges and other challenges. I know Belinda has spent a lot of time advocating for communications as an essential service. I want to thank her for her advocacy and continue to support her. We need to do more in this regard.

It's not just the Dandenong but it's also our farming communities in the Yarra Valley that have challenges. Last year, as an example, a satellite went down and tractors across the country stopped working. Farmers weren't able to farm. It's a great example of the advantages of the digital economy and of the productivity gains and efficiencies we can get from technology and digital, but, if we're so reliant on it and if we've got no redundancy in our system, that creates risk. That's why we need to continue to make sure that, in our regional farming communities, NBN isn't a 'nice-to-have.' As the member for Indi said, we don't want a strong NBN just so we can watch Netflix. We need a strong connection to the internet so we can farm, so we can work from home if we need to and so kids can access schooling from home, as we saw through COVID. It's a way of being able to just live—and I don't want to use the term 'normally', but it's having the basic ability to communicate. If something happens, your neighbours are not two minutes away; they're a long way away.

I spoke about this in my first speech. I think we need to look at understanding the new technologies that are available. Satellite communication is moving at a rapid pace. It provides opportunities that can alleviate some of the geographical and topographical challenges that we face. I understand we're moving down an NBN path, and that is important, but I believe—whether it's NBN or private partnerships—we need to look at how we can maximise satellites to solve some of these challenges in hard-to-reach places, in areas like mine where there are valleys and mountains, where geography plays a huge part in the challenges we face. Satellites provide that opportunity.

We talk a lot about communications. For many people it is about better internet access for Netflix and for living their lives, working from home in the suburbs in Middle Australia. That's important. I don't denigrate that, but there's a reason that a lot of regional, rural and peri-urban members have spoken today. It's because this is one of the biggest challenges our communities face.

I'll finish by thanking the minister for being here to listen. I look forward to continuing to work with her on some bipartisan solutions for my community and many other communities as well.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) | Link to this | Hansard source

First of all, I'd like to also acknowledge the member for Greenway, the Minister for Communications, for being here. It shows a professionalism that should be respected by so many others in the job they do. That's very encouraging. It's important because this is all part of our nation.

For me, one of the biggest fights I had was when I first arrived in parliament as a senator in 2005. It was the time of the sale of the remainder of the shares in Telstra. It was a big issue, and we had to, on behalf of those representing regional constituencies, try and bargain as best we could to get the best deal possible. I'll be frank. At the end, the whole range of the network guarantee, the customer service guarantee—all these things that we got, including $2 billion for things that we hadn't thought of at the time—was important, because we had to try and get regional people to a position. Basically, I held out my vote until we dealt with these things. At the start, we got nothing, then apparently they offered us $600 million. That came through, and then I was being pressured by my leader at the time to say yes. Then we got a billion dollars, and I still held out because I was in negotiations with other people telling me what funds we needed to actually do what we had to do. In the end, amongst all the guarantees we got, there was an extra $2 billion. I have to be frank; once we lost the election, my colleagues in the coalition voted with the Labor Party to get rid of the money. That was a huge disappointment, because it showed a lack of understanding of what exactly we were doing in regional areas.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to take you briefly to a conversation I just had in the other chamber. The member for Hotham and I had an exchange. I was saying how important it was to look after people in regional areas, especially with things such as roads, because we don't have bus services. Because we don't bus services, I said, 'A mother is unable to have a job because she spends the whole time trying to manage getting kids to school and back from school.' The interjection was: 'It's 2024. Don't you think guys should do it as well?' Yes, they could. But they've got to organise someone in the house to go out and have a job. Unfortunately, so often it's the reality that it falls on the mother to pick up this responsibility. It just does. What mothers want to do in regional areas is work from home; then they can have a job. But they can't work from home if they don't have any telecommunications or if it's unreliable. The employer just says: 'I'm sorry; it's unreliable. We can't do this. We can't have you as part of our office environment because we just can't rely on your internet connection.' Therefore, that person is relegated to home duties. They don't want to; they want to have a professional life like everybody else. I know this, with my wife being a journalist. She absolutely tunes me up about how things are going in telecommunications. I know there are quite a number of people on the other side probably thinking that's a very good reason not to give her telecommunications!

Let's go through some of the things that are important. I'd like to thank Elon Musk, because, before Elon Musk turned up with Starlink, having any satellite was really dodgy. They say 'go satellite'. Satellites just drop out. Things can happen in the house, like another kid turns on another program, and then your telecommunications drops out. This is just not viable. You'll probably note, colleagues, when I do mornings with Sunrise, that I've got this beautiful view. They say: 'Isn't that lovely? He's on the top of a hill.' There's a very good reason for that. It's the only place I get reception. That's why we go up the hill. We go up the hill to get reception. Sometimes we can get it from halfway up; sometimes we go to the top. We've got to have good reception for that link. Even that link's at 4G, not 5G.

One of our big worries about how we've gone from CDMA to 2G to 3G to 4G to 5G is that they're going to turn off 3G. For a lot of us, that's all we get. The No. 1 issue is that, if something goes wrong, you need to be able to make a phone call. We have 14 kilometres of dirt road—these are simple things. Just the other day, the road was out. A tree fell across it. No-one turns up with a chainsaw. Imagine if someone had a heart attack. Imagine if something had gone wrong and you can't get out. We're worried when they turn off 3G, Minister, that we're going to have 0G. We will have 5G come on board, but it's a much better service for a much smaller range. We've got to hold these people's feet to the fire and say: 'You don't turn off 3G till you can prove to the government that you've got 5G. We're going to go to areas that have got 3G, and, if they don't get 5G, we're going to say, "You can't turn off 3G until they've got a service."' They've got to have a service.

It is the No. 1 issue for our security and for anybody who's sick. If you're sick and you don't have a phone, you've got to move into town, and there are a whole range of other expenses. You've got to rent a house. You mightn't want to go into aged care, so you've got to rent a house. These things all come off telecommunications. We're finding this out lately. We're going higher and higher up the hill. As, apparently, the broadband gets better, we're going higher up the hill to try and get that connection. It's basic standard-of-living things.

If something goes wrong, you have to call the police. In the country, a lot of people own firearms, so, if something goes wrong, you have to call the police. If a problem arrives at the house, you can't drive out, because the problem is at your front door. You have to have that phone service to say, 'I have a problem here, and I need help in a big hurry.' If someone is home alone and has a stroke, a heart attack, appendicitis or something else go wrong, they need a phone service, otherwise they're in trouble. We do have instances, tragically, where people die because they can't call anybody. If you just work phone services on profitability, you will have areas that have a great standard of living and other areas that have poor people made poorer because they don't have any service at all. You need to hold their foot to the fire.

I want to give another example, Minister. A lot of these mobile phone towers are connected with electricity. You've just seen what happens when the electricity goes out. When it goes out, all your mobile phone towers go out. We had a meeting about this in a place called Nowendoc which almost filled the hall. These things are really important in local areas. They said: 'On our farms, if a pump goes out or if a house goes out, we have what's called a 'Murphy switch' on a generator. The generator kicks in straightaway and the power is restored. We understand that, at times, the power goes out. We rig things up so we can deal with it. For some unknown reason, mobile phone towers don't have that. We want someone to say to them, "We want you to give us assurity that, if the power goes out, the mobile phone tower keeps going." They trip and then you can have three or four go out, and then you have no mobile reception.' These people say: 'We will help you out, if you want. We can rig up the generator and make sure it's there. As soon as the power goes out, it will turn the switch and on it will go.' Sometimes you almost get a sense of belligerence. It gets put in the too-hard basket. They can't quite get there. They're not listening to these people and what they say. They need that tower going.

Minister, I understand the parochialism about mobile phone coverage, but it's really important that within your department you say: 'Get back to me. We need a basic service. I want you to tell me where on the map that basic service isn't.' That basic service might also be in the peri-urban areas of a major capital, where they just don't have mobile phone service. I've found that. We all know that when you drive along and go over a certain ridge there will be no phone service, and then you have it back later. Find out where those areas are and then say, 'Let's have a program to do this,' and hold them to the fire. Say, 'If you're going to get cash from the government, I want something back in return: your guarantee on exactly what you're going to do for us.'

Another thing is that they're very parochial—and I'm sure you understand—about roaming. They don't like roaming, because they like monopolies. There has to be a discussion that, even if it's not global, we need to have roaming in situ in certain areas of critical need. You can charge them a premium for using a tower, but you've got to allow them to use the tower. If someone goes from the city, they're on Optus and they roll their car where I live, Danglemah: forget it; there's no service. But if you go to other places, roll your car and you're on Telstra: no service. We have to say that in situ in certain areas, in critical areas, part of the deal is that you have to allow roaming. It's a safety thing. A telecommunications network that only works in Sydney isn't effective; it's effective when it works across the nation.

Work from home is something so many women want to do. That is the reality in regional areas. Once your kid goes to school, you are working at home or you're not working. For Zoom meetings, Teams meetings and all these types of meetings, they need the bandwidth to stay on that meeting, otherwise people don't take them seriously.

In our areas we have farm machinery. Farm machinery these days is completely different to the farm machinery of the past. It works with a 100 per cent connection to places like Detroit. If you're on a John Deere, your tractor is talking to Detroit. Why? If you have a bearing or heat issue or something else going wrong, you have to turn the engine off straightaway, because otherwise the problem goes from a $3,000 problem to a $50,000 problem. The message comes back to you to switch it off—obviously it's not a person ringing you; you get a message to immediately turn it off. That's how farming works now, that's the level it's at. For it to be at that level, you need the telecommunications capacity for you to buy that infrastructure from Detroit—and soon it will be from India and all over the place—because that's how it works these days. You've got to be able to do that.

Also, for us—I live in the hills—there's occupational health and safety. If people go out, they've got to be contactable if something goes wrong. If they come off a horse; if they're working with machinery and something goes wrong; or if they roll a car, a tractor or a truck, we've got to know that something has gone wrong. If they haven't got telecommunications, that is a big problem. Rather than saying, 'We just can't do it,' we've got to think around the corners. How can we deliver this to that area? We have microcells, and that's worked with microcells. The big mobile phone towers can be hellishly expensive, but you can get microcells that at least partly deal with the issue in certain areas. I'm thinking of Upper Horton. I'm thinking of out the back of Scone and at Moonan Flat. We've got microcells in these areas, so at least the people in the village, including elderly people, have got the capacity and the security.

Other things are coming our way. Artificial intelligence is coming our way, and this is going to absolutely exponentially change the relevance of telecommunications. It's going to go through the roof. Therefore, it's going to exponentially change the disconnection of people who can't be on board with it. If you don't have a connection with it, you're going to be light years away.

We've also got to acknowledge, with artificial intelligence coming forward, that a lot of people today have clerical jobs, and, just like factories knocked out weavers, this will knock out clerical jobs; they'll go. A computer will be able to do it better than you, and it will be vastly cheaper. So we're going to need a telecommunications system to get these people who will be out of work back into work. You're going to see some massive changes. Here's a classic one, tangential to this: why do we need office blocks if we don't have office workers in them? I'm an accountant. You're starting to get impairments on those assets right now. People are starting to ask the question, 'Why do we need that—because these people will have to find a different job.' We can be Luddites and think, 'We'll just smash the telecommunications system; we'll smash AI,' but you won't.

So we've got to have a telecommunications system that reaches over and says: 'This is coming our way; how do we make sure these people are still employed? How do they work?' What are their jobs in this new era of artificial intelligence? What is artificial intelligence going to do? What are the jobs that our kids and grandkids—and you—are going to do when this event arises? And it's arriving right now. So I thank you very much for that.

The final thing I think we need to check in on is adversaries, especially countries. We know that people are hacking into our systems. They could create such disruption—like the communist People's Republic of China, the Iranians and the Russians. If they take down our system, if we don't have proper security there, they can have half the battle won before they do anything else. The first event in a conflict will not be you hearing bombs dropping out of the sky; it'll be in the cyber world, all of a sudden. The only thing that's going to drop out is your telecommunications system, taking out the banking system, taking out everything with it, creating absolute chaos on the ground before you can do anything.

So we have to make sure our telecommunications system is bulletproof against that. Unless you've got the investment—I know we invested $10 billion and you're investing in it. We're all doing it because, on national security, there should be very little differentiation between parties. We'll all go down the same toilet if it comes unstuck. I ask you to make sure we have a strong line of sight there. Go to the National Security Committee and insist that they prove to you that they've got it all under control.

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Communications) | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate all the contributions that have been made today that have been very insightful and instructive, which I will continue to follow up with individual members. There are a number of initiatives on foot that a number of members did raise on specific issues. I won't go into the detail of all them, but I'm grateful to the member for New England for highlighting the issue of roaming. I'll just highlight that temporary disaster roaming was recently found by the ACCC to be technically feasible, and it's something that we are pursuing now within the department. I welcome the cooperation that has been shown by the mobile carriers to date. But I can assure the member that this is a very high priority within the portfolio, and I completely agree with him on the need for that to be realised.

The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards and Other Measures) Bill 2023 will deliver improved safeguards for Australian consumers when they access broadband and voice services. It does this through a number of measures. First, the bill refines and improves the statutory infrastructure provider, or SIP, regime. Key measures that will benefit consumers include introducing the power for the minister to require SIPs to pay compensation where they do not meet a standard or rule; allowing the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman to resolve complaints about SIP connections; and providing clearer rules for SIPs when they exit areas or when premises in their areas begin to be occupied.

Second, the bill provides powers for the Australian Communications and Media Authority to issue remedial notices to developers who do not install functional fibre ready facilities, such as pit and pipe, in developments. Third, the bill allows the ACMA to identify carriers and carriage service providers in public reports on their performance. This will improve transparency and accountability. Fourth, the bill allows universal service providers to be determined in relation to specific areas of Australia. This could, for example, be helpful if Norfolk Island is fully integrated into the Australian telecommunications regulatory framework. Finally, the bill makes some technical amendments to legislation, including to clarify the powers of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to issue infringement notices and to clarify the maximum penalties that should apply for breaches of carrier separation rules and the anti-avoidance measures relating to the Regional Broadband Scheme.

I thank all members for their participation in the debate on this legislation that will deliver better outcomes for people in Australia accessing essential telecommunications services.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.