Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a privilege to have the opportunity to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025, which is legislation on a topic that is of great import to the constituents of the Lyne electorate. For many of us in regional Australia, one of the issues that is raised quite often—in fact, I think every day my office receives calls from constituents with issues and concerns about this—is access to telecommunications. It's clear that the universal service obligation, created in the wake of the privatisation of Telstra some 30 years ago, is no longer a relevant consumer protection in this day and age. As a national carrier, Telstra was charged as responsible for delivering the USO, which obliged them to ensure every customer had and still has access to landline telephones and payphones regardless of where they live or work. But, in a world that has become increasingly mobile, it is obvious that consumer protections mandating delivery of payphones and fixed telephone service have for many become redundant—sadly so, in the regions. As such, there is a need to update the USO to ensure that it safeguards broader voice services and broadband.

The bill attempts to do this. The bill adds to the universal service obligation, which has traditionally only been binding for Telstra, by adding a universal outdoor mobile obligation, UOMO, on Telstra, Optus and TPG by 1 December 2027, mandating reasonable access to telecommunications while outdoors, excluding in vehicles or vessels. This bill attempts to deliver a modern and more fit-for-purpose USO in light of available technologies and consumer preferences, but unfortunately it falls short of its intentions.

Labor's bill proposes exemption powers that were not in the bill's consultation draft, arguably allowing the minister to limit how the USO terminology 'reasonably accessible to all people in Australia on an equitable basis' applies under the UOMO, setting up what we might like to call SOMO—sometimes outdoor mobile obligation. The bill excludes use from vehicles and vessels from UOMO, even though the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman expects using satellite while driving to become possible and ought to be included. Farming bodies have expressed concern that affordability is not in the universal outdoor mobile obligation. Expensive satellite technology might see telcos pass the cost onto consumers unless there are consumer protections.

After significant recent debate on triple zero connectivity failures, the NFF and NSW Farmers query why emergency services connectivity is not required under the UOMO. The government says that existing emergency call service determinations suffice. Consumer body ACCAN says that, until voice to satellite works, texts to triple zero should be mandated. Telstra says that there is insufficient spectrum for UOMO, which might in turn force a choice between 5G and 4G and thereby the closure of 4G, which could repeat the travesty of the botched 3D shutdown. A Nationals consumer protections amendment would prevent adverse consequences.

Mandatory domestic roaming should be part of the UOMO and indeed a future USO. If a call fails on one service, such as Optus, and another service is available, such as Telstra, the call could automatically connect to the other service. Telcos could resolve the commercial impact between themselves, just like banks did when customers could withdraw cash from ATMs of other banks. A fee was imposed, but, in the mandatory domestic roaming context, that fee might be instead built into business models and ultimately pricing, subject to consumer protections.

The Nationals support the goal of extending voice and text coverage outdoors across more of the country, because improved connectivity for regional Australians is a necessity. In cities and towns, a call dropout is an inconvenience. On a farm, in a forest or at a mine in a remote location, it's much more than that. However, the credibility of any government measure rests not on its aspiration but on its detail and reality. The telcos must also be able to understand precisely what is required of them, and consumers must be able to understand what they are entitled to expect. Nice phrases such as 'reasonably available' and 'equitable access' need to be measurable and enforceable standards. Clarity and a compliance framework is required to avoid risks that the obligation will be difficult to monitor and even harder to enforce.

We do not need aspirational headlines. In other words, the system actually has to work and be practical, reliable and affordable. This is why this bill must be deeply scrutinised. There is little point in proceeding down a path of promising something better when there are numerous issues still to solve with the existing telecommunications network.

Unfortunately this bill will do little, if anything, to address the issues that my constituents have been increasingly facing. I am receiving inquiries from constituents across the Lyne electorate—from Failford, Vacy, Wauchope and Elands—who have been contacted by their landline telephone providers about changes to their service or who have unreliable landline and mobile telephone services. Providers such as Dodo and Southern Phone have recently advised their customers that they will soon be ceasing their support of landline phones and that customers will need to transfer their number to a provider that does support PSTN technology, which is the public switched telephone network—that is, the traditional copper-wire telephone network, or landlines.

To complicate matters, these customers are also being told that (1) they will not be able to retain their telephone number, which in most cases they've had for decades, (2) they can switch over to the mobile telephone or NBN network, which in rural areas in my electorate varies from less-than-reliable to non-existent, (3) they can utilise a satellite based service such as Starlink, which in many cases they cannot afford and hence do not want to have to do, or (4) they can wait for the low Earth orbit satellite to become a reality.

All they really need is to be able to continue to have a reliable, secure and affordable landline phone that the USO requires. Remember, in rural areas the landline system provides far more reliability in times of medical emergencies, bushfires, floods and blackouts. I recall a meeting at the Lansdowne Hall where there were issues with the local Telstra service. The community actually asked Telstra to put in more payphones so that, in the case of an emergency, they could go to a payphone, because they knew that they couldn't rely on their mobile service.

Clearly this scenario is causing considerable anxiety, which is being compounded by the fact that customers have not been provided with a clear or satisfactory reason as to why their service cannot be converted back to Telstra or why they cannot keep their existing number. When these customers changed from Telstra to another provider it was a simple process and did not require a number change. Furthermore, in some cases where constituents have been proactive and contacted Telstra direct they've received email replies that are vague, incoherent and challenging. I'm increasingly concerned that Telstra's planned exit from the copper network and preference to transition customers to the mobile, wireless or NBN network is not consistent with Telstra's universal service obligation for which it is funded $297 million per annum by the federal government.

Then there is the issue of battery storage capacity at local rural telephone exchanges and mobile phone towers. Just recently, around midday on Saturday 28 February, both the landlines and mobile service at Elands went out following a power outage. This was the third phone network outage in one month in the area. Only people with satellite internet could communicate and seek Telstra's assistance. How is it that the tower's battery storage capacity is insufficient to run the tower for a period after the electricity network power goes down? Surely that's the purpose for which the battery was installed.

Even the existing universal service obligation is fraught with problems. As other coastal electorates also experience at school holiday time, the large influx of visitors can and does overwhelm the mobile phone towers so they just cease to function. The community of Harrington, where I used to live, knows that all too well.

If we do move towards having an outdoor coverage obligation, it will be meaningful only if Australians' devices can actually connect to the services being promised. Yet many mobile phones are not designed for satellite connectivity. Regional Australians, older Australians and small businesses often retain devices for longer periods. A reform that functions only for the latest high-end smartphones is contrary to the principle of equitable access. The lessons of the 3G network rollback show how important it is to have products that can actually use a new technology. Consumers and businesses were forced into unplanned handset upgrades and faced disruption to their lives and operations.

There can be no tolerance for problems or errors when it comes to emergency services connectivity. Australians expect that when they dial triple zero their call for help will be received. The recent history of triple zero outages and device incompatibility has shaken public confidence in the system. Technical glitches will never stand scrutiny when it comes to safety and emergency assistance. Emergency triple zero access must not be contingent on owning a new phone.

I've already mentioned that telecommunications affordability is a critical issue, particularly for households and businesses in my electorate. If compliance with a new obligation significantly increases infrastructure costs, that will be reflected in retail prices. Regional consumers already face higher service costs and fewer competitive options than their metropolitan counterparts. A universal obligation must not translate into higher bills for those it is intended to support.

It is very true that new and emerging technologies will always be coming at us, and we will have to adopt and adapt. Direct-to-device satellite technology will be an exciting development in telecommunications, with the potential to reduce longstanding coverage gaps across vast regions of Australia. Yet it remains a developing technology, with global rollout still underway and significant technical and commercial aspects to be settled. Domestic carriers will depend on international satellite providers, whose pricing models and deployment schedules are outside Australia's direct control. The satellite rollout will occur in time, but legislating a universal outdoor mobile obligation will not magically deliver it, make it work and make it affordable.

The legislation leaves many issues in doubt and numerous questions unanswered. The stark reality is that in many regional and rural areas like mine the existing universal service obligation is falling short. I cannot see how the government can rightly and honestly proceed to a new, bigger commitment without ensuring that the current one is fixed first and without ensuring that the new technology to do it actually exists and is workable, reliable and affordable. With all these considerations, the government's bill might be better to call it a 'sometimes outdoor mobile obligation'—and 'sometimes' is not good enough when we're talking about critical infrastructure that underpins our personal lives, our businesses, our sources of information, and our safety and security.

Australia's geography makes connectivity both challenging and critical. While new technologies provide an opportunity to ensure that our regions have access to telecommunications services, they must be matched by genuine reliability, not just promises. So, in conclusion, I support further scrutiny of this bill by referral to a Senate committee. Such diligence is essential for essential infrastructure such as this bill proposes.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 seeks to establish a universal outdoor mobile obligation for three national operators. It's going to require Optus, Telstra and TPG to provide reasonable and equitable access to outdoor mobile, voice and text services across Australia. There will be benefits for regional and remote Australia, where we've been promised benefits, and certainly my community very much needs those promises. We're told that it will improve competition in the market. The scope and timing can be adjusted by the minister by instrument as market and technology evolve, such as emerging low-level satellite technology, which I personally think will be a complete game changer if we can ever get it truly off the ground.

So while I welcome the introduction of this bill to create the universal outdoor mobile obligation, we must remember that this is just a framework that may lack the teeth needed to ensure that all Australians, not just those that live in metropolitan Australia, have guaranteed universal outdoor mobile connectivity. I do note that it will only cover voice and text to begin with. Telcos are working towards this now, but it is experimental and aspirational, let alone satellite. At least it will prevent telcos from having a monopoly in an area. They must share networks and that is critical in my community. If I look at Kangaroo Island, we have huge stretches where there's one telco and absolutely no coverage if you're with the other.

Even though the universal outdoor mobile obligation is coming, this is not a substitute for continued investment in towers. I can't say that enough: this cannot be a substitute for continuing to invest in towers. In my electorate, on any drive that I do between my electorate office in Mount Barker and my satellite office in Victor Harbor, no matter which road I take to get to the other office, which are about an hour and 15 minutes away from each other, I will go through significant patches where there is no coverage at all. We're talking about an area that's a high-risk bushfire area. We're talking about an area where there's a high propensity of crashes. So there is a real vulnerability that exists for regional Australians that doesn't exist for metropolitan Australia.

If I look across Kangaroo Island, it's about 150 kilometres wide, about 50 kilometres in depth. There are vast patches that have very poor mobile telecommunications. If we look at the rest of regional Australia, at areas such as the member for Grey's electorate or at western New South Wales, you can drive for hours at a time with no coverage at all. Certainly, since the 3G system has been turned off, that coverage has diminished across regional Australia.

I do support the amendments drafted by the member for Indi. I believe that they've been tabled. I will be moving those amendments on behalf of the member for Indi. The member for Indi has, during her whole time in this place, very much championed investment in and forward thinking about regional telecommunications. While I support the introduction of this universal outdoor mobile service, I share the member's concerns that its benefits may not be equally shared across regional, rural and remote Australia. Her amendments seek to address this by explicitly including affordability and availability as aspects of a service being available on an equitable basis, requiring the minister to have regard to fault rectification timelines when setting performance benchmarks—that's going to be critical—and giving the minister an explicit power to make rules requiring temporary disaster roaming during emergencies. In my electorate, when we had the fires, the minister was required to provide a statement explaining the reasons for a determination that the UOMO did not apply in particular circumstances.

Let's look at the regional telecommunications review of 2024. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the TIO, review of regional telecommunications showed regional, rural and remote customers experience limited or no access to telco services—for example, limited, unreliable and poor mobile coverage—no recourse to alternative tech providers, and service faults take longer to resolve. It found that telco regulatory frameworks, including the universal service obligation scheme, need to be modernised to ensure regional consumers' reliable access to telco services. Regional consumers complained of service being unavailable, expensive and/or delayed; limited choice of retailers or technologies; and that sometimes services are discontinued, replaced or no longer supported. Realistically, often the only phone service is a mobile service in regional and remote areas. In some instances, telcos misrepresent mobile coverage as available in areas when it is very clearly not. Mobile coverage maps should be standardised, with information regarding location, quality and speed, and accessibility, to enable informed consumer choice.

The review found that landlines should be useable and reliable, and redress easy to secure. If mobile service problems exist, consumers may not be able to afford satellite service and there may not be alternative carriers. And modern minimum service obligations are needed, for voice and internet, in regional and rural areas.

We deserve the same level of telecommunications that they have in the city. Regional Australia is what's feeding Australia. It's what's clothing Australia. And yet it is very clear that we do have a second-class system when it comes to telecommunications.

When we look at natural disaster coverage, there are complaints re telcos' dealings with natural disasters in regional Australia, in relation to disasters and mass outages. This bushfire season, Mayo residents had to navigate bushfires—including a large one, that was uncontrolled for several days, in Deep Creek; it destroyed a number of homes and outbuildings, and, at one point, threatened the ferry infrastructure at Cape Jervis. A lack of coverage creates safety risks during bushfires and other emergencies, due to the service across our topography.

Mayo residents need to be able to rely on telco services for timely and accurate information, but weather events commonly damage consumer lines or telco equipment, with a wait of several weeks for repairs and replacement. Similarly, weather related power outages can result in telco services no longer working, including if the outage has affected a local mobile tower. Now, that will affect an entire community, when we lose a tower, until it's repaired. Consumers are understandably concerned that they cannot make or receive calls or emails during such outages. And then, of course, we all rely so heavily on apps to find out where a fire is coming from and what weather is coming towards us. So we're losing capacity to work or it's contributing to safety concerns. This is a real issue in regional Australia. Aside from the 2023 and recent triple-zero outages, regional, major and mass outages were also a source of complaints other than those caused by natural disasters.

There are local telecommunications issues in my electorate, as I mentioned previously. In Mayo, shutting down 3G has absolutely reduced our coverage, because you can no longer make calls in those areas where previously you could. When they turned off 3G, and we had 5G, it really limited us, in very many areas, to just the immediate town. Now I know that the government and telcos have said, 'No, no, we've been able to upgrade and expand.' I can tell you right now, as someone who does a huge amount of driving, it had a very real negative impact across my community, and still does.

I would say our blackspots have got wider, and that really impacts our safety. And, as I said, as to Deep Creek, where we had a bushfire in recent weeks, there are still black spots in that community. Areas of known black spots or insufficient mobile coverage that could benefit from a tower in my community include Gumeracha, Montacute, Charleston, Brukunga, Wistow, Dawesley, Flaxley, Harrogate, Chapel Hill, Bull Creek, Nangkita, Woodchester, Currency Creek, Waitpinga, Lower Inman Valley and Deep Creek; and, on Kangaroo Island, Vivonne Bay, D'Estrees Bay and Karatta.

Now I know that, in my time as the member, we have been able to get—and lobbied very, very hard to get—more mobile coverage across our area. But, truly, regional Australia deserves the same equitable mobile phone coverage—I mean, we've all had mobiles now for decades. It's hard to believe that so much of Australia is still left with absolutely no service at all. I do support this bill, but I do support it very cautiously.

Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the amendments to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. It's hard to believe that in 2026 we're talking about mobile connectivity in this country, a first world country, but, anyway, we are. This has been one of Longman's biggest issues since I was elected in 2019. Longman is one of those unique communities that was once upon a time, when I was growing up anyway, very much a farming community and it slowly has become part of the Brisbane sprawl. A lot of the places where I used to ride a motorbike or where there were dairy farms and things like that are now housing estates, with 300- or 400-square-metre blocks. One of the challenges that that creates, of course, is mobile connectivity.

As the member for Longman, when I first met with the telcos, I said to them, 'Well, what does council say about this?' And to my surprise they said, 'We've never met with council.' I said, 'Well, that sounds a bit ridiculous to me,' so I got on to the local councillor and the town planner and got them in the same room. The town planner went through all the future estates and things. The telco said, 'This is terrific. We should do this more often.' I said, 'Well, there's a new concept—maybe use a bit of common sense. That'd be awesome.' Now they meet reasonably regularly. I have to say, coming from the private sector, I just cannot understand how these meetings weren't taking place previous to me being the member.

I also made sure that the telcos and developers got in the same room because, one of the challenges is when these farms are cut up into these residential blocks. Obviously, there were only six people, a couple of cattle dogs and that's about it that needed a mobile phone and then, all of a sudden, a thousand people are living in that same area. Well, that puts much more of a drain on the system. When they go to build these towers later on, everyone wants a tower but they don't want it next to their house, so people raise all these demands and the council gets all the complaints about it. Of course it's not a council issue; it's a federal issue, so they don't give a toss. They send them over to us and then we have to try and deal with it retrospectively.

When we were in government, I worked hard with the member for Berowra and also the member for Canning, who were in the same boat, being near to Sydney and Perth respectively, on the edge of the urban sprawl and experiencing the same issues.

We know that mobile phones and towers are now privatised in this country. One of the issues with privatisation of critical infrastructure is that the companies that take it on have to make a profit because they answer to shareholders first, unfortunately, before customers. One of the challenges that we have is a telco is not going to build a tower because it probably takes them around about 400 or 500 subscribers in an area to make it worthwhile to build. So in their wisdom, the previous government brought out the Mobile Black Spot Program to help people in regional communities, where they didn't have the population density to make it financially viable for these telcos to build the towers, get towers built. At the end of the day, as governments, we need to make sure that people in the bush are being looked after as much as people in the cities. That's only fair and just.

Unfortunately, this government got rid of that Mobile Black Spot Program. The Peri-Urban Mobile Program—the PUMP as we came to know it—was a bit of a hybrid because these were areas that did have more population than, say, Thargomindah or somewhere like that but they still didn't have enough to warrant the expenditure of a tower for the telcos. So what they did was partially subsidise it. I was able to get three or four towers under the Morrison government. It was an application process and we were able to get four of those. Three of them have been built and there's one more on the go.

The amendments in this bill miss the entire issue of making sure that these towers get built. When a developer buys one of these farms and they put in a development application to change it into a residential community, they cover electricity, they cover roads, they cover sewerage and they cover everything else except for telecommunications.

My solution, and I've been advocating for this for many years now, has always been to make telecommunications part of the DA process, so that when someone comes in to look at a plan of a new housing estate and they're excited—they're normally young couples buying their first home—they look at it and say, 'Yes, we'll take that block there.' If they had the option of knowing that there was going to be a mobile tower built within 100 metres, they could make a decision on whether to buy. They would be fully aware. So, to me, there should be a process in place. We need to make sure that state governments and local governments are including this in the DA process.

I support the intent of the bill, because I want mobile connectivity, but I sincerely doubt we will see any change. I think this will just be another Labor headline and it won't have any substance. But we live in hope.

I've been talking to the telcos and the space industry in this country for years about why we aren't using satellite technology. Now, I'm a layman. I'm not someone who's involved in electronic engineering or telecommunications in a technical way, but I've got eyes and I've got ears. We've got these satellites buzzing around up top, and it made a lot of sense to me, rather than running all these cables and building these towers that are expensive infrastructure and an eyesore. They run into problems where they're knocked over, particularly when there are power outages and when we have natural disasters. All this mobile connectivity goes down because they need power to run these towers. The problem is that the technology is just not there yet. That was the answer I got from the telcos and the space industry.

I was excited, last year, to go to a Telstra event held right here in Parliament House where they talked about satellite connectivity for mobiles. They explained at this event that it was at very, very early stages. It was quite ironic: it was the same week that I had a freak storm go through my electorate. It pretty well wiped out most of Bribie, Toorbul, Beachmere and Donnybrook. The storm affected most of the electorate, but they were the worst hit. Woodford, in particular, was hit hard, because the power that powered the mobile tower had been knocked out. They had no mobile coverage at all for two or three days, which was a real problem. Had we had that satellite technology, they would have at least been able to text.

The telcos are saying that the first lot of technology is going to be simply that: text only. Then, of course, the technology will move on. The second generation will be text and voice, and the last will be when we have the full gambit—when we have text, voice calls, data and internet connectivity. That is probably five to seven years away. One of the challenges that I see with this is that it could give a government that's looking for an excuse not to invest in mobile towers an excuse to say, 'We have this new technology coming,' and then use that as an excuse not to invest in anything at the moment. Well, people need connectivity now.

I have a lot of retirement villages and over-50s lifestyle villages in my electorate, and they're some of the ones that are worst affected, because typically these villages are built out of materials that aren't very good. They actually suppress mobile connectivity, particularly when people put up illegal transmitters, which they do because they want to get transmission. It works fine for them but blocks out their neighbours, so that's a real problem.

A lot of these people have these medical pendants that connect to the mobile network and, if they're having a heart attack or a medical emergency, they push this button. Without any mobile coverage, these pendants don't work. In one case at Living Gems down on Torrens Road in Caboolture, a lady said that she crawled on her hands and knees into the back courtyard so that she could actually use this pendant to get the ambulance. It turns out she was suffering a heart attack. This is 2026; it's mental that people have to go through this stuff.

Again, if it was in the DA process when this retirement village was built that the developer had to put in a mini tower or some sort of mobile tower that would service that community, all this could be abated. All these issues could be gotten rid of. It's about being proactive rather than reactive, which is unusual for government.

The other issue you're going to have is the handset issue we saw when 3G was turned off, which affected so many people. My mum and dad are serial offenders. Dad's 89 and Mum's 84. They've got a phone that Noah used on the ark, and it's useless. It's not a smartphone, but, at the end of the day, they know how to use it. They don't like learning how to use new things, because they're older and they haven't got the time or the patience to do that sort of thing—and that's their right. They had to get rid of their phone because, in the area they were in, sometimes they only had 3G, and—man alive!—my son and my two brothers will testify to the fact that the phone calls we got for the next month while we were trying to help mum figure out her new phone were pretty substantial.

That's going to be one of the problems that we have when this new technology comes in. These satellite phones are going to work only with the latest and greatest handsets, and there's nothing in this bill that talks about assistance to help people who might be on an older handset to upgrade to a new one. Of course, the people who are going to have these older handsets are either the elderly who don't like change or the most vulnerable, who are financially unable to buy the latest and greatest phone for $1,500. So we're actually hurting the most disadvantaged by not having something in this legislation to help these people with this new satellite technology.

Also, the legislation is a little bit ambiguous. It says the telcos must ensure coverage is reasonably available on an equitable basis. You could interpret that in any way you want. That looks like a get-out-of-jail-free card to me. It sounds fair in a free market, but don't make out you're waving a big stick when it's really just a toothpick. There is a really easy way for the telcos to get around this.

I support the intent of the bill and of the amendments moved by the member for Lindsay, and I commend them to the House.

Debate adjourned.