Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. For too long, Australians, including in my electorate, have put up with dreadful and patchy phone service due to privatisation, cost cutting and government neglect. Both Labor and Liberal governments have not addressed the inevitable failures resulting from Telstra's privatisation, and my constituents are paying the price. This bill updates the relevant legislation to better reflect modern technology but doesn't address the real issue at its heart: privatisation of what should be public services does not work. The Greens will support this bill in the House and reserve our position in the Senate.

In 2026, access to phone and internet reception is an essential service. A phone call in an emergency can be the difference between life and death. In the case of a fall or a heart attack, or during one of the extreme weather events we've experienced so often in my electorate lately, people need to be able to reach out for help, but in my electorate—the vast majority of which is less than 20 kilometres from the Brisbane CBD—people are left without basic phone and internet access. In a wealthy country like Australia, this is absolutely unacceptable. It's particularly bad in areas in my electorate like Brookfield, Upper Brookfield and Kenmore Hills, where recent power outages due to summer storms exacerbated the issue. With roads cut off, some parts of those communities have had absolutely no way whatsoever to communicate with the outside world—in 2026.

One of my constituents, from Kenmore Hills, wrote to me about the shockingly bad phone and internet reception he experiences at home. He tells me his area receives negligible Telstra mobile reception, frequently not even enough to load a webpage or just place a phone call. He says this becomes critical during severe weather and power outages, including one example when they were left without electricity, internet or phone signal for three days following storms. He rightly points out the safety implications for elderly residents, for stranded motorists and for people experiencing power outages. As my constituent put it, 'We are not seeking special treatment, only a basic level of reliable service that supports emergency communication and community safety.'

Another constituent, from Brookfield, told me their poor mobile service means they cannot reliably make phone calls from inside the house. They said the Telstra map shows they should receive 5G, but it simply doesn't happen. They're not even covered by the Optus map, so they're looking at spending thousands of dollars to install a repeater. That should not be necessary, especially in a suburb just 12 kays out from the CBD.

Down in Moggill, again in my electorate, locals also report frequent issues. For example, even the local shopping complex doesn't have reception inside. A large commercial complex 20 kays from the CBD having no reception is just not good enough. This is not only a safety issue but also an economic policy failure. We know what it's called when one corporation has control over the entire market. It's called a monopoly. In areas where Telstra is the only provider, it is operating a monopoly over phone and internet services. This is bad news for consumers like my constituents, who suffer as a result of no competition to lower prices or to improve customer service.

But this failure is not just an accident. It's not just an aberration. This is a direct result of decisions made by the federal government. The government did a deal with Telstra in 2012 whereby Telstra received a plum 20-year exclusive contract worth $297 million every year. That's nearly $300 million paid annually by the taxpayer to Telstra in exchange for providing theoretically universal coverage, though, as my constituents know all too well, the coverage Telstra provides is nowhere near universal. You might think that, given we're already paying for this coverage in our taxes, consumers could access Telstra's phone and internet services for free or at the very least have a provider be a public service owned by the Commonwealth. Certainly, you wouldn't expect that such a deal could be allowed to benefit a private corporation's profit line. But no. Telstra was privatised by the Howard government and has stayed privatised under every Labor and Liberal government since. So Telstra, a private corporation, not only receives $300 million a year from the taxpayer but also gets to charge consumers what they damn well like for what should be a government owned and run public service. For people like my constituents, for whom Telstra is the only available provider, the government has effectively chosen to set up a private, for-profit monopoly, and taxpayers are paying for the privilege.

Essential services, especially utilities like service providers, who can easily form monopolies, should be in public hands. They should never have been sold off in the first place. Running these services for profit means they are not being run for public good. Private providers are not incentivised to provide universal quality service if it's not profitable. So, rather than making small tweaks around the edges, the government has an opportunity here—a good opportunity—to demonstrate some courage. I call on the government to bring phone and internet provision back into public hands and finally guarantee decent coverage for all Australians.

Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. There has been a break in the debate from the last sitting, and I reference the contribution made by, I think, the member for Parkes, who was critical of this bill because he thought that it didn't go far enough. My question really is: what is the alternative? This is a chance either to do something or to do nothing. While it's quite an amazing statistic that something like 99 per cent of Australians are covered at the moment by mobile phone coverage, that also means that two-thirds of the Australian landmass is not covered. And so we need a practical solution that doesn't technically exist yet but we're working towards. At least this legislation does set down those guidelines clearly for industry to follow, and it does lead the way. It does focus the attention of industry to solve this problem. But, like the member for Parkes, who does represent an area where I grew up—in the town of Broken Hill—I share that frustration of being a member of an outer metropolitan seat. I know the frustration of having poor mobile phone coverage. Even though the community that I represent today and the community that I grew up in might be separated by geography, they are certainly not separated by demography. The communities that I represent are hardworking working-class Australians, committed to their families and their communities. And they have one other thing in common as well, which is poor mobile phone reception.

There are many suburbs that I could mention. I was in Upper Coomera the other day, and I couldn't get connection to Maps. In the relatively new suburbs of Holmview and Waterford, there's appalling mobile phone reception; people are forced to go out onto their driveway and wave their mobile phone around in the hope that they get reception. So I understand the frustration that's felt in the bush where there is zero reception. I understand that frustration because of the area that I represent and live in today, but I also understand that frustration because it is an area that, as I say, I grew up in and worked in.

The time that I spent on sheep and cattle stations between Broken Hill and Bourke really brought home to me the isolation that exists out there, and the importance of communication—or, I should say, what it means to not have that communication. There's an interesting memory that I have, from the time that I came out to work on a property in my late 20s. As it was, I probably didn't know one end of a sheep from the other; I'd never been on a motorbike before; I didn't know my north from my south. I'm sure that one of the reasons that they employed me was for the comic value! They told me that I'd need to fall off my bike at least a hundred times before I'd be a good rider; I certainly fell off a hundred times, and I wouldn't say that I was ever a great rider at the end of it.

As I said, I barely knew my north from my south. In the middle of summer, by the way, north is there, somehow, if you follow the sun, but it's very difficult when you're trying to follow a mob of sheep through the thick scrub. So I had a GPS. In the early 2000s, here we were, in the bush, using GPS. This was no communication device with the sonorous sounds of Siri; this was a rubber-coated device about half the size of my hand that was cable-tied to my bike. You'd put little waypoints in there—the homestead, or some waters—and you'd navigate. It would have a little arrow on its green-and-black screen, and it would point to where the waypoint was and tell you how many kilometres you were from it. I think it's an interesting fact that we were using that out in the bush in the early 2000s, at the same time that people in the city wouldn't have known what a GPS was, but people in the city were using mobile phones, whereas out in the bush in the early 2000s nobody had a clue what a mobile phone was.

It is literally a matter of life and death—communications. There are two experiences that come to mind—two stories that I knew of, which happened before my time out there but which I think illustrate the importance of having adequate communications. One was of a young guy, at the time, about my age, who'd had a motorbike accident. I can't quite remember the detail; he'd hit a kangaroo or a tree or something. Because we relied on UHF technology—and UHF is notoriously unreliable; it works over only a very limited range—he didn't have communication with his homestead. He somehow managed to get himself back home, where he was able to get treatment, but he ended up with a lifelong and debilitating brain injury. And it just makes me wonder: what would it have been like if he'd actually had a mobile phone to be able to call for emergency services at the time? There was another incident—and I'm reluctant to call them 'incidents', because fundamentally they are workplace injuries. But another, even more serious, occasion was when somebody called Skeet had had a heart attack and collapsed, and, tragically, his wife found him, sometime later. Again, it makes me wonder whether or not having mobile phone coverage for Skeet would have meant that he could have survived, so these are genuinely matters of life and death. Communications—it's trite to say—are not just a luxury; they are a necessity.

My mum used to live in the Brisbane suburb of Oxley, which was badly flooded in 2010. In many ways it was a later flood in 2022 which was probably much more emotionally damaging than the one in 2010. But I only say that because the one in 2010 was the first of what has been a series of natural disasters in south-east Queensland that people have had to contend with. So that was the first natural disaster where mobile phone coverage and electricity went down for a long period for a lot of people. With not being able to contact my mum, family members not being able to contact each other, people worried about being able to ask for help, there was really a sense that the difference between civilisation and barbarism are electricity and communications. I have a friend who was a refugee from Bosnia, from the Yugoslav War, war of the 1990s. She said to me that to be disconnected through your communications was exactly what it felt like in war, so that really illustrated to me how important it is to have that coverage. They're all the sorts of problems that come about from not having those communications.

Ultimately, there are so many opportunities available out in the bush with proper communications. As the statistics show, more than two-thirds of Australia is currently not covered by mobile phone at all. And while this legislation is not about getting it to the point where people in the bush have the same coverage which you might expect, even though we don't receive it in metropolitan areas, it is the beginning of a process which really does begin to unlock that economic potential of the Australian bush.

Just to record on Hansard, 'Nugget' Brown, who has sadly passed away, was one of the most decent human beings I've ever met, one of the smartest people I've ever met. Just by the way, he was somebody who couldn't read or write, couldn't sign his name to a cheque, but put him in his environment and he was just an absolute legend. You could spin him around 20 times blindfolded and he'd know what direction to go in. He knew where the calf's mother was, who the calf's mother's mother was. This guy was a genius, and I do want to give him a shout-out today. Also, Simon Brown and Lionel Brown were two people I worked very closely with, who really taught me the value of having a go and hard work, but they used to have a bit of a chuckle with me at some of my some of my crazy ideas. One idea back in the 2000s was that maybe you could chuck a camera on a drone and muster sheep. Unfortunately, Nugget's not around to see that actually happening, but that is something which you can do in areas where there is appropriate technology. That technology doesn't really exist in the outback. If you were to try and use it, it would be horribly expensive. But communications really is one of those essential services that, provided properly and equitably across our vast nation, could really unlock our nation's potential and open it up.

Finally, I'd just like to say that this is not about letting the telecommunications companies get off scot-free. In fact, the Minister for Communications said recently at the CommsDay Regional and Policy Forum, which I mention as an example of where the industry is letting the community down:

The Triple Zero failures last year shook public confidence.

Frankly, they exposed elements of a system that relied on a best efforts approach, and sadly, in some instances, those efforts were far from the best.

At a deeper level, it exposed a discordance between how the industry is regulated, and perhaps how it sees itself, versus how the public expects it to operate.

We have to face reality. At the end of 2025, public opinion of the communications sector was very low.

And I think, at the beginning of 2026, it hasn't improved a hell of a lot.

It is important that legislation like this does show the way for telecommunications to behave when it comes to providing that universal outdoor mobile obligation. It does set some expectations on what government expects of these corporations which are providing what is an essential service. It does show that this government is not just going to wait around for the perfect solution, but, as always, this government is pragmatic in its approach and is getting ahead of the curve.

Ultimately, whether you've had an accident out bush, whether you've broken down, whether you need to communicate with your homestead or whether it's somebody from my electorate driving out to see a family member or a friend or going across Australia, this is the typical Australian way. This is also the typical Albanese government way. This is about making sure that nobody is left behind. Even if, fundamentally, this striking statistic we're talking about is where just one per cent of Australians live, this is about making sure that that one per cent, who deserve the same access, have access to those services that people in the city have.

The frustration that my community feels and that I feel by having substandard telecommunications in the 21st century means that the industry needs to do better. The government is making sure that they are accountable. This bill goes towards that, and works in a constructive way to make sure that all Australians have access to the services that are essential in the 21st century. I commend the bill to the House.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For too many Australians, the promise of modern telecommunications has not been made good. They pay modern prices for outdated services. They live in metropolitan Sydney and still have to walk to the end of the driveway to make a call. On a good day it's infuriating; on a bad day it's dangerous. In a fire, flood or medical emergency it can be the difference between life and death.

Anybody who has looked at my record in this place will know that better telecommunications for the people that I represent has been a constant focus of mine. I've fought for and achieved better signal outcomes including mobile towers in places like Dangar Island, Sackville North, Hornsby Heights, Arcadia, Annangrove, Glenorie, Glenhaven and Dural and elsewhere across my electorate. I campaigned hard to make sure that peri-urban communities like mine were not forgotten in the national conversation, and that campaigning helped drive the creation of the Peri-Urban Mobile Program. It was a step forward, but there's much more to do. That's why this Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 matters.

The current universal service settings belong to a different era. They were built for the age of the copper line, the payphone and the assumption that the mobile phone was just a useful extra. Well, that's not the world we live in now. The mobile phone is now the ordinary phone. The Parliamentary Library notes that landline use by Australian adults fell from 54 per cent in 2017 to just 15 per cent in 2024, while mobile phone use rose from 95 to 98 per cent.

Australians have already moved on, and now the law has to catch up. In practical terms, this bill would amend the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act to create a universal outdoor mobile obligation. It would initially require Telstra, Optus and TPG to ensure that voice and SMS are 'reasonably available outdoors to all people in Australia on an equitable basis.' The extra coverage is expected to come largely through low Earth orbit satellites and direct-to-device technology.

This bill also gives the minister broad powers by legislative instrument to determine coverage areas, providers, standards, benchmarks and rules. It creates further powers to set standards and benchmarks for mobile services more generally before the new obligation begins, and the default commencement date is 1 December 2027. The purpose is sound, but purpose does not equate with performance. Announcements don't create signals. Parliament shouldn't just wave through a broad framework with the critical details left for later if there's no certainty as to whether those details will make families safer, ensure that businesses can trade, and determine whether emergency calls can get through.

My approach is straightforward. I support the objective of better mobile services. I support dragging telcos into a position where they meet the expectations of ordinary Australian families who do the right thing and pay their bills month in and month out. That's why this bill needs to be closely scrutinised by the Senate committee, because there are serious questions about this legislation—about whether it works in practice for communities like mine. I want to encourage everyone in my community who's had a mobile phone issue to make a submission to the Senate committee, to put your issues and challenges on the record so we can ensure that this bill is fit for purpose.

I want to take this opportunity to make a series of points. The first is that poor connectivity is not just a regional problem, not just a remote problem; it's also a peri-urban and outer-metropolitan problem. It's a Berowra problem. Too often policy in this area has fallen into a false binary: If you live in the cities, the assumption is that you're covered. If you live in the bush, at least the system admits you might need help. But if you live on the outer metropolitan areas, on the urban fringes—on the Hawkesbury, in some of our steep valleys and even in some of our wonderful suburbs—you need help, too. It's extraordinary that in the third decade of the 21st century these places, only a short drive from the Sydney CBD, are mobile blackspots. Too many families in my electorate have ended up with the worst of both worlds: forgotten by metropolitan assumptions and overlooked by regional programs.

That's why the lived experience of my electorate needs to be heard in this debate—the experiences of people like Brendan from Cattai, who runs a small business and relies on Telstra. He reports that poor and deteriorating reception has left him unable to make outgoing calls for extended periods. It's affected his business communications and even his onsite security systems. He says he's made complaints and is still paying for a service that's often unusable. Then there is Eric from Epping. Eric says that the signal from all major carriers is so weak that his household relies on wi-fi calling over the NBN just to make or receive calls and that usable coverage returns only when he walks to nearby streets. And there is Christine, from Berowra Waters. She recently experienced a complete loss of both mobile and fixed internet services after more than a decade of regular bill paying. Shockingly, it took intervention from my office to even get proper communication from the telco about restoration.

Rebekah from Glenhaven says she has no decent phone coverage at home, even when she walks onto the street. She's not living in a remote station; she's living in town, in a city suburb. But, for her, the coverage map says one thing and the reality says another. And don't get me started on Telstra and its deceptive coverage maps. Then there is Wendy, from West Pennant Hills. She reported a lengthy outage that disrupted her work as a medical specialist working from home, with consequences not only for her but for her patients as well. Rhonda from Berrilee remains on ageing infrastructure and has been told that the viable alternative is to pay for more satellite internet, despite living roughly an hour from the Sydney CBD.

But it's not just individuals; it's businesses, too. In my electorate, local businesses in Brooklyn have reported serious disruption during rail shutdowns when phone and internet services fail. The consequences are immediate and they're financial: EFTPOS goes down, bookings are lost, and safety and communication systems can be compromised. These types of impacts have a direct hit on small businesses, their confidence and their viability. It's a direct hit to the bottom line. It's a direct hit to the pay that those business owners take home in order to put food on the tables of their families and to pay their mortgages. These stories matter because this bill will succeed or fail not on a press release, a coverage map or a departmental diagram but on the lived experience of households, small businesses, commuters, carers, volunteers and emergency services.

The second issue is the bill's core language. What does it actually mean for coverage to be 'reasonably available outdoors'? That phrase sits at the centre of the bill. It's not defined, but it's doing an enormous amount of work. Consumer groups have warned that it might create uncertainty, inconsistent application and scope for providers to interpret their obligations too narrowly. That's not a drafting quibble. That's the difference between being able to make a call or not.

If a person has to stand at a particular corner of a paddock or walk down a driveway or leave a house to stand on the verge or climb onto a hill or wait for the weather to clear, is that really service that's reasonably available? If a call drops out repeatedly but a text somehow gets through, is that reasonable? If coverage exists on a map but not in real conditions, is that reasonable? If the service works outdoors but not inside a family home, a shopfront, a vehicle or a train platform, is that good enough for a country that says that this will be universal? When I listen to the experiences of people in my community and I compare them to the text of the bill, these are the questions that come to mind, because Australians don't live their lives in perfect test conditions. Real life happens inside homes, inside workplaces and inside vehicles during emergencies.

In 2021, I put forward an exposure draft of a telecommunications reform proposal that was deliberately broader. It aimed to ensure people could use a mobile phone inside a home or a workplace, not just outside and under ideal conditions. It's regrettable that this bill doesn't go that far.

The third issue is the term 'equitable basis'. This bill is designed to ensure that mobile coverage is reasonably available outdoors on an equitable basis. What does that mean? Again, the phrase is undefined, but it's doing a lot of work. Does it mean that people will actually be able to afford the service? Does it mean the service must be available on ordinary retail terms? Does it imply that telcos have an obligation to ensure access is not tied to the newest devices and handsets? What is the delivery mechanism? Is it low-Earth-orbit satellite and direct-to-device technology? That technology is promising—it may well be part of the answer. For some people who gave up on legacy broadband, satellite has already been a lifeline, but promising technology is not the same as affordable technology.

Consumer groups have warned that these types of solutions will simply be out of reach for too many. And, of course, there's the question of who bears the cost. It is the serious question of who pays. Is it the telco, the taxpayer, the industry levy or is it the consumer—quietly, every month on a larger and larger bill? Will people in my electorate be left cross-subsidising a more expensive service model that still leaves them behind? This leads directly to a further point.

If this reform only works for people with newer phones, then it will not be a universal obligation on the telcos in any meaningful sense. If the quid pro quo is that the telcos provide universal outdoor access, but only if you stump up for a new handset, then there are deep issues within this bill. It will be a premium, niche service dressed up in universal language. No Australian should have to buy a new, expensive handset just to send a text from a black spot or to make a basic emergency call.

The fourth issue is safety, resilience and emergency access. Berowra is a beautiful electorate—the most beautiful electorate in the country—but it's also disaster prone, such as the Hawkesbury floods that we've had repeatedly since 2020. There is bushfire risk. We know that because of the 26 Rural Fire Service stations that exist in my electorate. There is steep terrain. There are river communities, isolated pockets and areas of heavy tree cover—and communities that depend on volunteers who turn out in moments of danger. In that context, telecommunications is not a convenience; it is critical infrastructure. COVID exposed some of the weaknesses in our telco settings. Floods exposed them again. Every major outage does the same.

The stories from my electorate keep piling up. Peter from Mount Colah reported losing landline and internet services for nearly a month. Joseph, from Epping, says his NBN service has repeatedly failed, despite years and years of complaints. When services collapse, people don't just lose entertainment; they lose the ability to call family, receive alerts, process payments, work remotely, access telehealth, open security gates, coordinate local response and, in the worst cases, reach help.

This bill is meant to support voice and SMS. Low-Earth-orbit direct device technologies based on satellites support only SMS functionality, but in Australia emergency services can only be directly contacted via voice calls. Stakeholders have already made the case for the text to triple zero and emergency roaming or camp-on arrangements, where a user on one type of plan can access another network. That's exactly the kind of issue that a Senate inquiry should test.

In an emergency, a citizen does not care about the contractual relationship between a terrestrial carrier and a satellite operator. They care whether the call or text goes through. They care whether triple zero works. They care whether the phone in a vehicle works. They care whether it works in a storm, when the carrier is down or when their family needs to be contacted. This isn't something to treat casually. In an emergency, 'outdoors' is not a neat legal category. People are in houses. People are in cars. People are on roads, trapped by floodwaters, evacuating with children and trying to pass on a message. The expectation created by a universal outdoor mobile obligation is that the call will get through. The question is whether it actually will.

The final issue to raise is about competition, accountability and market structure. One of the enduring frustrations in my electorate has been that, for too much of Berowra, Telstra has been the monopoly or near monopoly provider. I've made no secret of my frustration with Telstra. I believe in competition. It disciplines market behaviour, and lack of competition breeds complacency. When coverage is weak and customer service is poor, consumers need alternatives. Too often they don't have them. This bill creates obligations on Telstra, Optus and TPG. But, if the practical path to meeting those obligations depends heavily on a small number of global satellite operators which become price takers in that market, what are the consequences? Will this bill increase competition or entrench it in a different layer? Are we expanding choice or merely changing the form of dependency?

There's also the broader accountability issue. This bill gives the minister wide powers to determine standards, benchmarks, rules, coverage areas, exemptions and even timing through legislative instruments. I understand why the government says flexibility is needed in a developing technology market, but flexibility without guardrails creates uncertainty for consumers and industry alike. Australians are entitled to know what standards will be used, what success will look like, what redress consumers will receive when service is sold and service isn't delivered, and what independent oversight there will be of ministerial decisions.

A universal obligation shouldn't be measured by optimism. It should be measured by objective outcomes: whether calls connect, texts send, outages fall, emergency access improves, prices remain fair, competition strengthens and communities like mine actually notice the difference. A serious parliament doesn't write a broad, blank cheque just because the headline sounds good. Flexibility isn't a substitute for clarity, and delegation is not a substitute for design. A law that's insufficiently clear or reliant on delegation demands scrutiny.

That's why I welcome this bill going to the Senate committee. It creates a proper opportunity to test the bill's underlying assumptions. It allows us to examine costs, competition impacts, emergency access, device compatibility, affordability, implementation and the real meaning of core terms like 'reasonably available' and 'equitable'. I say to the people in my electorate who've endured these problems for years: make a submission. Put your experience on the record. Tell the committee what the coverage maps say and what your phone actually does. Tell them about the dropped calls, the outages, the lack of accountability, the confusion between carriers, the poor complaint handling and the safety implications. This isn't just a policy debate for experts in Canberra. It's a practical question about whether families and businesses in Berowra get the service they pay for and the service they need.

I want to see the telcos held to account. I want to see the law catch up with the reality that mobile service is now an essential service. I want to see real competition, real standards and real consequence for failure, and I want to see my community treated seriously, not as an afterthought. The people of Berowra don't want slogans; they want signal. They don't want excuses; they want service. They don't want a legal fiction that says coverage exists while they stand outside searching for a bar on a screen. They want a system that works when it matters. That's the test the parliament should apply to this bill, and that's not too much to ask for in modern Australia. We shouldn't settle for less.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Metcalfe, Axe Creek, Faraday, Walmer, Eppalock, Lockwood, Maiden Gully, Marong, Axedale, Mosquito Creek and Raywood are just a number of the communities that have contacted me since I was elected as a federal member for Bendigo, back in 2013, complaining about basic mobile phone coverage—the ability to make phone calls or text—simply disappearing. They have coverage one minute and not the next. There are a variety of excuses that they've been given over the years to explain why they've lost their coverage: more people moving into an area, like Maiden Gully, the weather on days and the topography—the challenges that you have when you live at the edge of these coverage maps. But what we had from those opposite when they were in government was nothing but excuses. It has taken our government to put forward for the first time a universal obligation for mobile phone coverage. You would think from the complaints from those opposite that it was their idea and they were waiting for us to implement it, but it's not. It is our idea.

We are drawing a baseline and saying to every Australian that, if you can see the sky, your mobile phone will be able to do the basic functions. That is what we're talking about here. We are not pretending that this will give every Australian access to the download and upload speeds. That's separate legislation and a separate program. What we're saying in the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 is that this reform is not about replacing traditional mobile phone coverage. It's about expanding access. It's about making sure that for areas where we haven't had the investment from industry and government to co-invest in building the technology, where it hasn't been feasible, we will find another way and use other technologies to make sure that all Australians, if they can see the sky, will have access to basic telecommunications.

For many in the cities and even in some regional centres, this is a problem of the past. It is not something that they have experienced. You may argue that that's competition and that's just the way the market works, but that's the very problem. When we leave all of our challenges up to the market, regional areas like my own miss out. We miss out on the basics, on the fundamentals—the ability to make phone calls and to send text messages when we're needed.

In this debate, we've heard about the importance of this during natural disasters and when somebody has an accident on a farm or are caught on a road—the ability to connect when required. And it is very true that we need that basic function in an emergency. Far too often, I've been talking to colleagues—safely, of course—on my mobile phone, and I'll warn them: 'Hold on. I'm getting to a black spot. I'll call you back.' The phone drops out on sections of the Calder and the Midland Highway. It is a common occurrence. All locals know those black spots. You make the call before you get to the black spot. You make the call after you've passed through the black spot, or you simply wait until you're home. This is a regular occurrence for people in regional centres, so the ability to have a universal obligation, a guarantee that people can do the basics—phone calls and texts—is a game changer for regional Australia.

What we saw from those opposite when they were in government was a very clunky black spots program, which was aimed to help expand the coverage for mobile phones and connectivity in the regions. What I ended up getting in my electorate was roughly one tower per election cycle, and quite often it was in an area which didn't improve coverage. We know that because that's what the Auditor-General told us, but that's also what locals told us. It relied upon nomination from local MPs. It was a points based system. The MP could put forward a project. Local council could put forward a project. The telco had to say, yes, they'd invest in the project. Federal government would put some money in. Quite often the state would put some money in. You might also get industry putting money in. It was clunky. It didn't actually deliver the broad-span coverage that this bill is trying to do.

The fact is that we're trying to draw a line and say that we're not going to leave it up to the market and clunky grants based systems or point systems. We're going to start with a baseline of having a universal obligation to mobile phone coverage. That gives us hope in the regions that we are moving forward. We're not leaving it up to the market. We're not leaving it up to a clunky, subsidised, weird point system like we saw from those opposite. Instead, we're going to start with a baseline where we say to all Australians, 'If you can see the sky, you will have access to baseline mobile and tech services.' In some of our regions, that is a great foundation and starting point.

I think about all of our CFAs in the towns that I've listed, and it's often the No. 1 issue that CFA volunteer services raise with me, or it's a very close second. It's what the SES raise with me—the ability to get to accident sites quicker and sooner because somebody's been able to have access, the ability to communicate with each other, helping people to have access and communicate through. In Metcalfe, sometimes they feel like they're stuck in another era where they literally still have a phone tree that they activate on their catastrophic fire days or on days where they're worried, where they're phoning people on the landline to say, 'You have to get out now,' because they cannot rely upon text messages and mobile phones. They simply don't have the coverage. The hope for them in this bill, by establishing this baseline, is that they will be able to join the rest of us when we have those challenging days and that they'll be able to receive the same notifications as others.

This legislation brings mobile services into the longstanding universal services regime, which we've had in this country for other telecommunications services—landline and Australia Post, just to name a few—which previously only covered copper based voice services: the landline. By doing so, we are creating a framework that can protect consumers and ensure mobile services if the industry does not deliver in the national interest. That is the difference between us and those opposites.

We openly acknowledge to industry, particularly to these privately listed companies, that we get that your shareholders may not want to build a tower in towns like Metcalfe and Axe Creek. We get that. There's no money to be made there. There are literally not enough service providers. However, it is in our nation's interest that all of these users and anybody visiting these areas can access their mobile phones, and that's where we step in. This is what is different about this bill: for the first time in our country's history, we are drawing a line and saying that everybody should have access. I've heard from people who live in outer metro areas where this is a challenge. Welcome to our world. It's been a challenge for us for a long time, so it is welcome to see more and more people realising the opportunity that comes with this bill.

The changes in technology are going to be what makes this bill become a reality. The ability to use new technology as it develops to help people access the very basics will help change things here in Australia. The timing, whilst challenging, will create a clear signal to the markets of the importance of making sure that people can have access, and equitable access, to outdoor mobile phone coverage in areas in our regions. We aren't sitting around and waiting for the issue to fix itself. We're not waiting for the market. Our government is acting and sending a clear message to the industry: let's work together to solve this one.

Far too often we've heard excuses. Now we're actually making change. That is why this bill should be supported by all in this place and in the other place. It is creating a baseline, an opportunity for all of us to have access to the very basics of mobile phone text and voice. The proposal that is before us is a critical part of our government's comprehensive work to make sure we reduce the digital divide that exists in our country. It's critical to improving productivity. It's critical to supporting economic growth. But it's making sure that we support people when they need it. It's making sure that people can access support services in case of an emergency or are able to get the information that they need.

Once this is successfully introduced, it will also allow us to continue to build on bridging the gap when it comes to other needs—for example, data. I talk about data because I want to talk about the NBN rollout and how disappointed we in our part of the world were when those opposite took over and formed government and by the way in which they blew up our plan—they literally destroyed our plan—with the NBN rollout.

We had a series of mobile phone fixed wireless towers being built in our part of the world. Bendigo is a unique regional centre. Whilst in the town there is fibre to the premises or fibre to the node, now fibre to the kerb, our town and our smaller towns and Greater Bendigo itself has a large fixed wireless footprint. One of the towers within that plan wasn't built. It was knocked back for planning reasons. That tower went into the too-hard basket when those opposite were in government. That particular tower in Ladys Pass, near Mount Camel, was actually going to be the relay tower for four others. This meant that those other four towers, which were built in the north part of my electorate, around Greater Bendigo, weren't switched on. For the longest period, those residents and businesses in that outer part had people willing to sell them access to the NBN. They had people willing to sell them access to data plans, and they were signing up to them, but, when the technician would come out to connect them, they couldn't get connected. They couldn't work out why. After question after question, even in this place, after email, after protests and after petitions, we finally found out that it was because the relay tower had not been built. In the end, the solution after many years was to connect them to the south. It meant that, for the towers at the end, like tower No. 10, the coverage was incredibly low. Even though they finally did get access to the NBN via the fixed wireless, the signal was so low that it was almost not worth it.

It took a Labor government's election. In the last term, when Minister Rowlands was the minister for communication, she basically reviewed all of the fixed wireless towers and turned them up, upping what could be transmitted from those towers, allowing more people to be able to access the spectrum that they needed. It's another demonstration of how those opposite didn't really understand what was going on in the regions. What they did to the NBN is just one example of how they basically dropped the ball in terms of universal coverage with quick fixes to be able to say, 'Job done; move on.' That is how telecommunication has been dealt with in this country, and it's clearly not done, judging by the interest that we have seen in this bill.

As I have said, this bill that's before us should be embraced by all in this place, particularly regional members. It establishes for the first time in our history a universal outdoor mobile obligation. It says that, in our country, if you can see the sky, you should be able to access voice and mobile phones. For many in my part of the world, that is a game changer. The idea that you can drive throughout the region—my own region—and not get the SOS is something that many would welcome, knowing that on those catastrophic days you'll still be able to receive text messages and the early warning. That you'll still be able to receive voice calls is a game changer. Knowing that, if your daughter or son is driving home via Eppalock and something happens, they'll be able contact you—these things make a difference. They will ensure that all of us have the same opportunity as others in other parts of the country. I commend the bill and the reforms to the House.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 and I do so as someone who has spent years in this place fighting for my constituents to have access to something that Australians in our major cities take entirely for granted: a reliable mobile phone service. My wife and I raised our daughters in the Fisher hinterland, in the valleys and ranges that stretch from Beerburrum through to Cambroon, from Glasshouse Mountains to Conondale. These are close-knit communities of farmers, small-business owners and young families who have chosen to live in our beautiful rural region. For far too long, they've been connected to the rest of Australia by a telecommunications thread.

Since becoming the federal member for Fisher, I have personally secured mobile phone services for communities across Fisher in Conondale, Glasshouse Mountains, Peachester, Beerburrum, Beerwah, Glenview, Caloundra South and Caloundra West. I've met with network planners. I've sat with developers. I've negotiated with councils and telcos. I've argued the case community by community, tower by tower, for my constituents to be brought into the modern age. So, when a bill arrives in this place that promises universal outdoor mobile connectivity to all Australians, including to the people of Fisher, I want to believe in it. I really do. But wanting is not enough, and belief absent evidence is not policy; it's aspiration dressed up as legislation.

Let me acknowledge what this bill is trying to do, because at least the ambition deserves recognition. The universal outdoor mobile obligation—the UOMO—would, for the first time, extend Australia's universal service framework to mobile telecommunications. It would place a legal obligation on Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom to ensure that baseline mobile coverage, voice calls and SMS are reasonably available outdoors to all Australians on an equitable basis. That is a worthy goal. The principle that every Australian, regardless of postcode, should be able to make a phone call or send a text message from outside is not a radical proposition. It is, frankly, a minimum standard of civilised life in the 21st century.

The coalition doesn't oppose this principle. What we cannot support is a bill that makes big promises, yet relies on technology that does not currently exist—and still leaves consumers with no real protections.

The centrepiece of this legislation is the obligation it places on mobile network operators. But what precisely is that obligation? The bill says that mobile coverage must be 'reasonably available' outdoors to all Australians on 'an equitable basis'. Those two phrases, 'reasonably available' and 'an equitable basis', do almost no work in this legislation. They are, in effect, escape hatches.

The bill explicitly allows the minister to exempt providers by legislative instrument. This means the minister can split the obligation, treating voice calls differently from SMS. And, although the obligation is meant to commence on 1 December 2027, the minister can delay it up to three times, for a 12-month period each time, potentially pushing the start date out to December 2030. What does 'reasonably available' mean for a farmer in Conondale who can't get help when a piece of machinery falls on him? What does 'an equitable basis' mean for a parent in Glass House who can't reach an ambulance when his or her child is choking? This bill, as drafted, provides them with no meaningful reassurance whatsoever.

The government's own explanatory memorandum concedes that direct-to-device satellite technology is still evolving, with the required infrastructure still being deployed. It notes that SMS services are available in some countries on certain handsets, but that voice services are 'expected to follow'—not guaranteed; not scheduled; not contracted; 'expected'. The bill legislates a framework for a technology that does not yet exist at commercial scale in Australia. It sets a commencement date for services that, as of today, are not available on most handsets in Australia, are not fully covered by our spectrum licensing framework and depend on wholesale satellite infrastructure, over which Australian carriers exercise no direct control.

I support the deployment of low earth orbit satellite technology. I've backed greater use of satellite solutions for years. But there is a profound difference between supporting technological innovation and legislating a consumer entitlement contingent on that innovation proceeding on schedule, at scale and on commercially viable terms. This bill guarantees none of these things. The people of Glass House Mountains and Peachester deserve more than a 'maybe'—more than a 'probable'.

In November last year, TPG Telecom reported that a person had died after triple-zero calls failed. The cause was handset incompatibility. Samsung devices were rendered incompatible with emergency call networks, following the government's closure of the 3G network. Around 50,000 Australians believed their phones would work in an emergency. For at least one of them, that misplaced trust was fatal. The government's response was, by any measure, inadequate. ACMA and the telcos sent text messages to people whose phones could not make emergency calls.

The UOMO is designed to be delivered, in significant part, through direct-to-device satellite technology. That technology requires handsets that support it. The vast majority of devices currently available in Australia, including many recently purchased high-quality devices, do not support direct-to-device connectivity. The bill contains no obligation to address this compatibility gap, no consumer education and no handset transition program—not even an acknowledgement of the problem. How can we legislate a universal outdoor mobile obligation when the obligation cannot be accessed by the majority of devices currently in use?

Perhaps the most extraordinary omission in this bill is its complete silence on emergency communications. The government argues that triple zero obligations are already covered by the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Determination 2019 and that voice services under the UOMO will be captured by that determination. With respect, that is a circular argument that fails the basic test of legislative integrity.

The UOMO is a new framework. It will apply to new technologies, including direct-to-device satellite services, whose interaction with existing emergency call determinations has not been tested, has not been adjudicated and may give rise to technical and legal ambiguity at precisely the moment when ambiguity is most dangerous. Many of my constituents have long been unable to call triple zero from outside their homes. The entire purpose of extending coverage to those areas is, at least in part, to enable them to call for help in an emergency, yet the bill does not say so explicitly. It does not guarantee it. It does not mandate it. That is not good enough. An obligation that is meant to save lives should say so in those terms.

Let me speak plainly about the political context of this bill, because context matters. The previous coalition government committed $811.8 million to connect regional Australia through the Mobile Black Spot Program, the STAND program and the Regional Connectivity Program. We helped build towers. We provided an infrastructure. We provided funding. We delivered services to communities that had been waiting for connectivity for decades—communities like those in my electorate of Fisher. And to this day, I'm still advocating for better mobile phone reception in rapid growth areas like Banya and Nirimba. Carl from Banya can only get one bar of service. He has to drive to the Stockland Sales Centre to make or receive calls. Adam and Michelle in Landers Shoot tell me that, since 3G cessation, their phone connection frequently drops out; text messages can't be sent. This has serious impacts on my constituents—constituents like Carl from Eudlo.

The Albanese government cut the Mobile Black Spot Program in the 2024-25 budget. It's cutting the better regional connectivity programs from 2027, and in the most recent round of mobile service upgrades, 75 per cent of funded projects were delivered in Labor electorates. Three in four upgrades went to Labor held seats. This government cut these programs, botched the 3G shutdown, left 50,000 Australians with phones that could not call triple zero, and now asks us to trust it with legislation built on technology that does not yet exist. At some point, incompetence has consequences. In this portfolio those consequences are measured in lives.

The coalition is not calling for this bill to be defeated; we're calling for it to be done properly. I am tired, after 10 years of being in this place, of rushed, panicked bills with minimal consultation and inadequate technical expertise. This approach is hurting Australians. This is the approach that the Albanese government has taken over the last four years.

A Senate inquiry through the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee would allow farmers, small businesses, local governments, emergency services, telecommunications engineers and consumer advocates to put on the public record what they need from this legislation and what, in its current form, it fails to deliver. We need submissions from regional communities about what connectivity means to them in practice. We need evidence from technical experts about the realistic deployment timeline for direct-to-device satellite services. We need clarity about handset compatibility, about the interaction between the UOMO and existing emergency call frameworks, and about the enforceability of an obligation couched in the vague language of 'reasonableness' and 'equity'. These are the minimum requirements of sound public policy; they should not be sacrificed for a political headline.

The people of Fisher have waited long enough for reliable mobile coverage. They've waited while technology evolved and commercial incentives pointed elsewhere. They've waited while city commuters checked emails on the trains while families in the hinterland couldn't call a doctor, an ambulance or even a friend. I want this bill to succeed, but wanting is not governing. Connectivity is not a luxury; it is a lifeline. The people of regional Australia deserve more than an ambitious headline. They deserve a framework that actually works for them.

I support the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Lindsay. I call on the government to refer this bill to the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, and I call on the government in the strongest possible terms to come back to this House with a bill that is worthy of the obligation it claims to create. Australians deserve nothing less. It doesn't matter whether you live in the bush or you live in the cities. Australians deserve to be in a modern day world—in the 21st century. They deserve to be able to pick up one of these phones that is their lifeline to the world and expect that it is going to work—not only if the weather's fine and if they hold up their hand and left foot, but always and at all times, because their lives sometimes depend on it. (Time expired)

Jess Teesdale (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this place we pass many bills. Each one matters. Each one has purpose. Some will adjust regulatory settings. Some will refine systems. Some improve programs in ways that are important but not always immediately visible to the public. Occasionally, legislation comes before us that will be felt in a very direct way. This is one of those bills, because the ability to make a call or send a text anywhere in Australia—anywhere that you can see the sky—is something that people will notice, something that families will rely on and something that could save lives. I know that personally.

Many years ago, as a teacher, I was travelling along the Arnhem Highway to Darwin for a professional development weekend. It was early in the season. The road had only just reopened. Crossings like Blyth River Crossing and Cahills Crossing had to be timed really carefully. You watched the tide, you checked the depth and you made sure that your vehicle was ready, that the car was serviced, that there was food and water, and that the satellite phone was charged.

But on the return trip to Ramingining, about halfway between Gunbalanya and Maningrida, the car broke down—not in a river, and thankfully not in a tidal river, but on a bend in the road. In remote Australia, this is never a good thing. Still, we were calm. We had supplies. We had a satphone; we would call for help—except the credit had expired the day before. At that time, you actually could not recharge your credit from the handset itself—unbelievable. There was no mobile coverage, no satellite credit and no way to call.

In remote Australia, you plan carefully, because help is often very far away. You tell people when you expect to arrive. You map out your route. And you think ahead. You assume somebody will come along eventually. You assume that, when you do not arrive, somebody will raise the alarm. But assumptions do not shorten distances. It was three days before someone found us—three days. We were lucky: it was not a crash, we had food and water and the weather held. But I often think about how different that story could have been if a simple text message had been possible; if one call could have been made; if reassurance could have been given to my family. And that is why this bill matters: because, when something goes wrong in remote Australia, every minute matters, and no Australian should be placed at greater risk because they happen to be outside terrestrial mobile coverage.

Access to telecommunications is no longer optional. It underpins public safety, it underpins participation in our economy and it underpins connection to family, services and community. Yet our universal services framework still reflects a different era. For decades, the universal service obligation has focused on fixed voice services and payphones. That made sense when landlines were the dominant form of communication, but Australia has changed. Mobile phones are now the primary device for communication for most Australians. In many households, particularly in regional and remote communities, they are actually the only device.

So this bill modernises our universal services framework to reflect that reality. It establishes a universal outdoor mobile obligation, the UOMO. It brings mobile voice and SMS services into the public interest telecommunications services framework by amending the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999, with supporting amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 and the Competition and Consumer Act 2010. But, at its core, the UOMO requires that designated mobile telecommunications services—initially, starting with voice and SMS—are reasonably available outdoors to all people in Australia on an equitable basis.

This bill designates that Telstra, Optus and TPG will be the initial primary universal outdoor mobile providers. They will carry that obligation from day one. The regulator, ACMA, will be responsible for ensuring compliance and taking enforcement action where necessary.

The bill also explains what we mean by 'coverage'. Coverage is about whether an end-user who is outdoors at a particular location can use that service, and 'the outdoors' does have to be defined carefully. It is 'outdoors' as we would understand it: not inside buildings; not underground; certainly not underwater. At this stage, it does not assume service inside vehicles or aircraft, because current direct-to-device technology depends on line of sight to the sky. But that clarity is important. It sets honest expectations and keeps the obligation focused on what is achievable as that technology matures.

'Reasonably available' is a practical test. It recognises that there will be technical limitations, temporary outages and consumer choices about whether they have a compatible handset or plan. But it also sets a clear expectation that basic services should work outdoors, in places where it is reasonable to expect them to work.

'On an equitable basis' matters too, because equity is not just about geography; it's about who can access the service. Stakeholders have raised concerns that new satellite-enabled services could cost more and that affordability could become a barrier for regional and remote Australians and for vulnerable consumers. This bill gives the government tools to actually address that. It provides for standards and benchmarks that providers must meet, including the ability to deal with the terms and conditions of supply, including matters related to price. And this is a crucial safeguard. It means universality can be made real in practice, and not just on a coverage map.

The bill has one schedule in two parts. Part 1 inserts the UOMO into the existing universal services regime and creates the supporting powers to set UOMO-specific standards, benchmarks and rules. Part 2 will help to create a separate framework for standards, benchmarks and rules for mobile telecommunications services more broadly, even before the UOMO starts. And that second part really does matter. It means we are not powerless between now and the commencement date. If there are problems with mobile service quality, accessibility or consumer outcomes, the framework allows standards to be developed and enforced ahead of the default start date. The UOMO has the default start date of 1 December 2027. It's a clear signal to industry and a clear promise to the public.

The bill also includes flexibility, so the obligation can be adapted as the market develops. The start date can be brought forward when the market is ready. It can also be postponed in 12-month steps up to three times if there are genuine readiness constraints. It means that we're not moving forward if it is not ready. The obligation itself can be divided. For example, voice and SMS can be separated if that is required to get services working sooner and more reliably.

I understand scrutiny concerns about delegated powers, but parliament always should watch closely when substantial detail is set through these sorts of instruments. There's an area of fast changing technology. The bill puts core obligation in primary law then allows technical detail to be adjusted transparently and over time with consultation and with parliamentary oversight through disallowance.

The reforming technology is neutral. It does not dictate the network architecture. It expects providers to use their existing terrestrial infrastructure where it exists and to use direct-to-device satellite connectivity outside that terrestrial coverage. Direct to device means a mobile phone potentially communicating directly with low Earth orbit satellites. It is not a replacement for towers. It is a complement and a potential way to fill the gaps, and those gaps at the moment are enormous.

If this policy delivers what it is designed to deliver, it will extend basic outdoor voice and SMS coverage across huge areas of Australia that have never had it. This is also about emergency readiness. We are living through more frequent and more intense natural disasters—floods, bushfires, cyclones, severe storms. In those moments, communications becomes critical infrastructure. People need warnings. They need to contact emergency services, they need to reach loved ones, and they need to ask for help.

The bill does not rewrite the emergency recall rules, because those rules already exist. Providers of public mobile telecommunications services must provide access to triple zero under the Emergency Call Service Determination. As voice becomes available outdoors under the UOMO, that emergency framework will still apply. The principle is simple. Baseline outdoor connectivity expands the footprints of safety. It increases resilience. It gives Australians another way to reach help when they are outside tower coverage.

Regional telecommunications have been a recurring focus of this parliament for a reason. We know the business case is harder when population density is low. We know market forces alone do not always deliver equity, and that is another reason this bill matters. It makes baseline outdoor connectivity a matter of national expectation. It modernises an outdated framework to match the way Australians actually communicate. And it does it with enforceable obligations, with standards and benchmarks and with the ability to adapt as that technology evolves.

I also want to note that the framework is designed to evolve. While the designated services at commencement are voice and SMS, the legislation allows additional kinds of designated mobile telecommunications services to be added over time, following consultation and consideration of technical readiness, market conditions and consumer impacts. That matters because what Australians need from mobile connectivity will continue to change, and we cannot lock ourselves into a model that cannot adapt.

The bill also allows the minister to specify circumstances where it is not reasonable to make that coverage available and to identify matters that must or must not be considered when assessing reasonableness. That power does need to be used carefully and transparently, because exemptions that are too broad would undermine the entire purpose of this reform. But, done properly, it provides a practical way to deal with genuinely exceptional situations without abandoning the national objective.

Finally, this bill did not appear overnight. It followed consultation with industry, consumer groups and regional stakeholders, and it sits in a longer story of reviews calling for the universal service framework to be updated and made technology neutral. It is a response to what Australians have been telling us for years—that mobile is the real lifeline now, particularly outside the major cities, and that government has a responsibility to ensure baseline access is delivered fairly.

When I return to the story I began with, I think about the waiting, the uncertainty—that distance between need and help. A simple text could have changed that experience for me completely. Being able to make a call when you need to is not a luxury anymore. It is a baseline expectation in a modern nation. This bill updates our laws to reflect that expectation. I commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025. Let me say from the outset, the coalition took a telecommunications universal service obligation to the last election. Essentially, that means that the service for telecommunications and data would be the same for city people as what's delivered to country people. That seems pretty fair and reasonable, particularly given what rural and regional Australia contributes to the overall economy, doesn't it? Let's look at what they do contribute. All the food and fibre is grown out in rural and regional Australia, all the mining royalties are generated in regional Australia and over $1 billion in coalmining is generated out in the regions, so it should be pretty fair for the regional and rural areas to get the same amount of telecommunications as the city.

It is the same with our little towns. Young ladies like the member opposite might not know what a home phone is because they're lucky to be young enough to know that everyone carries around a mobile. Whereas in the little town of Bowen that I live in, a lot of people still rely on the old home phone but all the networks just do not work, so they're forced to go to mobile phones. But unfortunately, again, because it's a small town, they just don't have the reception. I hear people in the cities talk about black spots, saying, 'Oh, there are black spots. You know, I was driving along and I came to a traffic light and then I couldn't get service.' Well, here's a news flash: in places like where I live, we don't worry about black spots; we have no spots at all.

People in my area haven't gone mad. A person would be driving along when, all of a sudden, they pull up, jump out and they're on the front of their car or on their bull bar, looking for a signal, or jumping up on the back of the ute, looking around, just to try to ring somebody. It's absolutely ridiculous. That's why we need to have a universal service obligation and provide the same level of service to the bush. On our dirt roads a little bit further off the highway, you see a similar thing. You see people in a cloud of dust pull over off the highway and take off into the scrub. They haven't got caught short and are off to the bathroom; they're racing to get on top of a pile of deco or to climb a tree or to find any little hill they can just to look for a phone service.

To highlight this, where I live in Bowen, my electoral office is about 2½ hours' drive away. On the trip from Bowen to Mackay my phone drops out seven times. When you spend a lot of time in the car like I do—I do about 60,000km a year—driving is unproductive, so it's always good to be on the phone and doing some work as I go. We really need to improve that. If there was an accident, if something was to happen, the fact that you can't dial triple zero when it suits is a safety issue.

But this isn't just in the rural areas. My biggest area is Mackay, a city of over 100,000 people. A suburb of Mackay called Slade Point is very close to the city but has very poor mobile phone coverage. If you have a look at a little seaside community like Cungulla, there's absolutely no coverage there at all. Some of our telcos say, 'Well, you know, put in some satellites, put some extra things in,' but that's all money, and people just don't have the money in this current cost-of-living crisis.

My electorate of Dawson is massive. It's a sprawling powerhouse of our national economy. It stretches over 400km from the heart of Mackay through to the sugar heartlands of the Burdekin, right through to the southern reaches of Townsville. But in the 21st century, it's a disgrace that travelling this region is like navigating a cosmic void. When I drive the 400-kilometre stretch, which I do very regularly, I can tell you there are more black holes in the mobile coverage around Dawson than there are holes in a pincushion. Alarmingly, along the Bruce Highway—the main arterial route, I might add, the very spine of the great state of Queensland—there are regular and dangerous black spots. This isn't the remote outback we're talking about; this is the national land transportation network. This is how our kids get to school. This is how our farmers get their produce to market. This is how people get their supplies up from the city. This is how families take their kids to sport on weekends. This is how our patients go to hospital. It's a must, but then they don't have any phone reception, or they have sparse phone reception, as they drive that highway.

As a result of this government's negligence on any meaningful Bruce Highway investment, combined with a total lack of foresight on our telecommunications network, we're then left with a recipe for disaster. What happens when there's a serious accident on a stretch of the Bruce where there is net zero coverage? The answer is simple, but it's brutal: you have deaths. There is an ultimate human cost to this lack of investment. When a family is trapped in a car or a truckie is in a critical state in his cabin and there is no service on the phone to call for help, minutes turn into tragedies. That is the reality for regional Queensland under this government. While the inner-city elites worry about a dropped call being a minor inconvenience, to my constituents it can be a matter of life and death.

We're here today to discuss the universal mobile obligation. The coalition supports the goal of extending voice and text coverage outdoors across more of the country. Improved connectivity for regional Australians is critical and very, very important. However, the credibility of any reform rests not on the lofty aspirations of the minister proclaiming what he does in a press release. It needs to be on the detail, the realism and the actual implications on the ground. This bill must be deeply scrutinised, because if there's one thing we know about this government it's that they're the masters of the headline but they're not very good on the delivery.

In 21st century Australia, reliable phone coverage is not a lifestyle extra or a consumer perk; it's a foundational national need. It underpins our relationships, our economic activity and, most importantly, our safety. For the small businesses, the farmers and the freight operators in Dawson, reliable mobile coverage is essential to the running of their day-to-day operations. It's how they coordinate their logistics. It's how they respond to changing conditions in the paddock. It's how they keep their workers safe. For families separated by the vast distances of our region, it's the only way they can stay connected. Australia's geography makes connectivity both more challenging and also more important. New technologies provide an exciting opportunity to bridge these gaps, but they must be matched by a framework that delivers genuine reliability, not just hollow promises.

The objective of this bill must be to actually deliver. Measures claimed to improve connectivity must work in the real world. We need a framework that is practical, reliable and affordable. An obligation must be clearly defined so that carriers understand what is required of them and consumers in places like Kelsey Creek or Gumlu understand exactly what they're getting for their money. Terms like 'reasonably available' or 'equitable access' are lawyer speak. They must be translated into measurable, enforceable standards. Without clarity and a strong compliance framework there is a massive risk that this obligation will be impossible to monitor or even harder to enforce. Australians deserve more than an ambitious headline. They deserve a framework that stands up under the harsh light of regional reality.

This bill leans heavily on direct-to-device satellite technology. This is an exciting development. It has the potential to reduce longstanding coverage gaps across the vast regions of Australia. But let's be very clear: it remains developing technology. Global rollout is still underway, and significant technical and commercial variabilities are yet to be settled. Accelerating the rollout is essential, but legislating an outcome does not magically deliver it. You can't simply wave a magic wand in Canberra and expect the satellite to fix a black spot on a Whitsunday island tomorrow.

The legislation leaves a trail of unanswered questions. Our domestic carriers may bear the primary regulatory burden, but they will depend heavily on international satellite providers, whose pricing models and deployment schedules are outside Australia's control. We must ensure that any new obligation strengthens market competition rather than inadvertently handing monopoly to a few global giants.

Even more concerning is the issue of device capability. An outdoor coverage obligation is only meaningful if the phone in your pocket can actually connect to the service. Many of the handsets currently in use were never designed with satellite connectivity in mind. Regional Australians, older Australians and our small-business owners often keep their devices for longer periods of time. They don't want to run out and buy the latest $2,000 smartphone every 12 months. A reform that functions only on the latest high-end handsets would undermine the very principle of equitable access that this bill claims to advance. Emergency triple zero access, in particular, must never be contingent on owning a premium handset.

We've learnt the hard lessons from the government's failed—botched—rollback of the 3G set-up. The 3G set-up was cut off. How the set-up worked from your tower was that 3G would project a long way so you would get a lot of coverage in the distance between your tower and where you were, but the service wasn't quite as good. When you go to 4G, it won't project as far, but the service and the quality is better—and 5G doesn't project as far but is very, very high quality. What needs to happen, until the satellite service becomes available, is that more towers need to be built. That is because, even though there's higher quality of service if you're close to a tower, if you're not, your service is vastly diminished or not available at all.

That was a foreseeable transaction that required meticulous coordination and instead was characterised by confusion, technical glitches and total incompetence. Hundreds of device models were found to be incompatible, and many Australians only discovered the problem when their service simply stopped working. Consumers were forced into unplanned, expensive upgrades. That wasn't an unforeseeable event; it was a management failure. We cannot repeat the performance with our satellite network.

Communications policy is not a theoretical exercise for academics in Canberra. It has direct consequences for the wellbeing of every Australian. Australians expect and deserve that, when they dial triple zero, their call will connect without hesitation or any technical complications. The recent history of triple zero outages and device compatibility issues have shaken public confidence in the system. Senate inquiries have exposed troubling governance shortcomings and massive gaps in oversight. The tragic loss of two Australians following device incompatibility issues underscores a sobering fact: communications failures are not merely technical glitches; they are matters of life and death. There is absolutely zero tolerance for error when it comes to emergency services connectivity. We need ironclad assurance that the systems put in place by this bill will not leave Australians with older handsets vulnerable and left behind. We cannot afford another botched rollout.

Then there is the issue of affordability. Telecommunications costs are a critical issue. If compliance with this new obligation significantly increases costs, then that is not a good outcome. We want to have communications for every Australian.

Anne Urquhart (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Chesters, as you know, I take every opportunity to sing the praises of the electorate of Braddon. It's my home, I was born there, and I love it. One of the remarkable things about Braddon is its rugged natural environment. Much of the electorate is remote, and some parts of it are very remote. The wilderness areas right across the electorate are spectacular: trees, mountains—everything that gets in the way of technology. But isolation is something that the remote communities that make up the north-west and west coast and King Island understand, and it's no surprise that the west coast of Tasmania, down around Queenstown and other areas, was chosen not once but twice as the location for the TV show Alonewell worth watching, for those of you who haven't, if only for the spectacular scenery.

Its remoteness, the vast areas of wilderness and the difficult landscapes have all meant that the west coast of Tasmania particularly has experienced poor-quality connectivity and mobile services. They have above average rainfall. It's a rainforest area. It's spectacular. But, again, all that impacts on technology and connectivity. It's very frustrating for the people who live, work and study in or visit that region. I regularly meet with the telco carriers right across the electorate, because there are pockets of service that is not up to speed, and I want to make them aware of it. But this is something that hasn't happened overnight. There's been a litany of upgrades not being done over a long period of time, by various governments. I want to make sure that the people of my electorate have their voices heard.

I also make the telcos meet with the people of our community. A couple of weeks ago I had Telstra come out to a community meeting at Port Sorell, which is a really heavy growing area, with lots of visitors and tourists during the summer, when the population explodes to about three or four times the normal population size. And those people there can't get connectivity in their homes. So Telstra were asked to come and address a community meeting. I've got to say, they came along and they did a fantastic job of listening to concerns and listening to the issues that were raised. They took them on board, and now they're going back out to actually work with people right across that place to see what they need to do.

On the long stretches of highway and roads on the north-west and west coast, poor connectivity is a safety issue for residents and visitors and for the truck and delivery drivers, the tradies and health workers who travel right across our electorate to deliver their absolutely essential services. In the winter particularly, when we have lots of periods of snow, it's even more dangerous out on those roads. Even though I might say that the solitude and peace of not having that mobile phone ringing while you're travelling down that highway is sometimes welcoming, it is an essential service that we need to make sure people can have if they choose to.

Labor believes that the west coast and other areas right across my electorate deserve connectivity that is fast, reliable and affordable. That's why, during the 2025 election, the Albanese government announced a new investment of $9.8 million to boost mobile coverage and tower capacity. This federal co-investment will leverage investments by carriers to upgrade traditional technology and improve reliability. Even with significant investment by government and industry, the provision of traditional mobile coverage to 100 per cent of our vast continent is still not possible. And we are vast, and we have regions, as I said, like areas of Braddon, where normal connectivity is difficult to achieve. Traditional mobile coverage is currently provided in areas where about 99 per cent of Australians work and live but covers only one third of the Australian landmass. In those areas without coverage, it's not possible to make a triple zero call by using traditional mobile services.

Reliable connectivity is an essential service that every Australian deserves, regardless of where they live, be it on the mainland or on Tasmania's beautiful west coast. It is exciting that new technology now makes this possible, and we know that new technology is emerging regularly. Low Earth orbit satellite direct-to-device technology enables standard, unmodified modern smartphones to connect directly to satellites for SMS, voice and data in remote areas, bypassing traditional cell towers.

It's Labor that is taking this initiative to introduce the most significant reform to regional connectivity through a new universal outdoor mobile obligation. Labor's universal outdoor mobile obligation will require mobile carriers, like Telstra, Optus and TPG, to provide access to mobile, voice and SMS almost everywhere across Australia. Satellite to mobile offers a future where outdoor connectivity for basic services is possible in some of the furthest reaches across the country.

With this bill, Labor is adding up to five million square kilometres of new mobile coverage across the country, including more than 37,000 kilometres of regional roads. This will add up to 12,000 square kilometres of new outdoor voice and SMS mobile coverage across my electorate of Braddon. Outdoor SMS and voice are expected to be available on 1 December 2027, which is when all three operators—Telstra, Optus and TPG—will be required to ensure that baseline mobile coverage is available outdoors throughout Australia. Importantly, the universal outdoor mobile obligation will also expand connectivity options for Australians during natural disasters, which frequently impact land based mobile networks. This bill looks to the future by creating the flexibility to adjust the scope and timing of the universal outdoor mobile obligation as the market develops and satellite technologies evolve.

It's really important that we have a number of people right across the country—organisations, groups—who back our policy. Some of those are the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, the National Farmers' Federation, the New South Wales RFS, the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee, and regional councils, who usually are at the forefront of making sure people within their electorates have coverage.

The Albanese Labor government is delivering a better and more connected future, not just for regional and remote Tasmania but for all of Australia. Labor's vision is clear: we want Australia to be the most connected continent in the world so that, no matter where you live or what you do, you can connect. I commend the bill to the House.

Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the previous speaker's comments: vision is one thing, but actions are another thing. I rise today to address a matter of profound significance to the people of rural, regional and remote South Australia and indeed every Australian who lives, works or travels beyond the suburban fringes of our major cities. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2025 is a piece of legislation with a title that promises much but, as is so often the case with this government, carries a risk of delivering very little. The minister has repeatedly promised regional South Australians equivalent coverage. It's a lovely word, isn't it, 'equivalent'? It sounds reassuring in a briefing note or a departmental press release. But I invite the minister to come to Weetulta, Tarcowie, all of the Eyre Peninsula or even parts of Wallaroo and North Moonta.

I received an exciting letter from Minister Wells last week in relation to the Mobile Black Spot Program. Now, the electorate of Grey is vast and has a lot of industry—oil and gas in the north-east, mining throughout. Agriculture is the biggest industry. Port Lincoln has the biggest fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere. We have 28 councils. That's 28 CEOs and 28 mayors. So you'd think in an electorate which represents 92.3 per cent of South Australia—bigger than New South Wales—that we would have a lot of new mobile cell towers going in the electorate of Grey. One was announced in Grey—one. If I look at the nine years of the coalition government, 56 new towers were put in the electorate of Grey, and Minister Anika Wells can give us just the one. That is how much this Labor government cares about regional, rural and remote South Australia and their access to telecommunications—or lack thereof.

Let's tell the small-business owners, who are losing thousands of dollars because they can't process a payment or take an order, that their experience is equivalent to the speeds enjoyed in the city. The reality is that for people in regional SA connectivity is not a luxury; it is a fading pulse. This bill, while noble in its stated objective, needs to be dragged out into the light and interrogated. In 21st century Australia, reliable mobile phone coverage is not a lifestyle. It is not some consumer perk like getting a free coffee on a loyalty card or a discount on a streaming subscription. It is just as vital as the roads we drive on, the electricity grids that power our homes, and the water pipes that sustain our towns. It is the digital asphalt of the modern era, underpinning our social relationships, our economic activity and, most importantly, our safety.

For a grain producer on the Eyre Peninsula or a livestock farmer in the mid-north, reliable mobile coverage is like oxygen. For any Australian who hitches up a caravan or loads up a four-wheel drive to explore this magnificent country—a lot of them are in regional South Australia right now—mobile coverage is first and foremost a safety mechanism. It provides the essential reassurance that if the car breaks down, if a medical emergency strikes or if the weather turns dangerous, help can be called. In an inner-city suburb, a dropped call is an annoyance, a reason to grumble at the dinner table or send a frustrated text later on, but on a remote highway, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town, a dropped call could be life or death.

Australia's geography makes connectivity more challenging than almost anywhere on Earth, but that very same geography makes it more vital. As we move through 2026, we see technologies emerging that offer exciting opportunities to bridge these gaps. We see the potential for direct-to-device satellite communication to finally put an end to silent zones that have plagued the bush for decades. But an opportunity is only as good as the framework that supports it. We need a system that delivers genuine reliability, not just political promises that fall apart the moment they are put to the test. The coalition supports the goal of extending voice and text coverage outdoors across more of the country, because we believe that improved connectivity for regional Australians is simply the fair thing to do. It is a matter of basic equity. Why should a citizen in Peterborough have a lower standard of safety and economic opportunity than a citizen in Melbourne or Brisbane?

However, the credibility of any reform rests not on what it aims to do but on the detail. It contains the realism of its implementation. That is why this bill must be deeply scrutinised. Any measure to improve connectivity must work in the paddock, in the truck cabin and on the shop floor. The legislative framework must genuinely expand coverage in a practical, reliable and affordable way. 'Obligation' is a very serious word in law, and it must be clearly defined so that carriers understand precisely what is expected of them and, more importantly, so consumers understand. Terms like 'reasonably available equitable access' are dangerous if they are left as broad, sweeping concepts open to interpretation. They must be translated into measurable, enforceable standards. Without clarity and a strong compliance framework, there is a risk that this obligation will be impossible to monitor and even harder to enforce. Australians deserve more than an ambitious headline; they deserve a framework that stands up under pressure and delivers tangible outcomes.

Let's talk about this emerging technology, particularly direct-to-device satellite technology. It represents an exciting development that could close longstanding coverage gaps, but we must be honest with the public. It is still a developing technology. This global rollout is still is still in its relatively early stages, and there are significant technical and commercial variables. For those at home, I want to expand on the direct-to-satellite technologies. Here in Australia and around the world we have Starlink, a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites. You can get great speeds with this technology today—I certainly have it on my vehicle when I'm driving around the countryside because, of course, I don't get mobile phone reception.

It is a powered antenna on the top of your car or on the top of your home, and it's a different technology than we're proposing for data and voice technologies. For the government to enable a universal mobile service obligation on data and voice—it cannot be done with the current constellation. What we're seeing now is companies like Amazon releasing more LEOs into the atmosphere for data and voice—and we're a long way away from that. You can consider it like a constellation of 5G mobile cell towers, which is very different to the constellation that Starlink has in our skies today. While we want to accelerate the rollout, we must recognise that legislating an outcome doesn't magically make the technology appear or work perfectly. Business builds and does things, not government. This test isn't whether the headline sounds good in a 6 pm news grab; it's whether the framework delivers for the people of Tarcowie or Streaky Bay.

The bill as it stands leaves so many questions unanswered. Domestic carriers may bear the primary regulatory burden, but they are going to be heavily dependent on international satellite-providing companies whose pricing models and deployment schedules are entirely outside Australia's direct control, like Starlink and Amazon. We must ensure that the new obligation strengthens competition rather than inadvertently handing the entire market over to one or two global giants. Telecommunications policy must anticipate these impacts rather than just reacting to them after damage is done and competition has been crushed.

What about device compatibility? This is a massive issue that the government seems to want to brush under the carpet. An outdoor coverage obligation is meaningless if the phone in the Australian's pocket cannot connect to this new service. Many of the handsets currently in circulation in my electorate were not designed with satellite connectivity in mind. Enabling that compatibility requires hardware and software capabilities that older devices simply do not possess. In regional Australia, people often hold on to their phones much longer than the tech-savvy crowd in the cities—sometimes because of financial necessity, but mostly because they just want a tool that works and they don't need those flashy features. A reform that only functions for someone carrying the latest high-end smartphone is not 'universal'. It is elitist and it is city-centric—but that is not new. It undermines the very principle of equitable access that this bill claims to advance.

Emergency triple zero access must never ever be contingent on owning a recently released, premium handset. We have already seen hard lessons on the government's failed management of the 3G network shutdown. That transition showed us that device compatibility cannot be treated as a secondary issue or left to chance; it is a core issue. We had three deaths in my electorate in recent times, and the coroner has stated that the lack of cell service reception had a 'significant impact'. Again, imagine if this happened in Adelaide. There would be absolute outcry—but not for us in regional, rural and remote South Australia. Again, as another example, when we had the Optus triple zero outage, there was a death in Gawler just outside my electorate because they could not contact triple zero. So whenever we discuss new obligations, we must look at them through the lens of this government's track record and, frankly, that record is appalling. The 3G shutdown was a foreseeable failure, and Minister Wells' handling of the triple zero failure was equally appalling.

The 3G shutdown was a planned change that required meticulous coordination between the carriers and manufacturers, the government and the emergency services. Instead, what did we get? We got a process characterised by confusion, the late identification of thousands of incompatible devices and completely inadequate communication to the public. Hundreds of device models were found to be incompatible, with many Australians only discovering this problem when their device suddenly stopped working. And this did not just affect mobile phones. Farms, farmers, fishers, miners, winemakers, those who work out in the elements have many IoT connected devices. We certainly do on our farm. Well, the cost to replace all of these antennas from 3G antennas to 4G antennas was significant thousands of dollars on our farm alone. This was another consequence of the failed 3G shutdown.

When it comes to mobile service, my constituents are paying what can only be described as a tax on their postcode. Because the 4G rollout wasn't finished before the 3G was unplugged, families have been forced to fork out thousands of dollars for Starlink set-ups or expensive boosters just to get the basic signal they used to have for free. This government treats connectivity as a data point on a spreadsheet, but, in the electorate of Grey, connectivity is the lifeblood of our communities.

Let me tell you about some of the people I represent. Craig, a farmer on the Eyre Peninsula, is trying to run a productive livestock business, but he told me he's basically had to give up on ordering transport to move loads of sheep because he simply cannot get a signal. My good friend Lucas Bagshaw, who faced every country person's absolute nightmare of a fire on his property, grabbed his phone to call for help, but there was nothing—no signal, no bars. He knew better than to rely on triple zero because, in regional South Australia right now, that's a roll of the dice. I think of an elderly primary producer in my electorate who recently crashed his quad bike. He lay there in the dirt for hours. He wasn't saved by a 4G network or a government safeguard; he was saved because he had an old radio and someone happened to hear his call for help on the good old UHF radio. I spoke with David, a senior, whose wife was forced to buy a new phone because her two-year-old Samsung, a perfectly good device, could no longer access triple zero after the shutdown. These are pensioners. They can't just nip out and drop two grand on a new phone.

Rebecca, from Streaky Bay, had been calling my office because, during a severe heatwave with fire warnings, the internet and mobile coverage for the whole town just dropped out for three days. Think about that: a heatwave, a fire threat and a total communications blackout. (Time expired)

Claire Clutterham (Sturt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mobile phones are everywhere. They are an integrated part of society, and most adults in Australia and around the world have one. Many people believe that mobile phones are an essential part of modern day life that benefit us in a variety of ways, such as allowing us to communicate anywhere and any time. You can order food; do your banking; check the weather; track your sleep, health and fitness; navigate your way around; and stay in touch with family and friends on your mobile phone. Mobile phones really are an indispensable part of our daily lives, but, with the rapid advancement of technology, mobile phones have evolved from simple devices used for making calls and sending texts to sophisticated smartphones that can perform a wide range of sometimes critical tasks. So access to telecommunications is not a 'nice to have' or a so-called 'first world service'; it's an essential service that is foundational for public health and safety.

Australia's universal service obligation is a longstanding consumer protection that supports access to phone services and payphones and is underpinned by the notion that, wherever people live or work, they must have reasonable and equal access to these services. As Australia's service provider, Telstra delivers the universal service obligation. As part of this, they have to provide standard telephone services and access to payphones.

Standard telephone services include a number of features, including access to local, national and international calls; untimed local calls; 24-hour free access to emergency service numbers; priority assistance for those with a life-threatening medical condition; a customer service guarantee, which is an acceptable connection and repair timeframe; a unique telephone number, with or without a directory listing; preselection, which allows the user to preselect another provider for long-distance, fixed-to-mobile and international calls where the standard telephone service is provided over Telstra's copper network; calling-line identification; operator and directory assistance; and itemised billing.

The USO was originally introduced in the late 1980s, during a period of economic reform, as the Australian government sought to introduce competition into network industries that were previously government owned. To prevent a scenario where regional consumers were left unserved or underserved, the USO was established to ensure that Telstra would continue to provide affordable standard telephone services in these areas. Initially introduced as the community service obligation in 1989, it was renamed the universal service obligation two years later and was followed by the introduction of a telecommunications industry levy intended to recognise the net costs of delivery of services in some loss-making areas. Over time, however, multiple reviews have recommended reform, arguing that the current USO arrangements are outdated.

They are outdated because of the development of technology. Mobile phone services are available in urban areas, many regional areas and along national and regional highways. Mobile phone services currently reach 99 per cent of the Australian population. To say that Australians rely on mobile phones for their connectivity more than ever is to state the obvious. But, despite the breadth of coverage, Australia's longstanding USO does not include mobile services.

This bill, which creates the universal outdoor mobile obligation, will change that by establishing a framework to create this obligation, which complements the existing USO. In short, this is a significant and important reform that will bring mobile services within the universal services framework.

It is being implemented following a period of extensive public consultation on options to modernise the USO and consideration of current arrangements via the independent 2024 Regional Telecommunications Review. With respect to this consultation, the government has also consulted widely, and feedback from a range of stakeholders was considered in drafting the bill. An exposure draft of the bill was issued in September 2025, and 88 submissions were received from industry, individuals, consumer representatives, state government agencies and local governments.

The Regional Telecommunications Review takes place every three years and it presents an opportunity to examine the existing and future telecommunications needs in regional, rural and remote communities across Australia. The 2024 review was themed 'Connecting communities, reaching every region'. It acknowledged that the USO must be modernised to reflect today's digital realities. It also acknowledged that many rural and remote residents, especially those who live where there is no mobile coverage, value their landline phone services delivered over copper and other legacy technologies, but that legacy voice services are ageing and becoming increasingly expensive to maintain and operate as the technology is phased out globally.

The review also acknowledged that Australians without mobile coverage and other vulnerable groups will need additional support when legacy voice networks are decommissioned. In doing so, the review recommended a unified service obligation that is technology neutral and has a mandate that voice-capable broadband services be available to all, and with the default provider being required to ensure these services meet minimum quality and speed standards, particularly in remote areas. The review also noted that the transition from copper and other legacy networks needed to be carefully managed, ensuring reliable alternatives are in place before any legacy infrastructure is retired.

Mobile telecommunications are essential to people in Australia, especially in regional, rural and remote areas. Stakeholders have longstanding concerns for public safety, given gaps in terrestrial mobile coverage, including on many regional and remote roads. In response, the universal outdoor mobile obligation will require major mobile network operators Telstra, Optus and TPG Telecom and any other providers designated in the future to provide outdoor baseline mobile coverage across Australia on an equitable basis. This reform will benefit all Australians, particularly remote and regional communities, by expanding baseline mobile coverage, which will in turn improve public safety by enabling connectivity to essential services and triple zero.

In terms of the structure of the bill, there is one schedule comprising two parts. The first part amends existing part 2 of the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act to incorporate the universal outdoor mobile obligation into the existing universal service regime. It also provides for a range of new ministerial powers, including to set standards, rules and benchmarks for mobile service quality and reliability in connection with the new obligation. It also sets the default designation of Telstra Ltd, Optus Mobile Pty Ltd and TPG Telecom Ltd as primary universal outdoor mobile providers from 1 December 2027. These entities will for the first time be obligated to provide reasonable access to outdoor baseline mobile coverage across Australia on an equitable basis.

Part 2 of schedule 1 inserts the new part 5a into the Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act to give the minister for communications new powers to make standards, rules and benchmarks that need to be complied with by carriers and carriage service providers in relation to mobile telecommunications services.

It goes without saying that some sectors of the community thought that the delivery of mobile coverage across Australia's vast inland areas would not be possible, but technology has intervened. In particular, the growth and development of new low-Earth-orbit satellite direct-to-device technology will make it possible. This direct-to-device technology is incredible. It's a satellite communication technology that allows conventional devices such as mobile phones or IOT sensors to connect directly to satellites in low Earth orbit, bypassing traditional cellular networks and ground based infrastructure. This means a device can send and receive data from virtually anywhere on the planet, even in areas without mobile coverage or network infrastructure.

Low Earth orbit is the region of space closest to Earth, typically extending from an altitude of between 500 and 2,000 kilometres, reducing latency and improving signal quality. Unlike cellular networks, where devices connect to ground towers, direct-to-device systems use satellites as network nodes in the sky, receiving and transmitting data directly. Low Earth orbit direct-to-device technology has enormous potential across multiple sectors, including emergency and disaster response, because it enables the transmission of messages or alerts when terrestrial networks are down or unavailable. Then, of course, it provides much needed connectivity in rural and remote areas without cellular coverage, improving access to digital services, education and health care.

Australia's investment in building sovereign satellites will underpin the growth of not only our domestic space capability but a range of other capabilities and will also promote partnerships between government and the private sector as investment in projects and missions and procurement from Australian companies take on much greater importance. Investment in sovereign space capability is critically important for Australian industry, science and skills formation. It will help commercialise innovation and translate the skills and capabilities developed in the space sector more broadly to the benefit of all Australian industry and society. Supported by this investment, one day Australia will also be able to send our Australian of the Year, astronaut Kathryn Bennell-Pegg, to space to further signal our commitment to space as a critical domain.

This bill, which is a nod to space and the role of LEO direct-to-device satellites, will modernise Australia's universal service arrangements to provide equitable access to basic mobile coverage outdoors—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. The member will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed, if she requires it.