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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

My electorate of Indi in north-east Victoria is no stranger to disasters.

Floods are a fact of life for communities along rivers such as the Goulburn, the Broken, the Ovens, the King and the Murray, and recent floods in 2022 and 2023 show the devastation they can cause.

Already this century, we've experienced the Black Saturday bushfires, the Black Summer bushfires, and now the January 2026 bushfires.

Two fires in Indi this summer, known as the Longwood fire and the Walwa River Road fire, left more than 300 homes destroyed, and over 250,000 hectares of land burnt. These communities are now on a long road to recovery.

As I've travelled through affected towns in recent months, I've seen communities showing up for each other, town halls turned into relief centres, neighbours helping neighbours, people giving all that they can. Indeed, Minister McBain is here today, and she's accompanied me on these tours. In the worst of times, our resilience and strength is clear.

However, resilience isn't limitless.

For many communities, this is the second or third catastrophic disaster in just a few short years. What were once-in-a-century events are now happening once in a decade, or even more often.

Unfortunately, as climate change makes disasters more intense and more frequent, government investment in our communications network resilience has lagged, with serious consequences.

We must do better for our regional communities.

The SCiND bill

That's why today I'm introducing a bill to strengthen communications systems through natural disasters. This bill will do three things.

First, it will require the regulator to identify phone towers in high-risk areas and set out minimum power backup requirements for these sites.

Second, it will enable the government to implement temporary disaster roaming, which could save lives in an emergency.

Third, it will create a clear pathway for the government to invest in community wi-fi and satellite internet at community halls or other technologies that can be deployed during a natural disaster.

I'll now explain these reforms in detail.

Temporary disaster roaming

I continue to push for the implementation of temporary disaster roaming, or TDR.

TDR would allow a person in a disaster affected area to temporarily connect to another mobile network when their usual network is unavailable or severely degraded, so they can still make and receive calls and text messages during an emergency.

Some countries have had disaster roaming in place for years, and it's been recommended by inquiry after inquiry here in Australia, including the government's very own Regional Telecommunications Review in 2024.

However, despite saying it was looking into disaster roaming over two years ago, the government is still yet to act.

When I asked for an update last year, I was told that the government hopes to implement TDR soon, but it's an industry led initiative.

Frankly, this hands-off approach isn't good enough for my electorate, where bushfires this summer have destroyed hundreds of homes and left communities disconnected.

I welcome that the government is now saying that it hopes TDR will be implemented before this summer. But with the telcos dragging their feet, and the start of summer only six short months away, hoping simply isn't enough.

The government must show leadership—pull Telstra and the other telcos into line—and get it done.

Mandatory power backup

Another key issue exposed by fires in my electorate is the lack of power backup at towers.

We know that when a mobile phone tower has a battery or a generator onsite, sites stay up longer and enable people to receive life-saving information, or to communicate with their loved ones.

It's why I've recommended at least 24 hours of power backup—and why I had the Parliamentary Budget Office cost this policy at last year's election.

Mandatory power backup has the support of the Victorian government, who have called for 'long-duration battery energy storage solutions that deliver more reliable power supply to key telecommunications infrastructure that can support power loads for 24 hours'.

Similarly, the government's own Regional Telecommunications Review backed my recommendation, calling for 'minimum power backup periods for new critical telecommunications infrastructure, with existing assets to be captured over time'.

But the government hasn't acted—so I am.

This bill will require the Australian Communications and Media Authority to identify high-risk sites and determine the minimum power requirements of these sites.

Communications resilience grants

The final pillar of my bill is to put disaster resilience alongside payphones, the National Relay Service and the emergency call services as eligible public interest telecommunications spending.

It's an overdue amendment that would make it easier for the Commonwealth to invest in things like Cells on Wheels, which can be rapidly deployed to disaster affected areas. Similarly, it would allow the Commonwealth to continue a long-term investment in satellite internet, routers and battery backup for halls, community centres and schools right across regional Australia.

Conclusion

This bill, if implemented, would save lives when the next fire, flood or storm arrives.

In regional Australia, we face a future of more frequent, more intense disasters, and the government must do more to ensure communications systems are as resilient as they possibly could be.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

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

I second the motion. I very much support the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Communications in Natural Disasters) Bill 2026 and this motion, and I thank the member for Indi for championing regional telecommunications. My community understands the very real threat of bushfires. We've lived through the fear, uncertainty and heartbreak that come with fires—not just our homes but our entire townships. Telecommunications outages, due to the loss of power or destruction of infrastructure during such natural disasters, ultimately cost lives. Earlier this year, the fire at Deep Creek reminded us how quickly conditions can change. That one actually threatened the township of Cape Jervis and vital ferry infrastructure. We've had, during my time as a member, devastating fires on Kangaroo Island, in the Adelaide Hills and at Cherry Gardens, and, just before I was the member, there was one at Sampson Flat. But the disaster lives on for a long time.

I think one thing that common to all of those is that our telecommunications failed us when we needed them the most, and that's why this bill is so important. It will respond to address failures of mobile networks. It will require ACMA to set minimum-power and backup-power requirements, because that's so critical. The electricity gets cut to save us during bushfires, from a danger point of view, but then, with so many people on the network, the towers go down very, very quickly. So it is an excellent requirement to have 24-hour battery backup, which will, in many cases, allow the immediate danger to pass, and then we can get those mobile telephone tower batteries swapped over and hopefully continue without losing telecommunications, so it's incredibly important.

The temporary disaster roaming period, in which a person in a disaster affected area can temporarily connect to another network, will be a game changer in regional Australia. Many people in my electorate, ridiculously, need to carry both Optus and Telstra—two separate phones—because in some parts of the electorate Optus works best, but in other parts it's Telstra, so being able to swap across carriers will be incredibly important. And this bill will enable the minister to make rules requiring temporary disaster roaming in declared emergency situations.

I think one of the most innovative ideas in this bill is the requirement for low-level satellite telephone calls and connectivity in our community centres. The member for Mayo is completely correct—sorry, the member for Indi is completely correct. The member for Mayo might be too! But certainly the member for Indi is.

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

We're a unity ticket on this one!

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

We're a unity ticket on this one. When there is a disaster, people go to their community centre; roll out swags, if they've got them; and get some food. Often, people leave with their absolutely basic documents and photos, if they can pull them together in time. But when they go to their community centres they find that there's no way they can make a phone call to let people in their family and friendship circle know that they are safe. So having that connectivity in our community centres is important.

I'd like to spend my last 30 seconds recognising a wonderful lady, the late Jill Bottrill, who basically crossed the lines to get into the Lobethal community and on Kangaroo Island with NBN trucks just so that my community could have somewhere to charge their phones and be able to make a phone call. But that didn't happen for, I think, at least 48 hours after we had the Black Summer fires. This will be a game changer for regional Australia. I really do urge the government to put the shoulder to the wheel and make this happen for us.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.