Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Muir for his question, and acknowledge that it is a very sad story that he has recounted. While I cannot make any specific comment about the emergency response in this particular circumstance, I have heard similar accounts.

Just by way of background, mobile networks have developed differently in Australia to the fixed-line network. Fixed line has essentially been, over time, a government endeavour. It has been through the PMG, Telecom and Telstra. Mobile networks on the other hand have developed commercially and, I guess you could say, organically.

We have something in the order of 99 per cent coverage by population for the mobile network, but that represents only about 30 per cent of the landmass. So clearly there are gaps and there is a need for government incentives to address those gaps. The previous coalition government had a program to do that. I regret to say that in the six years of the Labor government there was not a dollar spent on addressing mobile phone black spots, which is why in opposition Mr Hartsuyker, with Mr Turnbull, came up with the Mobile Black Spots Program, which Mr Fletcher put in place. As a result of that program $100 million of Commonwealth government money has been leveraged into $385 million, taking into account the contributions of telcos, local governments and state governments, which has seen half of the 6,000 community-nominated mobile black spots addressed through 499 mobile base stations or upgrades. That is a three-year program. As Senator Muir quite rightly pointed out, we have also announced an additional $60 million for stage 2 of the Mobile Black Spot Program.