Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Emergency Management and National Recovery and Resilience) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Davey, for your tireless efforts in supporting rural and regional Australia, especially your constituents in New South Wales. Our government recognises the vital importance of digital connectivity to Australians who live, work and travel through rural, regional and remote Australia. They need access to good quality and reliable telecommunications. That's why we're delivering on our commitment to improve mobile coverage across Australia through our $380 million investment in the Mobile Black Spot Program, which is providing more than 1,200 new mobile base stations in black spots right across Australia. Of those base stations, 979 have actually been activated and are right now, in real time, delivering real benefits to regional communities right across Australia, including 320 funded base stations in your home state, Senator Davey.

There's been a lot of talk today about politics and partisanship, but how many base stations for rural and regional Australia have the Labor Party delivered? I don't now. You might be able to guess. This side of the chamber might guess. If they had a policy on this the Labor Party might be able to tell us. I will tell you: zero. It's not even zero, because you haven't been in government for that period of time; you actually don't have a policy to deliver mobile black spot coverage in this country—that is a fact—whereas our side of politics has $182 million, not just for our Mobile Black Spot Program but also for our Regional Connectivity Program, which provides place based solutions for local communities out in the regions.

For Senator McDonald, Senator Canavan and Senator McMahon, we're investing in connecting northern Australia through $685 million dedicated to improving telecommunications in the North. We're about growing jobs and opportunities for the regions through connecting them with 21st century digital connectivity.