Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I concur with the remarks of the member for New England. This is a good program—I know it's a program that the coalition introduced, but it's a good program. I was very sorry to see, in the last budget, that it was being axed but I'm pleased to see that, through some pressure from a number of members across the aisle, round 4 has been announced. As we all know, round 4 doesn't have quite as much in it as previous rounds; it's a grab bag of what was left over from previous rounds. I join with the member for New England, without a shadow of a doubt, and hope that there will be a round 5 under whoever forms the next government and the next budget after May.

This is a good program. It's needed in the regions. It's one of the biggest complaints that come into my office. The number of people who say that they still can't get mobile coverage in their community is still too high, so there is still a great need for this program. These are issues that my office deals with daily. Too many rural and regional communities across Tasmania still have no reliable mobile phone coverage. That immediately disadvantages them, isolates their communities and sometimes, frankly, places lives at risk. Some of the communities affected by black spots also endure unstable landline connections—part of being out in the bush is you've got the old copper degrading in the ground, so you've got no mobile coverage and a poor landline. That further disconnects rural and regional Tasmanians from the broader state, their friends and families and, importantly, emergency services.

Last week my office organised and hosted a community forum at the Woodsdale Museum in the south-east of my electorate, about 70 kilometres east of Hobart. About 30 people turned out, reflecting the depth of feeling—it's a relatively small community, so 30 people is a big show. They told my office that they are unable to use mobile phones at all, and, thanks to the ageing and inappropriately placed communications infrastructure, they are often not able to use landlines either. I'm pleased to report that Telstra has—fingers crossed!—dealt with the landlines by installing new equipment, but the lack of mobile phone coverage remains a key sticking point.

It's pretty hard, as the member for New England has stated, to make a commercial case for providing these services, which just goes to show that the market doesn't always know best. These people should not be told that, because telcos can't make a buck out of servicing them, they should all just go home and forget about it. That's the role of government; that's where government comes in. Where markets fail, government steps in. We could argue for hours about the merits and costs of the coalition's decision all those years ago to sell Telstra but let's not flog that horse today.

After hearing about the meeting in Woodsdale, Peter from Levendale, a hamlet south of Woodsdale, got in touch. His son, Ryan, often needs urgent medical care and treatment. Because of constant landline outages, Peter and his family need proper mobile phone coverage to ensure that they are able to access the services their son needs, when he needs them. It's a pretty simple ask: every Australian should have mobile phone access. At the Woodsdale forum, one woman spoke about her experience trying to renew her working-with-vulnerable-people check after running into difficulties with Service Tasmania because she did not have an operational mobile number—they simply could not get her at home. Not being able to renew this check meant she could no longer work in her chosen field and could no longer volunteer in the community she loved. Thankfully, this was resolved after an unnecessarily long process.

When it comes to communications infrastructure and connectivity, our regional communities are still missing out. Poor coverage segregates communities, prevents broader participation and is seriously concerning to the many people who understand the importance of being able to connect. Every day I hear about how crucial proper mobile coverage is to our regions and to people living in them. I hear of the risks that the absence of these services creates. I hear how not having mobile phone coverage affects people, families and communities.

Our rural and regional population deserves proper communications infrastructure, whether it's mobile phone coverage or NBN, and it needs to be a national priority that the regional communications infrastructure network is improved. Far too many Tasmanians and far too many of my constituents are not able to make a call or access communications services, even in matters of life and death, and that is simply not good enough. So I commend the government for backflipping on its budget decision, and I support this mobile phone program. Here's hoping it can continue.

See this speech in context