Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are dealing with the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Community Consultation) Bill 2011. It was referred to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, of which I am deputy chair. The committee, including me and my colleague here today the member for Ryan, was asked to look into this particular matter. The bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on 19 September last year by the Independent member for Denison and subsequently referred to our committee for inquiry. The bill in a sense proposes 12 amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 and aims to enhance the level of community consultation by telecommunications carriers who wish to install mobile phone towers.

The inquiry received 77 submissions. Sadly, many of these were from those who came together to oppose mobile phone towers. At other times their evidence cascaded into other aspects of the network of telecommunications towers, dishes and the like and probably was not within the terms of reference. Submissions were also received from the telecommunications carriers, the peak industry bodies in telecommunications and the government agencies which either administer them or look into scientific aspects of them. We held a public hearing here on 17 February this year and the committee put the concerns of these community groups to the industry and to government agencies. Those who gave evidence for the government were the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA; and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, ARPANSA. From industry we had the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and the Communications Alliance.

Sadly, many of the concerns raised by the community organisations in their submissions to the inquiry, as I said before, are not being addressed by this bill. This is a new phenomenon, as we know, for the House of Representatives and we have to strike a balance between these types of inquiries and the broader inquiries into aspects of policy that might be referred by a minister. Where a bill is referred from the House via the Selection Committee, you have to be quite specific in dealing with the terms of reference and whether or not you recommend the bill. I think a lot of people out in the public do not see that distinction.

Fundamentally the committee is aware that balance is needed. You have to have this balance between getting telecommunications out to people on one hand and, on the other, doing that safely and with due regard to public aesthetics. I for one think that we could be doing that a lot better. What I have noted in my own electorate is that when a tower is going to go up there may be an article in the paper saying that the council is looking into a tower at such and such a site, but there is no definitive information for the public to latch onto. Often the first time I hear about it is a request I get from a protest group to come to a part of the electorate. Then I sit around in a hall, or over in a paddock somewhere where it is proposed the tower will go up, with a lot of angry people who do not quite know what is proposed. It quite often takes a long time to engage the telecommunications providers, by which time the anger level has well and truly built up and, by the time they come to a similar gathering, usually some time later, the daggers are well and truly drawn. As I have said before—and I know this offends some people—it quite often becomes a contest between well-meaning people but often at a level of zealotry rather than with rational debate. Somehow we have got to get out of the mode of the 'daggers drawn' stage before anything happens.

Mr Wilkie, the member for Denison, proposed in his legislation that the specified time for consultation be increased from 10 to 30 business days and that it apply to a residence within 500 metres. But the point is that towers are not subject to that sort of level of scrutiny. Strangely, the bill covers small things, dishes and the like, but do larger edifices, like towers, come under the regime of a local authority or state government regulations? Because of that, there is very little that we can do at a federal level in respect of where certain towers might be located. Again, it is not always clear to the public whose jurisdiction or authority is at play.

The committee noted that there was a great deal of confusion in this issue, particularly amongst communities, about how telecommunications services work; who regulates them; what level of government does what, and why and how; what the responsibilities of the industry to consult with the community are, and how and when; and what happens when there is a problem and who can fix things. I remember cross-examining the industry witnesses at this inquiry. I asked them why we had to get to this 'daggers drawn' level before there was a good level of community consultation. By that, I mean that you put out a brochure which is not full of pious bumf but is hard-hitting, sensible, material perhaps composed of two types—on the one hand simple, clearly stated technical data on the safety of the emissions and what emissions are proposed from that tower or that edifice and, perhaps in another part of the brochure, an explanation in layman's terms. It would be technical on one hand and for the layman on the other. As a result, nobody would be left without a good understanding of what is proposed. That would require the telecommunications providers to be more proactive, to attend to these things early and not to refuse to attend early meetings. I find that, when I get involved and start to throw my weight around a bit, people start to want to attend public meetings. You have those who will be arguing an aesthetic argument: 'If you put that particular tower on this water tower or water reservoir, that will be an eyesore and we will never sell our homes in this area.' The counter argument is, 'Broadband is not going to come up to this rather remote hill where all of you have built your homes. Your only chance of getting high-speed broadband in the future will be from wireless technology; therefore if you are not going to have a tower up here you are going to be without good internet connections. Therefore you will have trouble selling your houses, but for another reason.' I think that a lot of this angst could be obviated by the providers and community groups consulting early. We could perhaps give ACMA the authority or act around ACMA to make sure that these processes occur and occur early, so that you do not have endless cost. We all know telecommunications in Australia are expensive by international standards. Part of the reason is that we have got to cover huge distances and we have got to put towers and facilities up in quite inaccessible places. If you add on to the top of that people who have a zealot-like approach and do not want anything to go near this or near that or who say, 'this is going to be terribly dangerous' when all the evidence is that it is not, then we are going to have a layer of bureaucracy, time wasting and greater expense.

Coming back to this particular bill—I know I have strayed a little from the core of the subject—the core of the subject is: do we, or do we not, recommend Mr Wilkie's, the member for Denison's, bill. The committee found, and I quote from paragraph 1.69:

… no evidence which would cause it to recommend any change in current public policy settings on this issue.

In other words, we found no evidence which would cause the committee to recommend any change in current public policy settings on this issue. In other words, we could not find the evidence. We also noted, as I said before, that a lot of the things that were referred to in the legislation are covered by state and local authority planning laws.

As committee on a broader scale, it is not for us to make subsidiary recommendations and it was not, in a formal sense, put in those terms, but we did note that the committee is interested in examining these issues and playing its role in the parliament within its portfolio responsibilities. But we felt it would greatly assist the work of the committee if, when referring legislation for consideration, any suggestions for the reason for the referral be given, so that we can slant our inquiry into the areas where there is angst or potential angst or where the selection committee or other forces in the parliament feel an issue has to be flushed out. Finally, the committee's recommendation is that we should oppose the bill.

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