Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You do. It is so important for country members to continue to fight for better services, because governments of all persuasions tend to be citycentric. They do. That is just the nature of the beast. But I can tell you, as a regional member, we will continue to fight for better mobile coverage, for improved access to the sorts of services that we need. I know how passionate the Nationals are about representing the regional areas and I am sure that all regional members are concerned and passionate and desperate to get better services for their areas. There is no bigger thing in regional areas than health; education is another, and mobile telephone communications are also very important.

Since 2008, the Labor government has done nothing—I will repeat that: nothing—to improve mobile phone coverage in regional Australia. This is to their detriment, to their eternal shame. The Boorowa Shire Council says:

Business in general has become more cost efficient through the use of technology, there is a definite productivity contrast between those farmers who enjoy mobile coverage, and those that don't. This impacts not only on profitability and competition, but will also have a negative impact on land values.

That was from the RTIRC report, and that land values issue is very important. Real estate in regional areas is now always valued according to whether properties do or do not have mobile phone coverage. If you bought a prime piece of agricultural land without mobile phone coverage then all of a sudden your land is devalued because you do not have a tower within range. But your neighbour's land, which might not have been worth the same amount, all of a sudden is now at a higher value. It is not fair. It is not right. In a land where we should be using more wireless technology and we should be smarter with our Commonwealth money, I cannot see that that is fair. I cannot see the equity in it.

The coalition took action when in government. We spent about $145 million between 2001 and 2007 to improve mobile coverage. I will repeat again: Labor has done nothing since 2008. But we, the coalition, implemented the $15.65 million extended mobile coverage in regional Australia program, which improved CDMA coverage in 62 locations. We also funded the Towns Over 500 Program, which improved mobile phone coverage for 131 towns in regional Australia with populations of more than 500 people because we do care about towns with under 1,000 premises. We also funded two programs to improve mobile coverage along highways worth a total of $44 million. We also implemented a significant number of small projects worth more than $10 million through the Networking the Nation initiative. But you know what? We did not do enough but they have done nothing.

Those opposite are rolling out a Rolls-Royce of NBN with no cost-benefit analysis. There is no accountability but that is so typical for everything that side does. There is absolutely no accountability because they know that after September 14 they will not have to worry. From our point of view, hopefully they will not be the ones paying it back, we will. We are the proper managers of fiscal policy in this country. The public knows it and the voters know it because they went to the polls and showed they are not fools in Western Australia on Saturday, just like they did in Victoria, just like they did in my state of New South Wales, just like they did in Ken O'Dowd's state of Queensland. They know when they are being duped. They are being duped at the moment. They are certainly being duped with the NBN. There is no cost-benefit analysis, no accountability. That is typical Labor. We all know it but we also know that regional communications are so vital to get people the right coverage for safety aspects, to enable them to do business and to help regional Australia go ahead to be the best that it can be.

See this speech in context