Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very lucky to represent the electorate of Berowra. It is a beautiful electorate and it has a range of different ways in which people can live. They can live in suburban built up areas, they can live on the beautiful Hawkesbury River and they can live in the rural areas of the electorate. The geography of the electorate presents beauty—there are hills, valleys and the river—but it also presents challenges. I have found that the people who choose not to live in the suburban areas of the electorate, particularly people who live on the river or in rural areas, choose to live there for a range of different reasons. Some have lived there for generations. When I was visiting the Sackville North fire brigade, recently, I met John Turnbull, who is a distant cousin of the Prime Minister, who goes back to the time of Lachlan Macquarie and the settlement of Ebenezer, which is in the electorate of Macquarie. There are some people who have lived there for generations. There are some people who love the rural lifestyle, who want to have a river experience. There are some people with large families who live there. There are some people who like to have privacy, the privacy of not living on top of the person next to you is a great benefit of my electorate.

Despite the fact that my electorate starts only about 40 kilometres from the CBD, it often feels like you can be at the back of beyond, because, while Berowra has its suburban areas, its rural areas are no different to rural areas in other parts of Australia. They are rural areas, particularly, because their geography makes mobile telephony and mobile coverage a real challenge. Those of us who rely on mobile phones, and so many of us do now, take mobile phone usage for granted. We need mobile phones for calls, for texts, to check the internet, to check emails and to use apps, and we need them for family life and for businesses. Many of the people who live in the rural areas of my electorate in their own businesses. Many of the people who live in the rural areas live in bushfire prone areas, and we need mobile phone coverage, particularly for emergency services.

The black spots in mobile phone coverage arise because of the patchwork of coverage in the vast landscape in my electorate and the particular geography of the electorate. As Australians continue to embrace this technology, we need to ensure that people have a life and have a level of communications technology that can assist them, regardless of where they live.

I want to pay particular tribute to the minister at the table here today, Minister Fletcher, who was absolutely central in bringing on board the Mobile Black Spot Program. The Mobile Black Spot Program has been a great boon to people living in regional areas and in outer suburban areas like mine that have particular geographical challenges. In contrast to speeches from those opposite, we have invested seriously in addressing mobile black spots. I have to say that, other than the issue of roads, mobile black spots are probably the second most important issue—the second most frequent issue—that people raise with me when they come to see me in my electorate.

Residents in the north-west of my electorate have chronically poor mobile phone coverage. People in towns like Sackville North, South Maroota, Glenhaven, Maraylya and Forest Glen might live in one of the most beautiful parts of the electorate, but it is a very difficult part in terms of mobile black spots because of the particular landscape of that area. Those homes are often connected by a thin network of sealed and unsealed roads. As you follow the river along, you get wonderful things like the ski resorts, the caravan parks and the Supercross tracks.

On my recent visit, which I mentioned, to the Sackville North rural fire brigade, it was clear to me how poor mobile coverage interferes with the work and the lives of local residents. A driver needs to know that they can get to a particular scene if there is an accident. A family need to know that they can make a call if a powerline comes down or their home is damaged in a storm. A patient with a medical emergency needs immediate contact with an ambulance, and the ambulance must be able to reach them. Even when you have a bar or two of reception, in the summer months and around Easter, peak demands spurred by tourists and extended families can keep locals stuck in queues trying to get their share of the signal.

A new mobile phone tower for Sackville North was granted funding in the first round of the Mobile Black Spot Program. I understand there are three candidate sites for the tower and that a final decision about that site has not yet been made. So my question to the minister is: when will the tower be constructed, and when will it be brought on line to deliver coverage to my constituents?

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