Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Can I acknowledge the member for Berowra's contribution, and just say to him that I appreciate why he'd be asking the lovely burghers of Berowra to contact his office, given that 80 per cent of funding for black spots in the first three or four rounds went to coalition seats.

In my own electorate, there are 450 identified black spots—450, of which 20 have been funded. I've got 1.34 million square kilometres of the landmass of Australia in my electorate. Many are remote communities and Aboriginal communities, quite diverse, that don't have mobile coverage. Whilst I commend some of the initiatives that have been taken and some of the black spots that have been covered, it's worthwhile knowing that on top of the 25 per cent of all the towers constructed in round 1 they were in areas that already had mobile coverage.

In my own space, the execution of the program has gone so poorly it's believed one in six of the towers from round 1—we're now in round 4—are not even operational, such as those in my own electorate of Lingiari. For people living in Mount Leibig or on the cusp of the Simpson Desert at Apatula, or they might be living at Milyakburra in East Arnhem Land or in the Roper Gulf Region at Burunga—right across the Territory—we have black spots that need to be addressed. It's a matter of health and safety. It's not just a question of saying we need modern communications for commerce. These are real issues for people who live in remote parts of this country. Towers have often gone into tourist spots and roadhouses but, as usual, many remote communities have been left without.

That's left people wondering how to address this very important issue. We've seen a totally insufficient performance measurement and evaluation to check if the needs of community were being properly met and money was being well spent. There's been no proper planning or objective evaluation to determine whether the towers were needed or not. As a result state governments, like Victoria, pulled out. Labor will improve mobile communications from regional communities if we are successful at the next election, and we'll fund mobile services for regional Australia. We'll have a better mobile service for regional Australia policy that will co-fund another 50 new mobile base stations as well as other relevant technologies, such as small cells, repeaters and backhaul.

We've heard a lot from the government about how well they're doing. But I have to say to you, if you just drive a little way out of Alice Springs, on the Stuart Highway, you will find no mobile coverage. And that's led to a bit of innovation, which is well worth talking about in this debate. The Centre for Appropriate Technology, an Aboriginal organisation in Alice Springs, as the name describes, works around innovative engineering solutions and it's come up with some hotspot technology. They place a dish and a receiving station remotely. If you've got a mobile phone you can go to that remote station and, in the vicinity of the station, you can make mobile calls. That mobile technology, which has been developed by the Centre for Appropriate Technology in Alice Springs, will mean we'll now see hotspot dishes placed in strategic locations, across central Australia, largely funded by the Central Land Council in Alice Springs.

This is a local Aboriginal organisation, the Centre for Appropriate Technology, devising an engineering solution for what is a real problem and having a local Aboriginal organisation—in this case, the Central Land Council—pay for the placement of some of these pieces in strategic locations. But that does not cover the real problem here, that we've got huge black spot areas across to the north of Australia, in my own electorate, in particular. And I call on the government to do something reasonable for people in the bush. We hear a lot from—what do they call them?—the bush Liberals but we don't see a lot being delivered, and if they are being delivered they're in their electorates and not in the electorates of those who are the most needy.

If needs based funding were allocated, I wouldn't have a problem, because all of the black spots in my communities would be covered. But as it's not a needs based funding solution—it's based on the political imperatives of the government—we're seeing decisions made on political imperatives and opportunism, not on what's in the best interests of the community. I call on the government to rethink its Mobile Black Spot Program and make sure the people of my electorate are having their needs properly addressed.

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