Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker, Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I'll leave it to the minister to answer the question. I would like to explain some of the programs that were in the budget and what they actually mean for regional communications. One of the positives out of COVID-19 and the recent pandemic has been the interest of people in moving to and working from regional Australia. The fact that people can work—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:23 to 11:4 9

As I was saying before the division was called, there's been a massive shift in the work people are doing from regional Australia, and not only the residents of regional Australia. We are seeing a massive movement to the regions of people who understand they can work remotely and be just as effective, connected not only to the capital cities but internationally as well. NBN Co are doing their bit. In locations right across regional Australia they're developing business enterprise zones with enterprise level broadband at city prices, which is proving to be a real game changer.

In other areas, one of the programs that the government and I are particularly proud of is the Regional Connectivity Program. It's quite a broad program in nature. It is designed to deliver data—and, to some extent, voice—to regional areas where there is a greater need for capacity. From the first round, 80 locations right across Australia will now have access to high-capacity broadband to enable not only communications but a lot of technological advances, particularly in agriculture and mining, with remote monitoring of soil moisture, livestock and the like.

It also affects safety in tourism. Last week I was in Tasmania, at the Tahune Airwalk. Tahune Airwalk is an iconic location in Tasmania, adjacent to the Warra ecosystem observatory. When the fires hit that part of the world a couple of years ago, there were actually 500 people on site, where there was no viable means of communication. So, in conjunction with TasmaNet, they will be delivering a wi-fi system across the complete Tahune Airwalk site and the adjoining Warra ecosystem observatory. They'll have connectivity not only for visitors but also for some of the valuable scientific research that is going on in that location. Right across Australia another 50 projects were announced from round 2, which was in the budget, with more to come.

More money has been allocated to connectivity in the northern part of Australia. We have also funded round 6 of the Mobile Black Spot program. We've already funded 1,200 towers in the first five rounds. About 927 of those are up and running. Round 6 will come online later in the year. Round 6 will be designed to make sure that we've got mobile coverage in some of those thinner markets where it's less profitable for the telcos. It's important that people that live in those parts of Australia have the same level of connectivity as their larger regional and city counterparts.

This budget further enhances our focus and the work that we have done on connectivity across regional Australia. There's always more to do. Regional Australians are very innovative. They have the ability to invent ways to use data as it becomes available, and this government recognises that fact. We are delivering high-capacity broadband and voice services right across regional Australia so that they can continue to carry this country out of COVID-19.

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