Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025. This is a very important bill, and I'm very thankful to Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland's hard work in this area and her support of my electorate and my constituents in dealing with the significant telecommunications issues related to the previous, very poor rollout of the NBN and telecommunications services in Macarthur by the previous government.

When I was a student at school, we didn't have computers. We didn't have calculators. We used slide rules and logarithmic tables for complex calculations. When I was a medical student, I spent 12 months working in India at the time of the Emergency in a state called Orissa in a city called Cuttack, which was the capital of Orissa. It had a large paediatric hospital. As I said, it was the time of the Emergency. There were lots of refugees following the split of Pakistan into Bangladesh and Pakistan. Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, had declared a public emergency and essentially martial law. So we were working with refugees, and communications were very difficult.

In that year, I think I made three phone calls home and wrote two letters. The phone calls necessitated a trip from Cuttack in Orissa to Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal, which had a communications link to Australia. It took a long time to organise those phone calls and cost a lot of money. In those days, it cost the equivalent of $25 or $26. At that time, I was being paid the same rate as an Indian doctor, which was around 270 rupees or about $30 a month. They were very expensive phone calls, and the link was difficult. Sometimes I'd travel to Calcutta, and we couldn't get the link. I'd have to travel back to Cuttack and then back to Calcutta the next day to make the phone call.

When I started work as a doctor, we had only just developed electronic telephones that could be moved from place to place instead of using a phone booth or a fixed phone. The world has revolutionised since that time. Of course, doctors are very fond of the fax machine, and the fax machines were developed after I'd been in practice for a few years. Telecommunications developments after that have been incredibly rapid. Telecommunications are now an essential part of modern living. No-one goes anywhere these days without their mobile phone. In medical practice, we rely on efficient communications for all our electronic records and blood test results. We can now get X-ray results sent electronically to our telephones. In the days when I first started practice, most practices had a storeroom full of X-ray films. These are hard-copy plastic films, usually with silver nitrate for the images. These are no longer required because of electronic records and efficient telecommunications.

Many Macarthur residents are able to work very efficiently from home because of modern communications. However, as I've said, we have had significant problems in Macarthur because of the copper telecommunications wiring that is often many decades old and in poor condition. The concept of the NBN using fibre to the node rather than to the home and then relying on the copper network to get to the home was deeply flawed. Some of the older suburbs such as Leumeah, Glen Alpine and Campbelltown suffered incredibly poor telecommunications access because of the old copper network. We've also had difficulties even in some of the newer suburbs like Gregory Hills and Oran Park because of the new providers not providing adequate protection for the fibre network connecting telecommunications to the home. Every time it rained, we were having problems with people not being able to access their telephone or the NBN because of this poor initial rollout. We complained many, many times to some of the providers about the fact that only one of the developers had provided access to the fibre network to the new suburbs. Because of the providers skimping on the rollout and providing poor infrastructure, many of these suburbs, in the time since the NBN rollout, have not had adequate access to telecommunications, limiting businesses in functioning from the home and limiting the ability of people to work from home.

I am very thankful for Minister Rowland's work in fighting for the families and businesses across south-western Sydney to access fast, reliable, affordable and equitable connectivity. In my electorate of Macarthur, adequate telecommunications can not only bring convenience to the daily lives of residents but can also make sure they can function using their businesses or working from home. They can reach their nearest and dearest as well through a mobile phone call. They can work from home or have telehealth sessions with their GP at the push of a button with adequate telecommunications. The fact that many suburbs have not been able to have access is a tragedy. Since coming to office, our government has been improving the mobile and broadband connectivity across south-western Sydney and Western Sydney by bringing adequate telecommunications to over 230,000 households and businesses, which have been able to receive upgrades, with superfast broadband now across south-western Sydney. For every Australian, regardless of where they live—as we deliver the Labor vision to be the most connected continent in the world—there is over $8 million now being invested by the federal government, with 12 projects across Western Sydney, to improve our mobile infrastructure. There is more to be done, but in our three years of government we have done a lot to improve connectivity in western and south-western Sydney, and that's thanks mainly to the minister, Michelle Rowland. I thank her so much for that.

Connectivity is very important in Macarthur, where we have several suburbs that remain semirural and have been built in a way that has not provided adequate connectivity in the past. The natural terrain of hills and valleys can also impair connectivity, which makes it more complex to provide adequate connectivity and means that providers have to invest properly in robust infrastructure to do that.

The NBN fibre rollout that our government is working hard to implement has improved connectivity to over 6,000 households and businesses in the Macarthur region alone in the last three years. They're benefiting from a full-fibre connection rather than fibre to the node and then copper to the premises. This has made a huge difference in suburbs like Eagle Vale, Kentlyn, Narellan, Smeaton Grange, Claymore and Spring Farm, and that's naming only a few. There are many more that are benefiting.

On top of that, over 47,000 households and businesses in suburbs including Minto, Rosemeadow, Camden, Harrington Park, St Andrews, Glen Alpine and Mount Annan are benefiting from the existing full-fibre connection rollout to their homes. This benefits everyone in my community, from students at university to medical practices, those running their own businesses and those working from home. This is a really incredible social improvement for many people who can access working-from-home conditions and work very efficiently as well as care for their families. Our families are now enjoying streaming services that they couldn't previously access.

This is very good policy from a very good communications minister and good government. I've met with the minister several times. She's been to my electorate several times to see the problems we are having. I know this is replicated in other areas of Australia, including rural and regional areas. She's a very active minister and one who is doing her best to make sure everyone in Australia can access the best connectivity possible.

We know that some providers have not been doing the right thing. This legislation is helping to make sure they are accountable, so that everyone can make sure their providers are accountable to them and to the government for poor service. I know that the minister and the department are actively looking into how they can deal with a provider called Opticomm, which has customers in many suburbs including Gregory Hills, Gledswood Hills and Oran Park, who for many years have been dealing with poor internet performance and poor mobile connectivity. This is very specific, I know, but it is a local issue that I've been campaigning on since I was elected in 2016. The fact that we're still having issues is a testament to the really poor service to the people of these suburbs.

This amendment establishes a carriage service provider registration scheme to make sure that there is visibility of carriage service providers operating in the market. It enables the regulatory body to stop service providers who pose an unacceptable risk to consumers and businesses or cause significant consumer harm from operating.

Telecommunications is now such an important part of our lives and of our business that we can't work without it. Industry codes are directly enforceable by ACMA. This will enable ACMA to take immediate and appropriate action to address consumer concerns and complaints. It also provides incentives to industry compliance. There are civil penalties, and the courts can now issue breaches of key regulatory instruments, for the greater good of many people. It will expand and clarify authority to increase infringement notice penalties ACMA can issue for breaches in a short period of time. The current provisions are confusing. They do not allow the Minister for Communications to increase penalties in certain areas. These reforms go to the compliance and enforcement regime for consumers and for businesses and constitute a comprehensive package of improvements to those arrangements. This bill is a very important one to my community and I commend it to the House.

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