Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier this year, I was approached by two constituents who live in the Caves Beach area of the Shortland electorate who were having problems with their television, radio and mobile phone reception. I had previously contacted the minister about these issues and was dissatisfied with her response which showed a lack of understanding of the problems and no concern for the residents of Shortland. As I have previously received complaints about telecommunications in this area, I decided to send a survey to the residents. Following the discussions with the two residents, I sent 672 surveys out to addresses in the area and I received 136 responses, which is a response rate of 20 per cent.

Sixty-one per cent of respondents seeking television signals from Sydney believed that their reception was less than average in quality most of the time. Nearly 30 per cent of those seeking a signal from Sydney said that their reception was ‘always poor’ and only 8.9 per cent thought that their reception from Sydney was ‘always good’. With respect to television signals from Newcastle, 50 per cent of respondents seeking television signals believed that their reception was less than average in quality most of the time. Nearly 18.2 per cent of those seeking a signal from Newcastle said that their reception was ‘always poor’. Only 14.2 per cent thought that their reception from Newcastle was ‘always good’. Considering that Swansea is some 22 kilometres from Newcastle, this is hardly satisfactory. Some comments were:

The quality of signal is very poor, it has gotten worse in the last 12 months.

TV reception is usually very much dependent on the weather.

Signals are greatly affected by passing aircraft, low flying helicopters are most noticed.

Channel 10 and 7 digital reception ONLY, ZERO reception all other digital services.

Stuffed up since the ...  minister decided to bring in the digital signals.

Only NBN is decent, others impossible to see.

I might add that I have censored some of the comments that I have read to the House tonight. Other comments were:

Thank you for your interest ...

Have had an aerial installed by an TV aerial company using digital box, They said it is impossible to get a better signal because of where we live. The aerial is on a tall mast.

It is basically impossible to watch TV in our house. We would never get a period of more than five minutes without signal interruption, and at any one time only for half of the stations otherwise we would not have any signal.

We had better reception in Gunnedah in 1964. Reception worse since they put in digital, to get better reception we were told we would need a 40 foot mast on the roof, surely something can be done in 2007.

Terrible, terrible terrible ...

And on it goes. With respect to radio, 41.4 per cent of the respondents felt that the radio signals were below average. In relation to mobile phones, a whopping 76.5 per cent of the users felt that their mobile phone service was below average; 66.6 per cent thought that their signal was ‘always poor’; and only 10.6 per cent thought that the signal was ‘good’. I must say that some of the comments really reflect that. They include:

Reception is so bad it is unusable.

We need to find a spot in the house where calls can be made and received, sometime the best place is the middle of the road in our street.

Telstra mobile very bad reception in Caves Beach. Always have to go outside to get signal.

Vodaphone are shockingly terrible.

Drop out points up and down the highway south of Swansea—

I can verify that—

Have tried 3 providers—

and it is still the same—

The use of mobile phones inside our home is totally impossible ...

This is 2007, and what we need is a minister who actually listens to people in the community. What we need is a service for the people of Caves Beach that meets their needs. When the government is talking about fast-speed broadband, I hardly think that a wireless system is going to meet their needs. I am disgusted by the response of the minister and so are the people of Caves Beach. I will be taking it up with the minister again. (Time expired)