Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are dealing with the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Community Consultation) Bill 2011. It was referred to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, of which I am deputy chair. The committee, including me and my colleague here today the member for Ryan, was asked to look into this particular matter. The bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on 19 September last year by the Independent member for Denison and subsequently referred to our committee for inquiry. The bill in a sense proposes 12 amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 and aims to enhance the level of community consultation by telecommunications carriers who wish to install mobile phone towers.

The inquiry received 77 submissions. Sadly, many of these were from those who came together to oppose mobile phone towers. At other times their evidence cascaded into other aspects of the network of telecommunications towers, dishes and the like and probably was not within the terms of reference. Submissions were also received from the telecommunications carriers, the peak industry bodies in telecommunications and the government agencies which either administer them or look into scientific aspects of them. We held a public hearing here on 17 February this year and the committee put the concerns of these community groups to the industry and to government agencies. Those who gave evidence for the government were the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy; the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA; and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, ARPANSA. From industry we had the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association and the Communications Alliance.

Sadly, many of the concerns raised by the community organisations in their submissions to the inquiry, as I said before, are not being addressed by this bill. This is a new phenomenon, as we know, for the House of Representatives and we have to strike a balance between these types of inquiries and the broader inquiries into aspects of policy that might be referred by a minister. Where a bill is referred from the House via the Selection Committee, you have to be quite specific in dealing with the terms of reference and whether or not you recommend the bill. I think a lot of people out in the public do not see that distinction.

Fundamentally the committee is aware that balance is needed. You have to have this balance between getting telecommunications out to people on one hand and, on the other, doing that safely and with due regard to public aesthetics. I for one think that we could be doing that a lot better. What I have noted in my own electorate is that when a tower is going to go up there may be an article in the paper saying that the council is looking into a tower at such and such a site, but there is no definitive information for the public to latch onto. Often the first time I hear about it is a request I get from a protest group to come to a part of the electorate. Then I sit around in a hall, or over in a paddock somewhere where it is proposed the tower will go up, with a lot of angry people who do not quite know what is proposed. It quite often takes a long time to engage the telecommunications providers, by which time the anger level has well and truly built up and, by the time they come to a similar gathering, usually some time later, the daggers are well and truly drawn. As I have said before—and I know this offends some people—it quite often becomes a contest between well-meaning people but often at a level of zealotry rather than with rational debate. Somehow we have got to get out of the mode of the 'daggers drawn' stage before anything happens.

Mr Wilkie, the member for Denison, proposed in his legislation that the specified time for consultation be increased from 10 to 30 business days and that it apply to a residence within 500 metres. But the point is that towers are not subject to that sort of level of scrutiny. Strangely, the bill covers small things, dishes and the like, but do larger edifices, like towers, come under the regime of a local authority or state government regulations? Because of that, there is very little that we can do at a federal level in respect of where certain towers might be located. Again, it is not always clear to the public whose jurisdiction or authority is at play.

The committee noted that there was a great deal of confusion in this issue, particularly amongst communities, about how telecommunications services work; who regulates them; what level of government does what, and why and how; what the responsibilities of the industry to consult with the community are, and how and when; and what happens when there is a problem and who can fix things. I remember cross-examining the industry witnesses at this inquiry. I asked them why we had to get to this 'daggers drawn' level before there was a good level of community consultation. By that, I mean that you put out a brochure which is not full of pious bumf but is hard-hitting, sensible, material perhaps composed of two types—on the one hand simple, clearly stated technical data on the safety of the emissions and what emissions are proposed from that tower or that edifice and, perhaps in another part of the brochure, an explanation in layman's terms. It would be technical on one hand and for the layman on the other. As a result, nobody would be left without a good understanding of what is proposed. That would require the telecommunications providers to be more proactive, to attend to these things early and not to refuse to attend early meetings. I find that, when I get involved and start to throw my weight around a bit, people start to want to attend public meetings. You have those who will be arguing an aesthetic argument: 'If you put that particular tower on this water tower or water reservoir, that will be an eyesore and we will never sell our homes in this area.' The counter argument is, 'Broadband is not going to come up to this rather remote hill where all of you have built your homes. Your only chance of getting high-speed broadband in the future will be from wireless technology; therefore if you are not going to have a tower up here you are going to be without good internet connections. Therefore you will have trouble selling your houses, but for another reason.' I think that a lot of this angst could be obviated by the providers and community groups consulting early. We could perhaps give ACMA the authority or act around ACMA to make sure that these processes occur and occur early, so that you do not have endless cost. We all know telecommunications in Australia are expensive by international standards. Part of the reason is that we have got to cover huge distances and we have got to put towers and facilities up in quite inaccessible places. If you add on to the top of that people who have a zealot-like approach and do not want anything to go near this or near that or who say, 'this is going to be terribly dangerous' when all the evidence is that it is not, then we are going to have a layer of bureaucracy, time wasting and greater expense.

Coming back to this particular bill—I know I have strayed a little from the core of the subject—the core of the subject is: do we, or do we not, recommend Mr Wilkie's, the member for Denison's, bill. The committee found, and I quote from paragraph 1.69:

… no evidence which would cause it to recommend any change in current public policy settings on this issue.

In other words, we found no evidence which would cause the committee to recommend any change in current public policy settings on this issue. In other words, we could not find the evidence. We also noted, as I said before, that a lot of the things that were referred to in the legislation are covered by state and local authority planning laws.

As committee on a broader scale, it is not for us to make subsidiary recommendations and it was not, in a formal sense, put in those terms, but we did note that the committee is interested in examining these issues and playing its role in the parliament within its portfolio responsibilities. But we felt it would greatly assist the work of the committee if, when referring legislation for consideration, any suggestions for the reason for the referral be given, so that we can slant our inquiry into the areas where there is angst or potential angst or where the selection committee or other forces in the parliament feel an issue has to be flushed out. Finally, the committee's recommendation is that we should oppose the bill.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the advisory report on the Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Community Consultation) Bill 2011 by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications. I was delighted when the independent member for Denison, Mr Wilkie, proposed this bill because, for many years, I have shared the concerns of the community as to the way that the telcos put infrastructure into our community without having to answer to the community for what they are doing. In particular, I have had many examples of a lack of consultation and inappropriate work practices. So I thought that for once we had the opportunity to address many issues. I would like to thank all the groups and members in the electorate of Ryan who took the time and effort to make submissions to this inquiry.

However, as the deputy chairman of the committee and my colleague the member for Hinkler pointed out, as an inquiry we were tied to only considering the impacts of the bill and could not introduce new clauses or change the clauses already there. I was most disappointed that the member for Denison obviously failed to consult with those most affected before he drafted this legislation because, quite frankly, it fails on many fronts—indeed, it fails on the most important fronts: consultation and the impact of the larger towers. As the member for Hinkler said, the large towers are not even mentioned in this legislation. So it is very disappointing that all this effort has been made and yet it completely fails the reasons we need legislation in this area.

The reason we need to address some of these issues I think is exemplified by a group now called No Towers Near Schools. They are located in Bardon in the electorate of Ryan. These are ordinary community members who, at short notice, were confronted by a telco wanting to put up a large tower. They were not helped in any way. The telco was obviously helped by government legislation as it exists. And not only did they have to form a community group and protest and put in submissions, but, when they went on formally to lodge an objection with ACMA, ACMA chose not to investigate it. During the inquiry I asked ACMA: 'Are you rushed with inquiries? Are so many people complaining that you have to look into them?' But they said, 'Oh, no, they are reduced greatly.' I said, 'So why would not you investigate this inquiry?' It turns out that ACMA can choose whether or not to investigate an inquiry, and their discretion was not to investigate. So these hard-working members of my local community then had to raise tens of thousands of dollars to take Telstra to court—in which they eventually succeeded, coming out with a consensus arrangement at the end. But how is it that we, as a government, are failing them to the extent that people have to put their lives on hold and put together legal action, raise money to fund lawyers and take on a telco, when we are supposed to have industry bodies that will help and support them in this area? So it is very disappointing that this legislation has failed to address those sorts of issues when, I believe, it had the opportunity to do so.

As we heard, there were 77 submissions. Many of them raised issues outside the legislation that we received. For example, electromagnetic radiation is obviously an issue of great concern to many in the community, particularly with the larger towers, and, once again, as we heard, the larger towers are not covered by this legislation.

It was interesting to see in a submission by the No Towers Near Schools people that they have researched this throughout the world and no studies anywhere in the world have been done purely on the effects of electromagnetic radiation on children. I believe that that is something we could possibly try and organise through one of our research bodies. I think that is of great concern because, more and more often, these towers are put on government land to make it easier for the telcos to get past the consultation with the community, with the ongoing effect that they are there on school grounds with young children, who are sitting under that radiation all day throughout school. So I think the concern being raised by this community group is a genuine one that we should look into in other areas. They also mentioned that there have been no conclusive longitudinal studies done on the cumulative effects of electromagnetic radiation. But, as we said, that was not in the remit of our inquiry and we were restricted to what was in front of us in the bill.

The other problem we had was the fact that Mr Wilkie sort of had an ambit claim. So the 10 to 30 days community consultation was great—except that it also now applies under this bill if you want to put a fixed line into your house so that, if your neighbour wants to get an extra phone line put in, now you have to do 10 to 30 days community consultation. Also, if there were a flood or an accident in your street and the telephone lines came down, unfortunately there was not a provision just to put them back up again as we would have to do community consultation on that. So, Madam Deputy Speaker, as you can see, the committee had its hands tied. There were quite a number of flaws in this proposed legislation which made it very difficult to support it. I note, however, that despite the assurances from the many industry bodies that presented to us, I had a letter the other day telling me about a tower that was going to be put up and advising me that there was going to be a community meeting to discuss it. I thought, 'That's great; I am getting notice,' and when I said, 'When's the meeting?' they said, 'Oh, it's tonight.' So once again nothing has changed and these systems are still failing the community, because they are not working, quite frankly.

The other issue I have, one once again raised by No Towers Near Schools in their formal submission, is, as the member for Hinkler said, this ongoing conflict that even when the telcos come to the community consultation time they have already signed their lease for the particular site, so there really is not an opportunity to discuss alternative options. I understand the commercial imperatives of that. They have already invested a lot of time and money in that location so intrinsically it is in their interests to fight for that location instead of looking at a compromise situation. That is where we get this conflict and that is where we do not always get the best outcomes. So I believe that there is a lot of work that needs to be done in this area. As I have said previously in this place, it is unacceptable that after three decades of such towers being put up we still have these big, ugly towers in our community. For a while some of the telcos—and I commend Optus, who used to come up with faux palm trees—made some sort of effort but these days it is the cheap, dirty and quick way of doing it: get it in and get out. I am also very frustrated by the telcos who appoint another company as a body to do the negotiations. So they have this one-step-removed theory that 'it's not us; it's this third company that's doing it for us'. I think they need to take responsibility and they need to do proper consultation. I would like to congratulate the people who made submissions and I do think we need to address, going forward, some of the issues that they have raised. Importantly, as I said previously, the biggest flaw is the fact that this legislation does not cover the big high-impact towers, which are probably the major concern for our community.

I would like to thank the committee secretariat for working with us on this report. It was very difficult for them, I know, because there were some very concerned community members who particularly wanted to come and meet with the committee and it was not always easy to explain how this legislation actually did not cover the issues that they felt it should. So I would like to thank Julia Morris, Kilian Perrem, Susan Dinon and Peter Pullen for their support and assistance. As the member for Hinkler said, due to the flaws in this legislation and the fact that it really does not address the problems we have out there at the moment, the committee is unfortunately unable to support it in any way. I digress but in fact one of the submitters, Pipe Networks, pointed out that it actually slows down repairing telephone lines as well as the putting in of new ones and that if you want to repair the pipes in the ground once again you have to do community consultation. Obviously, I think this was rushed and I would hope that the member for Denison would consult more widely next time and take on board the real issues that are in the community and the issues that we do need to consider in support of our residents in this area. So, unfortunately, as the bill stands we could not support it.

Debate adjourned.