Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the on-off collapse of the entire telco system throughout north-eastern Australia during what was a relatively contained natural disaster, with Gladstone to Cairns to Mount Isa having only intermittent triple-0 emergency service over 24 hours, and leaving internet reliant services, cash, petrol or food inaccessible, would the Prime Minister agree to a comprehensive inquiry into telco services to ensure the future delivery through the NBN and, inter alia, to secure mobile towers, ensuring that lives are not lost in the future?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for his question. I understand his concern about this matter, because I am very concerned about it too. In the first discussion I had with Premier Newman about the circumstances in Queensland, this was a matter that we discussed. There was the loss of telecommunications, and there was a considerable geographic area of Queensland where people were therefore unable to make triple-0 calls, and of course that is a very concerning thing. Telstra worked to restore communications capability, and as that work was underway I kept my eye on that because I understood how important it was that this telecommunications capacity got back up and running as soon as possible. So we saw this outage as a result of flood damage in Queensland, and I can understand the member for Kennedy's concerns that we do not want to see that kind of loss of telecommunications again.

I think we have to be fairly practical about what we can do and what we cannot do. The reality is that there will always be some circumstances of nature that are so ferocious that, even with the best of preparations, things that people identify as necessary services, services that we are all used to living with, will be lost. Indeed, the Leader of the Nationals referred to the loss of things like power and gas. Those things do happen in circumstances of natural disaster. But we should be doing everything we can to make the networks that bring these services to people as resilient as possible.

I have certainly asked for further information on this issue in Queensland, how it happened and what we can learn from it.

I talked about it publicly in Queensland. I was asked about it on radio and said, 'Of course, it is incumbent upon us to learn everything we can from this natural disaster to have better resilience next time.' We have learnt from natural disasters in the past. For example, we learnt from the bushfires in Victoria. That is what led to us having the capability, during these natural disasters, to put warnings on people's phones. They were very valuable for people.

I can assure the member for Kennedy that, in the design of the NBN, NBN Co. are placing the highest priority on reliability and strength of the network in the design and planning stages. They have taken into account natural disaster occurrences, like flooding, in the basic network design. But if there is something we can learn for the future from what happened in Queensland this summer then I am certainly very determined to learn it and make sure that we respond to that lesson.

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will recall that it was only her intervention that got 93 of those 200 towers that were out switched back on. There were two boys washed off a roadway. If they had had mobile telephones that were working, maybe their lives might have been saved. Another one broke his back and he had no way of contacting anyone because his mobile service was not working. It was only the Prime Minister's intervention that got those 100 towers switched back on, two weeks after Yasi. We are really asking for an in-depth report back to this parliament— (Time expired)

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can certainly assure the member for Kennedy that, anything we do learn from this, I will be happy to share. This is the sort of information that—

Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are not even listening to what I am asking.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kennedy for that. I do want to assure him that anything we learn during the course of natural disasters I do not view as information that should be held confidentially by government. It is information that has its most power and meaning if it is shared. What we have learned in the past from circumstances of natural disaster we have certainly shared across not only federal government but also state governments and with the private sector. It is that kind of the collaboration that has given us the mobile warning system now so not only do you get warnings if your residential address or home address for your phone is in the disaster area but you can get warnings if you are in that geographic area when warnings are necessary. We have built capabilities over time. We will continue to learn what we can and do that. I will be more than happy to include the member for Kennedy in those discussions as information comes through.