George Christensen (Dawson, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to raise two issues here this morning of great importance to my electorate, the first regarding the Mackay Gymnastics Club. In 2011, the club submitted an application for funding through the Regional Development Australia Fund. Mackay has always produced more than its fair share of top gymnasts, with an international and three national gold medallists. These athletes train in facilities that are limited to what they can fund with small raffles and that sort of thing.

In contrast, out of that RDA funding, the Geelong Football Club picked up a cool $10 million to upgrade their home ground stadium, which already seats nearly 30,000 people. So when Mackay gymnastics lodged their funding application, the local newspaper in Mackay, The Daily Mercury, described at their facility as a 'tin shed'—albeit preceded by a colloquial adjective which is no doubt unparliamentary, but in this instance quite true. The article highlighted local gymnast Claire Black, who was competing on the international stage in South Africa, and how she was forced to open the shed doors of the facility that they were in and start her run-up for the high bars on a plank of wood.

I present a petition which has been submitted to the Petitions Committee and deemed to be in order.

The petition read as follows—

To the honourable speaker and members of the House of Representatives:

This petition of the people of Mackay draws to the attention of the House that;

The Mackay community needs a state of the art facility for local gymnasts,

And therefore we ask that members of the House of Representatives to;

Request the government award a $750,000 grant for the construction of a new Mackay Gymnastics Regional Multi-Purpose Facility.

from 1,312 citizens.

Petition received.

The second issue I want to raise is regarding an incident which occurred over the Australia Day weekend. We had flooding right throughout Queensland, putting many communities under pressure, with that flooding posing serious threat to both life and property. It was made all the worse by Telstra's main fibre optic cable, which connected North Queensland to the rest of the country, being cut. A backup line which runs further inland suffered a similar fate, so Telstra customers were effectively cut off from communicating with anyone in the south. Unfortunately, that resulted in the loss of 000 emergency services for almost 24 hours.

During that time, two of my constituents—Colin Gray, 81, who suffered a heart attack, and Fay Craigie, 75, who suffered a fall—both required urgent medical assistance. Unfortunately, their home medical alert buttons failed to link them with the 000 emergency services. I regretfully say that both of them passed away a few days later. As a result of these tragedies, Fay's daughter, Anne Maree Rankmore, and Colin's daughter, Yvonne Smith, spearheaded a petition seeking assurances that similar circumstances would not happen again.

I am happy to report to the House, after discussions I have had with Telstra, that there have been technical changes made to their mobile phone towers to rectify the situation in future. They also have a new dedicated 000 landline. I ask the government to further liaise with telcos to secure the connection to 000 services. I am happy to present another petition deemed in order by the Petitions Committee.

The petition read as follows—

To the Honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives, this petition of the certain citizens of Australia brings to the attention of the House that;

Telstra customers in Central and North Queensland utilising mobile phones and personal medical alert systems were unable to connect through to the emergency triple zero service for a significant period of time during the 2013 Australia Day long weekend.

And therefore we ask the House to;

Request the Australian Government work with all telecommunications service providers to ensure that mobile phones and personal medical alert systems are able to connect with the emergency triple zero service at all times.

from 493 citizens.

Petition received.