Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support a petition which has been sent to the Australian parliament from my constituent and principal petitioner Natasha Cairns. Natasha is from an area on the Eyre Peninsula which has poor mobile phone reception and internet services, including the townships of Poonindie, Louth Bay and North Shields, about 15 kilometres north of Port Lincoln. The towns surround the Port Lincoln Airport, the second-busiest in the state, with more than 200,000 passengers every year. The airport recently opened a beautiful new $13 million terminal supported to the tune of $4½ million by the federal government, and it comes as quite a shock to people when they stand in it for the first time and work out that their phone may or may not work depending on which leg they stand on.

Natasha circulated a petition throughout Eyre Peninsula at 60 sites, attracting 5,168 signatures, which the Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Petitions presented to the House on 1 September. Accompanying the petition Natasha attached 70 letters from residents and businesses supporting the need for a base tower upgrade to resolve the issue. I congratulate her and thank her for her efforts.

The government has committed to a $100 million mobile phone black spot program, something sadly missing throughout the six years of the previous government. Possibly one of the telcos may access the program to fill in this black spot. However, recently Optus announced a new tower for the Port Lincoln area. While they have not yet informed the public exactly where it will be located, I passed along the information on the support levels raised in this petition to them so as to encourage consideration of the North Shields area.