Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great opportunity in the adjournment debate to raise issues that are of importance to my constituents. I am not sure how many of my fellow members and colleagues have been to the great island of King Island, in my electorate—a magnificent place, a small population of maybe 1,400 people. At the heart of King Island, amongst many other great community organisations, is Phoenix House—an important community hub and really the centre of community life on the island. In recognition of their continued work in the community, I am pleased to announce that the federal Liberal government has awarded Phoenix House $141,000 in additional funding to continue to operate the King Island SELF project.

The SELF project is what Phoenix House —being a community hub— calls its core activity. If you have the opportunity to visit this unique island in Bass Strait and drop into Phoenix House , as I do on every occasion that I go to the island—I always enjoy a cuppa and a sandwich and a bickie with the great staff there. To Charles Pearce, who is the chairman of Phoenix House, and to the wonderful staff and volunteers that work there, it is a tremendous privilege, from the federal government's point of view, to help them in the continuation of their work.

A number of groups that rely on Phoenix House. So this funding announcement will be very much welcome. Phoenix House hosts adult literacy programs, book groups, social groups for disabled people, chronic disease prevention, new parents groups, day care, school holiday groups and many more activities. Phoenix House also hosts the King Island Men's Shed. Men's sheds, as we all know, are an integral part of the community, offering men of all ages a place of support, health education and community engagement.

This funding is great news for the community and follows strong representations that I have made to the Minister for Social Services, Scott Morrison. These additional funds, for two additional years to 30 June 2017, will be delivered to ensure Phoenix House can continue to provide these important services to the community. I thank the minister for his strong support. This is good news for King Island and particularly for our residents who benefit from Phoenix House. I am proud to have assisted in providing certainty for Phoenix House and look forward to them continuing to provide their services in the local community.

I will stop short at that particular announcement. I have been waiting for an email, which I have just received, in relation to announcements for black spot funding that are being made by the government as we speak. I am sure we have all been working hard as local members to ensure that mobile black spots in our electorates are up there as sites for priority. It is tremendous that after six years of Labor, when not one cent was put into black spot funding for mobile phones, $100 million has been found by the federal government to work alongside local government, state government and telcos to actually find the spots that are of priority, to fund them and to get them up. I am thrilled today to be able to announce that in my electorate we will be receiving seven either updated or new base stations, which will be covering 26 locations in Braddon, with a total investment of nearly $5 million. That is great news for my electorate of Braddon. Stations are to be upgraded, or base stations are to be built, in Elliott, Gawler, Loyetea, Melrose, Sisters Beach—which is a tremendous tourism area, and they will be thrilled with that announcement—South Riana and Takone.

When if comes to communications, there has been a lot of talk about NBN and the fact that people do want faster, more affordable and more reliable broadband services, but I have to say that in regional seats—and I am sure the member for Hinkler would agree—whilst we all want more affordable, faster broadband, I have people saying to me, 'Brett, don't talk about broadband; talk to me about my mobile black spots where I can't even use my phone'. So this is tremendous news, and I want to thank all those people who have been very much in the mix in lobbying for this, particularly the Sisters Beach community, who have done tremendous work with petitions, lobbying and so on. I had Paul Fletcher, who came for a visit; we went to Gunns Plains. Gunns Plains will be covered—the great tourism attractions up there. Both Sisters Beach and Gunns Plains with be covered by this infrastructure. We are waiting on details of the timing, but I am pleased that Telstra is involved in six of those seven stations . I look forward to updating my constituents, but they can welcome the announcement of the government. (Time expired)