Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Friday, the Premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, and Lisa Neville, the Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, joined the member for Macedon and me out at Lancefield to have a discussion with the community in relation to life post bushfire. I think it was a really great opportunity for members of the community to be able to sit around and talk to the Premier directly and to the ministers, as well as the departmental secretaries and the leaders in emergency management.

An honourable member: What about yourself?

I think I was just there to hand out the sandwiches, to be honest! One of the key points that were raised was the issue in relation to mobile phone communication and broadband. The government runs a program—the black spot program—which is supposed to rely on three area criteria to be met to actually make sure that you are getting the best opportunity for mobile phone black spot funding. They are rural and regional areas, major transport routes and areas highly prone to natural disaster.

We found that although the seat of McEwan excessively exceeds all of those criteria, we were unable to get the government to commit to putting mobile phone black spot towers into the area. This is an area of high risk for bushfire and natural disaster. The problems that arose through the bushfires were the inability to get the emergency management SMSs and to keep updated on what was going on in the bushfire area.

As we know, bushfires move extremely fast. In some cases, some of the fires in my electorate burned at 200 kilometres an hour. Think about that: if you are an hour away from where the bushfire is at that moment, suddenly it is on your doorstop very, very quickly. The concerns that were raised by the community related to access to government services and emergency notifications on the digital networks. The community felt they had not been listened to, including one landowner who had offered to give land to put a tower on. The shire offered to support this and to fund and expedite the planning approvals and processes, but the government turned its back on it. So we have areas where people are left homeless, without support and without vital communications.

We hear constantly from the government claims that Labor did not put money into mobile phone towers, and you may sit there and say, 'That's a bad thing,' but it is not actually the truth. The truth of the matter is that we invested in what used to be called the National Broadband Network. Each of the mobile broadband towers that were put up have access and the ability to carry telecommunications. The only difference with the black spot funding that has been made available is that the government is tipping in a lot of money to give to telcos to fund what should be their core business. That is why we have seen such a failure in this. It has been mismanaged and we have seen pork-barrelling, but we have not seen the results that are needed to get the best coverage in areas of need. I think we need to have a look at that and that the government needs to go back and do the right thing to make sure that areas that do need mobile communications get them as a first priority.

I would also like to mention and thank Terry and Elaine Mountney, who started the Whittlesea Cruise Night. It is on the first Friday of each month. Last month they celebrated their first anniversary. This is a fantastic local achievement. It brings a lot of people to town, with roughly 100 cars of different vintages at every meeting. I still have not won a prize, so I will have to talk to Terry about that when I take my cars down there! It is a sensational way for a small community to get together. The restaurants are full, as it brings people into the town to shop, to eat, to have a good time and to sit back and relax. The joy of it is that most of the people who do turn up are either grey headed or bald, so you have, I guess, the 'intelligent' part of the custom-car scene together because it has a zero tolerance to bad behaviour.

I think that is the most important thing. If you turn up to these events and you do want to play up, straightaway your photo is taken and the police are notified. The police, the community and everyone work together to have an absolute ball on a Friday night. People get out, celebrate, chat and have a good time, and it is a lot of fun. Terry and Elaine started this by themselves. At the first cruise night, there were not a lot of people there. As it has grown in momentum, it is damn near impossible to find a car park in the main street. There are cars coming from all over Melbourne, bringing people into our region, eating in our restaurants, shopping in our shops and bringing great economic activity, and it is a fun way to spend a Friday night.