Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the importance of improving mobile telecommunications across my electorate of Barker. Upon being elected in 2013, I was excited to see the coalition government's Mobile Black Spot Program rolled out across the nation. I looked forward to reaping some of these dividends for regional South Australia. The coalition recognised that, in order to attract investment in telecommunications in rural, regional and remote areas, the government needs to incentivise telecommunication companies to invest in the less densely populated areas of our nation. How naive I was to think that our state government in South Australia might too recognise and appreciate this need!

Round 1 of the Mobile Black Spot Program included a $100 million commitment from the federal government. In addition to the federal government funding, telecommunications companies contributed $185 million and state and territory governments contributed $87 million. I should also pause to acknowledge local government, businesses and community contributions of $1.7 million. This cooperative approach to improving mobile black spots in regional areas across the country resulted in 499 improved or new mobile phone towers from a pool of $385 million. Of the $87 million contributed by state governments to round 1 of the program, the South Australian Labor government contributed a whopping nothing. It is little wonder that South Australia received the bare minimum number of tower upgrades. In my electorate, it was a paltry two.

Compare this to our Victorian neighbours across the border. The Victorian government saw the opportunity that, sadly, the South Australian state Labor government did not. The Victorian government contributed $21 million to the program. Accordingly, the Victorian government and the Victorians of this great nation received 110 towers. South Australia was competing with other mainland states that had contributed between $10 million and $32 million. Our state Labor government put up a total of nothing. Despite a long and dedicated campaign by me and my federal colleague the member for Grey to lobby the state government to contribute a meaningful sum to round 2, Jay Weatherill's Labor government have again failed us, this time putting forward an insulting $2 million. That was all they could spare to resolve one of the major issues for regional South Australians, at a time when they were spending $60 million to shave seven minutes off a bus trip from the northern suburbs of Adelaide. The question remains: what will $2 million translate into for South Australia? I fear it will be very little, and you have Jay Weatherill to blame for it.