Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to address Senator Conroy’s matter of urgency in relation to the provision of payphones by Telstra throughout Australia. The government has made the supply, installation and maintenance of payphones part of the universal service obligation. We have done this because we recognise that access to payphones is an important community service, and those opposite have described this very well. Under the USO, Telstra is required to make payphones ‘reasonably accessible to all Australians on an equitable basis’. This is backed up by detailed rules on how Telstra will remove and relocate payphones, as well as its service quality and fault rectification standards. I spoke at length on this at Senate estimates. I said:

I would consider that surely it is a social obligation, and Telstra is the only provider in the area that I am talking about. There is no way those phones are going to be profitable, but they should be there.

And Mr Pinel from Telstra said:

If they are captured by the universal service obligation, then we have an obligation to provide them. As I say, I am happy to take the specifics from you and explore the issues. If there are community issues that we need to take into consideration that we have not already, I am happy to give you that undertaking.

So I was very happy with that reply. For Senator Conroy’s information, the local presence plan has not been finalised. This plan will protect payphones.

Failure to comply with the USO or the rules is a breach of the Telecommunications Act and carries significant penalties. Telstra is paid a subsidy to allow it to provide non-commercial standard fixed line and payphone services. There are at least 7,500 payphones covered by the USO—most of them in rural Australia. Telstra has advised that nearly all of the 950 payphones earmarked for possible removal will be from sites where there are multiple payphones and that planned removals are in areas that are underutilised and where there are other commercial services available. I have a list of those payphones that are being looked at in Western Australia, and I must agree with their statement because a lot of them are with mining companies, there is a lot of duplication and people are no longer living in some of those areas.

The number of payphones is at odds with Senator Conroy’s claims of 5,000 payphones throughout Australia being earmarked for removal, including nearly 1,300 in rural and regional Australia. I can inform the Senate that under no circumstances will payphones be removed from areas where the USO requires them to be. The minister for communications, Senator the Hon. Helen Coonan, has affirmed that the government considers payphones an essential community service. As a fellow rural senator, I know she understands the importance of payphone services to country areas. She was quoted in the Age of 21 February 2006 as saying she:

... wants to make sure that no-one is disadvantaged by having a payphone removed from their community.

She underlined this position when she stated:

The message is loud and clear that the Government will not see people in rural and regional areas stranded without a payphone.

Not everyone has access to mobile phone services. This particularly applies to senior citizens living in rural areas and regional towns who are not always comfortable with mobile phone technology, may not appreciate the higher costs involved with using mobile phones or do not have mobile coverage in their area. On this last point, the need for payphones is particularly important in small towns where the mobile phone coverage is not dependable or is nonexistent.

Whilst I know that this situation will be alleviated to a very large extent in time because of this government’s huge financial commitment to improving communication services in the bush, the fact remains that at the present time many people in country areas depend on the local payphone. It is a lifeline for people who for whatever reason do not have access to either a mobile phone or a residential landline phone. In that situation, many people, both young and elderly, depend on that payphone down on the main street of the town to link them to the wider world to conduct business on a multitude of different matters. By her comments, the honourable minister not only has demonstrated her understanding of these people’s needs but is committed to protecting their access to a payphone.

Last week I travelled to the Northern Territory with other members of the Community Affairs References Committee as part of our inquiry into petrol sniffing in remote areas of Australia. As part of this trip, we flew by charter plane to Yuendumu, a remote Aboriginal community 460 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs, and then travelled by troop carrier for a further two hours to Mt Theo, an out-station off the Tanami Road. I have been to some remote places in my time, but it does not get much more remote than Mt Theo in Central Australia. There, to my amazement, in the middle of a small cluster of buildings was their lifeline and link to the outside world—a solar-powered Telstra payphone. I could not help being struck by the fact that this was an essential link being provided by Telstra to this small community in this remote corner of Australia using the most up-to-date technology available—so much so that I took several photos of the phone box.

There is another side to this: unfortunately, this payphone and the one in Yuendumu were jammed with coins and could only be operated by a phone card. It was reported two months ago, and they have still not been fixed. I intend to follow this issue up personally with Telstra and remind them of their obligation to these communities.

In the past ten years, the coalition government has invested more than $1 billion in rural and regional telecommunications, meaning regional and rural Australians now have more access than ever before to high-quality, modern telecommunications. To future-proof telecommunications services, a $2 billion dedicated Communications Fund has been established and is administered by an independent board. The $2 billion of capital in the fund will be invested to deliver an income stream to fund the government’s responses to the recommendations made by legislated regular reviews of regional, rural and remote telecommunications services. (Time expired)

Question negatived.