Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McKenzie, for your question and for your ceaseless advocacy for regional Australia. I am very pleased to advise colleagues that the government is delivering on its commitment to improve mobile coverage in 106 priority locations around the country. The government's commitment to regional Australia will ensure that communities have better access to wider and more reliable mobile phone coverage.

The recently announced tender process for the priority locations round of the Mobile Black Spot Program will deliver improved mobile services via an additional 106 mobile phone towers. This is on top of the 765 mobile towers already being delivered by the government. If we want to see our regions continue to grow, we know that they've got to have the best communications possible. Reliable communications and mobile telephony are things that people take for granted these days. They are important for business, important for customers and important for families and are particularly important at times of emergency and natural disaster. That's why as a government we have invested $220 million into the Mobile Black Spot Program. It's also worth noting that this investment has unlocked a funding pool worth more than $650 million from the private sector and governments—federal, state, territory and local—to improve mobile coverage in the regions. It's important to recognise that this is the most significant one-time increase of mobile network coverage to regional and remote Australia delivered by a single public funding program in the history of mobile communications.