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

I acknowledge that Senator McKenzie takes an interest in things across the border from Victoria, in New South Wales. New South Wales will receive 211 mobile towers to deliver critical services to regional areas. These will provide new handheld coverage to thousands of homes and businesses; that wouldn't have been the case under our predecessors. I might make a brief reference to the electorate of New England, which is an example of the success of the program. Under rounds 1 and 2 of the program New England has 33 towers being rolled out. Ten of these are already switched on and providing a much-needed boost to mobile coverage, and a further seven towers in New England are expected to go live by March next year. To date, a total of 319 mobile base stations have been switched on across the country—that's a new mobile tower every three days.