Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make some comments on the report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on the shutdown of the 3G mobile network and I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

A major issue has emerged for many people in rural Australia over the last few months. Many people may not realise that from late last year the 3G network was switched off in Australia. It was one of the first countries in the world to do that.

Along with other senators—Senator Colbeck has been involved and Senator Roberts has been heavily involved—I have been going around the country and seeking to understand whether the switch-off was, firstly, a good idea and, secondly, being planned properly. Unfortunately, the government has botched this switch-off. It has only impacted a relatively small number of Australians, but just think about how you would feel if you had no access to telecommunications after having had access. It's not good enough that thousands of Australians have effectively been cut off from communications with loved ones, friends and business as a result of poor planning from this government.

The 3G switch-off was long in the planning. It was announced under the former government five years before it was due to be switched off. There is a good reason to turn off the 3G network. By doing so, we free up bandwidth and spectrum in our mobile networks. That allows that spectrum to be reallocated for other uses. The government itself will potentially make a lot of money, eventually, when it decides to auction off some of the freed-up frequencies. Of course, the telecommunications services themselves will then make money selling services on that spectrum. Obviously, there's enormous demand for new spectrum, particularly with the use of data and new technologies, so that made some sense. But, unfortunately, from the get-go, the government had not done its homework to get this switch-off right.

There was less than a year to go till the switch-off when the government finally got serious about working out how many handsets would not be able to be used after the switch-off. They initially felt that only some very rare handsets in Australia—that either go back to when the 3G network was the only network around or had perhaps been imported from other countries in the interim—would be affected. After that investigation, it finally became clear that a number of 4G phones, while notionally still able to work for normal calls, would not be able to access the emergency telephone number—the triple 0 number—because they reverted to the 3G network for those calls. That was a pretty big misstep.

Fortunately—and I do give some credit to the telecommunications companies—once it was realised this was an issue, the telecommunications companies worked very hard to track down all the people with such handsets. At times, they provided them with free, alternative handsets or encouraged them to update to more modern infrastructure.

Gesundheit to Mr Ciccone on the other side of the chamber. This scheme was already on the skids here. We did then learn, in the last week before our inquiry finished, that there were a number of industries that had not been contacted by the government that were potentially affected. Keep in mind that a lot of non-telephone electronic devices and communication devices had been using the 3G network. It had been well publicised that some health instruments and tools—things like health monitors, which are very, very important for older people in particular—may not work after the 3G switch-off.

There are little things like when you're in a lift and you get stuck—fortunately, touch wood, I've never been stuck—and you would like to press the button that you see, but would hopefully never have to use, to make a phone call to let people know you are stuck. Well, a lot of the lifts relied on the 3G network. The government only discovered that a few weeks before the network was due to be switched off. They did then finally contact the industry about that.

Our initial draft report from mid last year recommended a delay in the switch-off to work these issues out. The government did finally accept that delay. I thought it was a little bit too short. It was only a few months delay. But that did allow some issues to be worked out. We still had a problem though. The network was switched off, and we never really knew how much coverage 3G got in the past.

What I've learnt through this inquiry is that the government and the industry do not have a good handle on exactly how far their coverage extends across the country. We have probably all seen the coverage maps. You can see them on the websites of Telstra or other telecommunications companies. But they're not that accurate. They are based on modelled outcomes, not real-world outcomes. So they often failed to capture what the industry came to call 'fortuitous coverage', which is areas that hadn't been identified but actually got 3G coverage and were making calls. They maybe didn't have 4G—they only had 3G—but they could still make calls et cetera. So, when the network was switched off, all these people in those areas which weren't covered by the maps suddenly lost their service and could no longer make calls when they could before. It seemed to me it came as quite a shock or surprise to both the industry and the government that so many people were affected. But, unfortunately, once it was switched off it was too late. The committee had some subsequent hearings on this issue. We heard harrowing stories of rural families who have had their worlds turned upside down by this and, really, of a lack of action from both the government and the industry to try and rectify and change this.

So we've made additional recommendations here. As I said, it's too late to turn the network back on now, but it's not too late to do something to help these people in these poor circumstances. There are some technological solutions that can be used and can be helpful for some people. You can buy what are called boosters. You might have a small signal in parts of your property, and you can buy something that will boost that signal to the remaining parts of your property, particularly your house. However, as we heard in this inquiry, they can cost up to $10,000 to $15,000 to install. That's an enormous cost. So an obvious recommendation that we've made is that the industry, probably with the government, given the money they're going to make out of this, fund a scheme to help people cover these costs. It won't need to be an excessive amount of money. We're probably talking about thousands of people, not tens of thousands, but every one of those people has been affected very dearly. I think this is a sensible recommendation and I hope whoever is in government post the election takes this up and does something for the people of rural Australia, particularly given that the industry and the government actually benefit from the switch-off. They make more money from it. This is a small reinvestment to try and make all Australians whole.

Another recommendation we made was that we fast-track the rollout of phone calls over low-Earth-orbit satellites. I come across a lot of people, including in rural Australia, who don't yet realise the revolution that's about to come to mobile telephony in this country. Already, just in the last few months, in the US, mobile phone calls over the Starlink network have been switched on. Now, with at least one telecommunications company in the US, you can make a phone call anywhere in the country. I don't really know what the equivalent of 'the back of Bourke' is in the United States, but presumably you could be in the Grand Canyon and make a phone call, as long as you have line of sight to the sky, through the Elon Musk Starlink system. It's an amazing revolution.

That technology is slated to come here. Both Telstra and Optus have signed agreements with Starlink to bring that technology here. Imagine just what that would mean for our country and for all of us, not just those who live in rural Australia. Most of us have probably driven through black spots from time to time. Even in our cities, there are these things. But, in the future, with just your normal handset—you don't need any more technology or anything else; you don't need a satellite dish on the roof of your car—you will be able to make a phone call anywhere in the nation. When you consider that the actual footprint of our mobile phone network covers 98 per cent of our people but only a few per cent of our land mass, this is a massive game changer for our nation.

Admittedly this is just phone calls and texts to start with, not data. They think they might be able to work on data long term. Nonetheless that is still a massive game changer for people who live and work in rural Australia and for all of us who have to get around the need to have continuous connectivity in our modern lifestyles. It's an amazing thing. We're asking for the government to fast-track that. I know Elon Musk might not be the flavour of the month for the people on the other side of the chamber here, but isn't the connectivity and the health of Australians—this is a health issue for many of us. You could have an accident in rural Australia, and you could get cut off. This can save lives. So, hopefully, we put aside our particular political differences on individuals and we deliver a result for people, for Australians, that can improve their lives and save their lives in many circumstances. There are apparently still some regulatory approvals that Telstra, Optus and Starlink need to get this going. That's why we recommend there be a real effort here to accelerate that rollout that will completely change our country for the better.

Yes, a lot of mistakes have been made in the switch-off and a lot of those mistakes now can't be completely rectified. But we can ameliorate those mistakes now by advancing these technologies and changing the lives of many Australians for good. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.