Paul Fletcher speaks to ABC Ballarat about Mobile Black Spots in Mallee

NICOLE:

Well, when monster bushfires struck the Grampians in January, [Undecipherable] and mother of five Rachel Dunn extracted a promise from local MP Andrew Broad, to bring the minister responsible for mobile black spots to her kitchen table, so he could see first-hand the damage that the fire did and the stress of being unable to ring out put on people who were their friends and their family, and their home on that day. Today, Rachel Dunn has got some fairly high-powered visitors; Rachel Dunn, good afternoon?

RACHEL DUNN:

How are you Nicole?

NICOLE:

I’m good; who’ve you got at your kitchen table today?

RACHEL DUNN:

Ah, well we’ve got the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Communications Paul Fletcher, and he’s come down with Andrew Broad, who has been here before and had promised that he would bring the minister to our table, which he’s delivered on; we’ve got our CEO, Peter Brown, and our Mayor David Grimble. We’ve also got a couple of locals here as well.

NICOLE:

And what’ve you been telling Paul Fletcher the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications?

RACHEL DUNN:

Basically, we’ve just been putting across the urgent need that we have to have a communications tower put here because the location where we live…

NICOLE:

Can you tell me what happened on that day Rachel, when those monster bushfires raged through the Grampians?

RACHEL DUNN:

Well from my point of view, I was in the house with my five young children. Throughout the day, Luke was on fire-trucks, on the fire-grounds, and the evening when the fire was gonna pass through; Luke was on a fire-truck somewhere else.

NICOLE:

Is Luke your husband?

RACHEL DUNN:

Yes. And I was unable to communicate; I couldn’t call him, I tried a number of times because I could see the flames drawing nearer, and I was unsure as to whether I should grab the kids and evacuate, or stay put, and because our mobile phone coverage is so bad, I couldn’t contact Luke as it kept going to message bank. For a couple of hours I just watched from the lounge-room window not really knowing what I should do, not being able to communicate to him and ask him what I needed to do. It was very scary and very frustrating.

NICOLE:

And I understand Luke also, when he became aware that his home, and the home of his neighbours were in the path of this fire, he tried to alert the neighbours by mobile phone, and struggled with that as well?

RACHEL DUNN:

Yes he did; He was out in the paddock trying to get a [undecipherable] of seeds in; he didn’t have a lot of time, but his first thought was to contact a couple of the local farmers, and just let them know that the fire was coming towards us very quickly, which was very unexpected, so the farmers  to get their wives and children out, and because he couldn’t find range in most of the paddocks, he wasted quite a bit of time just driving around trying to find spots that have a bar or two so that he could call the neighbours and alert them.

NICOLE:

So while you’ve got this emergency bearing down on you, your husband’s driving around the paddock trying to find a signal?

RACHEL DUNN:

Yes, that’s right.

NICOLE:

What sort of stress has this put your family under? What did it do to you on that day?

RACHEL DUNN:

It was very, very stressful for me, I’ve never been in a fire situation like this, and having Luke not here added to the stress obviously, but not being able to call him to say ‘what do I do; the fire is coming directly at us; should I grab the kids; should I leave; should I stay; are you coming back?’ There were no fire trucks very close-by, so I just was unsure as to what to do, and I just needed confirmation from Luke, and I guess just support from him too, to make that decision.

NICOLE:

You’ve got five children, what concerns do you have into the future about the mobile phone reception that you have there?

RACHEL DUNN:

Well the biggest concern is if we needed an ambulance, which we did the day after the fire, I spent quite a bit of time looking for mobile phone range outside of the house because our landlines were down due to the fire; You’re wasting precious time trying to find mobile range to be able to make emergency calls.

NICOLE:

What do you say to those people who say ‘oh, well you live in the bush; those are the risks you take when you decide to live in a remote or isolated community?’

RACHEL DUNN:

Well just because we live in the bush I don’t think we should be disadvantaged, and we choose to live here but we should have just as much right to have full mobile coverage as anyone who lives in the cities.

NICOLE:

Well it is 2014! It’s not as if the technology hasn’t been invented!

RACHEL DUNN:

No, no, it is just extremely frustrating; it really is.

NICOLE:

What do you want the Government to do to fix this?

RACHEL DUNN:

Well I would just like to see that they follow through and put up the mobile tower or whatever needs to be done so that we can have mobile range just like anyone else; or most other people have.

NICOLE:

I might ask you to grab Paul Fletcher, who is currently eating tea and drinking sandwiches at your kitchen table and we’ll see what his response has been.

RACHEL DUNN:

Will do that Nicole.

NICOLE:

Thank you Rachel. Cheers.

RACHEL DUNN:

Bye.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Hi Nicole, it’s Paul Fletcher Secretary to the Minister for Communication.

NICOLE:

G’day Paul! Thank you so much for joining us.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Pleasure.

NICOLE:

Now Rachel has told some fairly harrowing stories about being in regional Victoria on the day that those monster fires struck the Grampians including that her landline was burnt out and she had no mobile phone reception. She tells a fairly harrowing tale of the fire coming close to the home, being unable to contact her husband, and her husband trying to contact his friends and neighbours to tell them to get their kids and wives out of the path of the fire, and having to drive around in a paddock to find mobile phone reception. I wonder what your reception has been as the Parliamentary Secretary to hearing these sorts of stories.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well the first thing is that it’s a tremendous privilege to be invited into Luke and Rachel’s home, so they can explain to me exactly where the fire went and I’m looking at some of the paddocks now and where the trees would have evident burning on them, and I’m here with my federal parliamentary colleague Andrew Broad, the Member for Mallee, so it’s been very valuable to hear their stories and understand the importance of communication. We’ve also got a number of local people from the CFA here, and it’s been a very useful discussion because we are in the process right now of working out how we structure the Abbott Government’s one-hundred million dollar programme to improve mobile phone coverage in rural and remote Australia, and so Andrew Broad the Member for Mallee has been keen to get me along to look at areas in his electorate and also have a number of his constituents explain the impact of the bushfires that came through here in January, and the importance of communications including mobile communications as part of that. I’ve also been told about the importance of mobile communications for tourism and the number of international tourists and people staying in the area from Melbourne and other places, and how importance it is to have mobile coverage in terms of people staying in a town overnight or stopping for a meal, and we’ve also talked about the importance of mobile coverage for general economic reasons, be it in agriculture or a whole range of other sectors; I met some people this morning who have a business which they run from home doing translations between Dutch and English, servicing their clients from around the world on the internet and obviously having coverage is a key part of that.

NICOLE:

I guess the sixty-four million dollar question is what are you going to do about this?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well as I say the Abbott Government took to the last election a commitment to spend a hundred million dollars of public money on improved mobile coverage in rural and remote Australia. Under the previous Labor Government there had been no public money spent on improved mobile coverage for the term of that government.

NICOLE:

But there are going to be a lot of disgruntled people who expected that their mobile phone black spots would be fixed under that program, and the Weekly Times reported just recently that in fact you will only be able to fix one in five with that amount of money.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well what we’ve said is that we expect with the hundred million dollars we will be able to re-bridge at least an equivalent amount of money out of the mobile carriers so we intend to hold a competitive selection process with Vodafone, Telstra and Optus all being invited to put in proposals.

NICOLE:

Will you be able to fix all of the mobile phone black spots across regional Australia?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well obviously Australia is a very big country, and while a hundred million dollars plus an additional amount re-bridged from the private sector is a substantial amount of money, it will obviously be necessary to prioritise and make sure the money we have we allocate to the areas of greatest need, and that again is why discussions like today are very useful for me, first of all to understand the impact of coverage or its lack in a particular community but secondly to speak with particular members of the community and also with political representatives like Andrew Broad the member for Mallee who’s been working very hard on this issue to assist them in making the case as effectively as possible for the particular localities that they would like to see covered.

NICOLE:

I understand the process, but I’m just asking, how many of these mobile phone black spots will you be able to repair; will you be able to fix; will it be the one out of five number that the Weekly Times was reporting?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well at the end of the day it’s a competitive process and what we want to do is extract as much as we can from the mobile phone carriers in exchange for the amount of public money that’s on the table.

NICOLE:

But that doesn’t answer the question.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well we will only know the answer at the end of the competitive selection process but what we are doing in the way that we design the program and the reason that I’m here with Andrew Broad in his electorate of Mallee today is to understand the issues community-by-community so that we can design this program as effectively as possible. Clearly we want to drive this money as hard as we can so as many sites as can possibly be funded can and are funded across Australia, and that’s what we’re seeking to do, and yes there is a lot of demand, and that’s not surprising. What we’re seeking to do is to design the program so we can drive the money as hard as we can at as many locations as possible which today do not have coverage, at the end of the program will have coverage, because that is so important as today’s discussions highlight for reasons of safety when it comes to bushfires, car accidents, floods, and any other vagaries of life, but also tourism, and the economic factors in terms of the importance of mobile connectivity and coverage for doing business. 

NICOLE:

Great to have you in Victoria Paul Fletcher thank you so much for your time, I better let you get back to Rachel’s sandwiches and tea I understand that she cooks up a cracking lunch.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look I’m enjoying the terrific country hospitality here.

NICOLE:

Lovely to talk to you.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Thanks indeed.

NICOLE:

Paul Fletcher is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications and he is in charge of rolling out that mobile phone black spot program.

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