Leader of The Nationals WA Shane Love is calling for urgent action to ensure mobile phone towers across regional Western Australia are equipped with backup generators, so that communications are not lost when the power goes out.
Mr Love said telecommunications failures during this week’s bushfires, storms and extreme heat in the Mid West had once again exposed a critical weakness in this infrastructure, leaving communities isolated and unable to access emergency services.
“When mains power fails, most mobile phone towers rely on backup batteries that only last three to four hours,” Mr Love said.
“Once those batteries are exhausted, phone towers shut down and entire communities are effectively cut off — including from Triple Zero.”
Mr Love said this situation was completely unacceptable, particularly during emergencies such as bushfires, when access to reliable communications could be the difference between life and death.
“The solution is simple and well understood — phone towers must have permanent backup generators and Automatic Transfer Units installed so they can immediately switch to generator power when the grid goes down,” he said.
Mr Love said relying on short-term battery backups was no longer fit for purpose in a state increasingly impacted by severe weather events.
“Expecting regional communities to accept communications outages as normal is not good enough.”
“No one should be in a position where they cannot call for help.”
Mr Love called on the Cook Labor Government to work with telecommunications providers and the Federal Government to urgently roll out backup generators and ATUs at mobile phone towers across the Mid West and other regional areas.
“This is not a complicated or experimental fix — it is a proven and practical solution.” Mr Love said.
