Happy New Year! How was your start to 2024?
Out here in the Wheatbelt we’ve been experiencing some scorching days and nights. That’s nothing new, and we expect it at this time of the year. Hot, dusty, with a few summer storms thrown in for good measure.
The storm that came through last week was a ripper. I sat inside my 100-year-old house and watched mother nature let loose with a spectacular light show, thunderclaps that reverberated through your body, and rain and wind that arrived with a ferocity that twisted trees in half and ripped roofs off sheds and houses.
I was one of the lucky ones, no damage, and no power loss. Unfortunately, many were not so lucky, and have endured days of no power, limited water, and a clean-up in the stifling heat.
As always, everyone has pitched in to help, neighbours checked-in on each other, and people called on the elderly for a chat. Our Shire Council’s opened their offices or recreation centres when they had the generator hooked up for respite from the heat and so people could charge their phones.
We accept that mother nature can be fickle, and for the most part we take care of ourselves. Moving on and people have cleaned out freezers of spoiled food, doctors are checking vaccines and drugs that may have spoiled, and businesses are counting the lost days of trade. The Government’s $240 extended blackout payment will barely touch the sides for many.
A call round to the 27 local Governments in my electorate has come back with a resounding theme. The first, a heartfelt thank you to the Western Power and Water Corporation workers who have been on the tools getting things back on track. The second, that telecommunications and connectivity during and after these events remains an absolute disgrace.
More than a week after the event, there are still communities in a cone of silence. They can’t even call 000. And had they been able to, no-one could despatch first responders because they receive the call-out via the mobile network.
How is it in this day and age we still have this problem?
Inquiry after inquiry, report after report, with multiple recommendations highlighting the fact that telecommunications is an essential service that fails our communities when they need it the most.
What will it take for the Federal and State Governments, and the telecommunications companies to take this seriously? A serious injury? A death? That is what my constituents ask. They are frustrated beyond belief.
And the salt is ground into the wound when they hear representatives from telco’s pointing the finger at Western Power for the failures, and Government Minister’s passing the buck right back.
After the bushfires over east, Cyclone Seroja in 2021, and the fires in Esperance and through my electorate at the beginning of last year, there has been a consistent gap in our preparedness to respond to natural disaster because of failures to build resilience into our telecommunications infrastructure.
I’m not letting the State Government off the hook for their woeful track record dealing with power infrastructure in the bush – that needs to be addressed, and urgently. It’s a scandal that we have billions sitting in State coffers while basic infrastructure fails those of us that chose to live or work outside of Perth.
But the telecommunications issue must be dealt with first. It is vital that people can communicate with each other at all times in the case of emergencies.
Every three years, a Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee is formed to conduct a review into the adequacy of telecommunications in regional, rural, and remote parts of Australia.
Last conducted in 2021, it recommended that the Universal Service Obligation (USO) required of Telstra for the maintenance of the copper wire network be reformed to become ‘technology agnostic’ and require the inclusion of backup power and stringent minimum availability and voice quality standards, enforceable through significant penalties.
The reviewers also observed that mobile base stations, telephone exchanges and other key infrastructure are vulnerable to interruptions to the power network and have insufficient back-up power to maintain critical communications services during extended power outages.
Why do we still have these problems when taxpayers fork out in excess of $335 million per every year to Telstra as part of their USO to deliver services. And why did the Albanese Government delay investment in the Mobile Network Hardening Program announced in 2022 to increase battery back-up and create generator hubs for rapid deployment to telco sites? According to the website Round 1 is only 60 percent complete two years later.
People who live in these communities deserve better, as do the many that visit, work and pass through the Wheatbelt.
It’s time for the buck-passing and poor excuses to end. We need the State and Federal Labor Governments to step up and take this seriously.
