Over 80 people attended a meeting at Gundillion Hall on Monday to discuss the lack of telecommunications in the area. Member for Eden Monaro Peter Hendy attended the meeting along with Mayor Pete Harrison. While there was significant frustration amongst the community, the meeting was cordial. The most important issue among those who spoke was one of lack of safety without decent communications.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mandy O’Brien from Krawarree said the meeting was organised because, “in December last year, through Christmas and into the middle of January, Gundillion did not have any landline service at all. There was a major outage at the exchange so no one up this way had service for about four weeks. We are unable to receive mobile service so the community up here was fairly upset with Telstra.”
Mrs O’Brien said “Concerns were aired covering issues including the lack of a dependable, ever aging and ill maintained landline service, the non-existent mobile phone coverage, all which endanger people’s lives, jeopardise road and work safety, causes incessant business disruption with businesses losing out on work because of the communication problems, creates havoc when accidents occur; not being able to contact emergency services, not to mention the fact that even though there are advances in technology, we are technically going backwards when other areas are moving forward.”
“We regard any form of phone communication a luxury in the Gundillion area” she added.
Ambulance officer Neville Marsden spoke about the difficulties he had encountered while responding to medical emergencies when there is no mobile coverage. He explained how Ambulances have a real time data transfer of heart attack patients’ progress back to the Canberra base, which enables the crew to administer to them accurately when there is reception. “By the time you’ve driven 40kms back into range it can be just too late” he said.
Doug Willcoxon from the Rural Fire Service also addressed the meeting on the need for coverage when deployed to remote fire locations and the safety issues that were faced.
Dr Hendy thanked the many members of the Gundillion community who attended a public meeting to discuss the region’s telecommunication issues.
“The meeting was tremendously valuable to me and I am grateful to Secretary of the Gundillion Hall, Mandy O’Brien, for facilitating.
“I am also grateful to the many people who shared their personal experiences of the hardship wrought by inadequate or unreliable communication services,” Dr Hendy said.
The Coalition Government is honouring its election commitment to invest $100 million in telecommunications infrastructure to improve mobile coverage in outer metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.
Inadequate mobile phone coverage remains a significant issue for Australians living, working and travelling in regional and remote areas of the country.
“I understand the importance of reliable landline and mobile coverage for people in regional Australia – they are critical. The Coalition Government understands this as well and that is why we have committed $100 million to improved mobile coverage in outer metropolitan, regional and remote Australia.
“I have personally raised the issue with the Prime Minister and expressed my very strong desire that the program be extended beyond its initial four-year period,” Dr Hendy said
“These issues impact local business, tourism, social amenity, and my constituents’ safety and wellbeing. I have asked the Gundillion community to appoint a delegation so I can arrange and host a meeting for them with the Minister’s office, Telstra, and NBN Co to address their specific concerns,” Dr Hendy said.
Mayor Pete Harrison said "It was really good for the local member to hear first-hand about the sorts of issues that rural communities in our region are facing. One particular anecdote about a passer-by asking if they could use a phone at a homestead because there was no mobile reception, and being totally bewildered when informed that all the land lines in the area had been down for days, really emphasised how out of touch the average Australian is with the realities of daily life in rural communities."