MOBILE service is so bad in the bush that farmers are calling for it to be a key federal election issue.
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“We are talking about lives and safety here … we are not talking about downloading movies,” says Junee farmer Tony Clough of “Windermere”.
Mr Clough said there was a two-vehicle accident in the village at Wantabadgery earlier this month and there was no mobile service available to call emergency services.
He said to gain the help necessary someone had to go to a nearby house and use a landline telephone to call an ambulance and police.
“I don’t think it is good enough,” he said.
“People out here have businesses to run and need access to telecommunications services,” he said.
”With the amount of taxes we pay and the amount of money that is wasted I think mobile service and telecommunications is definitely a major election issue,” he said.
“Ask anyone you want - poor telecommunications is the number one problem in the bush” says NSW Farmers’ president and Corowa farmer, Derek Schoen.
“It’s great to talk record commodity prices but it’s hard to celebrate when you can’t get your agent on the phone,” Mr Schoen said.
He said agriculture was on the verge of an innovation boom.
“Unfortunately, the most significant on-farm innovation in the past 12 months has been the decision by some farmers to do their internet banking at 2am … the only time reliable service is available,” he said.
“If agriculture is to become one of the core pillars of the economy in the coming decades we need to have been addressing these issues yesterday – we are too far behind.”
“NSW Farmers has welcomed the recent bipartisan-commitment of an extra $60 million for the mobile black spot program, but it’s a long road ahead to equity of access,” he said.
“The program is an important part of overcoming poor mobile and internet service in regional Australia, and what it needs is guaranteed, ongoing funding.
Now the association is calling on both Labor and the Coalition to reallocate the $44 million in funding given to Telstra to maintain payphones to provide ongoing funding for the mobile black spot program.
“Rural Australians deserve more than the scraps off the table when it comes to telecommunications funding.
“We want both sides to commit to funding the black spot program in perpetuity, so that rural Australians can have certainty that their issues will eventually be fixed,” he said.
Mr Schoen said as improved infrastructure is rolled out across regional NSW, it was also imperative to consider what could be done to improve competition between service providers in regional Australia. “For too long rural Australians have seen a lack of competition result in poor service, poor pricing, and a low investment in regional telecommunications,” Mr Schoen said.