The Labor Party has pledged to only approve new development buildings where there is network capacity, in an election promise to urgently improve mobile coverage for the Shortland electorate.
Member for Shortland Pat Conroy and Shadow Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland met with Eleebana Shores Retirement Village residents on Tuesday to hear their concerns, where many said they had to stand on the side of the road to get mobile phone reception.
"It is quite frankly a dark age where 90 minutes from one of the the biggest cities in the country, in a rich developed nation, in a built up area, the fact we don't have decent mobile phone coverage is a disgrace," said Mr Conroy.
Labor has pledged to urgently address the issue, committing $2.25 million to improve mobile coverage in the Shortland electorate, and an additional $2.5 million for new digital TV towers.
"We will commence work on this as an absolute priority. That includes getting the carriers together, getting the necessary approvals, identifying the sights, and then community consultation. We will make no delay on this, it is something we will seek to prioritise as a matter of urgency upon election," said Ms Rowland.
Labor also pledged $20 million to measure mobile phone signals in conjunction with Australia Post.
Ms Rowland said the issue is happening in other parts of the state where there is population growth, with a commitment to research network capacity before approving all new developments.
"Just as we plan for schools, hospitals and any other essential infrastructure going into developments we will also be planning for communications," she said.
"It is an issue in fast growing areas because there is only so much capacity that is available on reception towers. I think we need to recognise how important this is for those communities, get that solid evidence base and fund those accordingly.
"It is long overdue that we have planning in advance for when new developments are built and accounting for new people going in, because the reality is the more people you have utilising a network the more it will degrade the quality of those services."
Residents also told the pair they can't watch their television without the network cutting out.
"Residents have also said there were a series of problematic issues relating to coverage of free-to-air television, particularly since the switch from analogue to digital and in some areas this has meant there has been patchy broadcast quality. A lot of people have spent significant money buying antenna and other equipment, getting specialist services in to try and improve their signal with no results," said Ms Rowland.
Under the plan, the Australian Communications and Media Authority will undertake a detailed study of what the options are to improve television coverage, and additional TV towers will be built if needed.
The government currently has a Mobile Phone Blackspot Program in place to improve mobile coverage across Australia, but the Shortland electorate does not qualify for the program.
"The Mobile Phone Black Spot Program had $80 million allocated to it but they only spent $40 million from it in the past years. Our area was excluded from applying for that program because we weren't rural and regional enough," said Mr Conroy.
"In Warners Bay I have been talking to constituents Graham and Sandra. Graham had a stroke just before the COVID lockdown. Because of their poor telephone coverage she was forced to do telehealth appointments from the side of Warners Bay Road.
"We get treated like a metropolitan area when the government want to give money to the regions and when they want to give money to metropolitan areas we get treated like a regional area."
