As Member for Mallee I have over 70 communities to visit spanning 83,412 square kilometres - so being a Shadow Minister adds the complexity of visiting more Australian regional communities. That is why I am sending you today’s column from Karratha in north-western Western Australia.

As Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government, Territories (e.g. Christmas Island) and Regional Communications, I am consulting regional communities in Western Australia.

WA locals tell me, as Shadow Minister for Regional Communications, the same thing we know from painful experience locally – the 3G shutdown was a disaster, and mobile coverage hasn’t been restored since.

Telstra and Optus will tell you different, but the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs Committee inquiry into the 3G shutdown reported just before the election that “the testimony of  many rural Australians is lost mobile phone access, despite the promises that were made”.  There have also been reports of poor handling of consumer complaints about their loss of service post 3G shutdown.

The Senate committee report recommended that Government help customers with lost mobile coverage after the 3G shutdown through subsidies, boosters and low-earth orbit satellite equipment. Farmers’ ag-tech equipment has been rendered useless. The lack of access is quite literally threatening lives and livelihoods.

As I wrote recently in the Guardian about the Albanese Government dodging responsibility for Triple Zero outages, Labor has also dodged responsibility for the 3G shutdown. Labor admits the Minister had power to intervene and delay 2024’s 3G shutdown if it was in the public interest.  We now know it clearly was in the public interest to force Telstra and Optus to wait until there was certainty the signal would be the same, or improved, after the shutdown.

Labor has questions to answer  on their responsibility to rural and remote Australians to address the fallout of the botched 3G shutdown and as Shadow Minister I will be pursuing this in the remaining sitting weeks of 2025.

I encourage readers with poor connectivity to contact me via annewebster.com.au so I can take up local connectivity concerns with your local carrier.