Mobile Phone Coverage in the Blue Mountains

04 August 2021

I want to turn to another issue for the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury that I've spoken on many times: mobile phone coverage. This Liberal and National government has ignored the very real needs of many parts of the region in spite of the natural disasters we face. In the latest round of mobile black spot funding, they announced one new site—only a single location at Lower McDonald. I welcome that; it is absolutely needed. But this round was allegedly focused on helping bushfire prone areas—tick! It's especially insulting to the people in areas like Mount Tomah and Berambing, which lost homes in the devastating black summer bushfires. People who battled fires have told me, they've told the royal commission, they've told the Senate inquiry and they've told the New South Wales inquiries of the problems in organising crews during the crisis because they didn't have mobile coverage. They've told us of their fears of loss of life.

Mount Tomah was meant to have a tower years ago. It was promised by then Minister Fletcher in the lead-up to an election and taken away—plonked in the Central West to shore up support for the Nationals in the lead-up to the next election. The case for a black-spot solution at Mount Tomah is overwhelming, and I've worked closely with the Blue Mountains rural fire service to put forward a solution. There is simply no mobile coverage for much of the area and along the Bells Line of Road, and it comes on top of fragile mobile and landline coverage in Bilpin.

This is more than just cynical politics. This is putting lives in danger. Don't be surprised if, in the lead up to an election, after eight or nine long years, this government deci