Mobile Black Spot Program

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS (14:27): I seek leave to make an explanation prior to directing a question to the Minister for Science and Information Economy about the Mobile Black Spot Program.

Leave granted.

The Hon. T.J. STEPHENS: Under the commonwealth's blackspot program, 3,000 mobile telecommunication blackspots have been identified in Australia, and indeed there are hundreds throughout South Australia. As honourable members may be aware, the government refused to put forward funding for round 1 of the program, yet South Australia still managed to receive funding from the commonwealth for 11 sites, including six in the APY lands. One can only imagine how many more would have been funded had the government got its act together.

During the estimates committee proceedings earlier this year, the minister admitted that the South Australian government did not commit funding to round 1 of the program because it believed that telecommunications is a responsibility of the commonwealth and therefore any funding should be a commonwealth responsibility. Queensland and Western Australia received the most towers in round 2 of the program, with 76 and 78 respectively.

Unsurprisingly, those states gave the highest co-investments of $13.7 million and $21.8 million respectively, yet this government offered only $2 million and got 20 sites and complained about it. This information, coupled with the knowledge that, in round 1, New South Wales and Victoria received 144 and 110 blackspot upgrades from contributions of $24 million and $21 million respectively, goes to show that proper funding does lead to outcomes in this particular program.

The minister has continually stated that it is the commonwealth government that decides which sites are funded and how many. For the council and the minister's benefit, I can confirm that these sites are prioritised based on need and are funded on a value for money basis. This effectively means that sites in more densely populated areas will be prioritised. It has been put to my office that the state Labor government prioritised their preferred sites on tourism rather than on need for resident South Australians. In fact, the minister confirmed this in his answers to the estimates committee earlier this year.

In his answer yesterday, the minister referred to the commonwealth not spending the entire $2 million allocated. It has been confirmed to me that this was because a number of the sites prioritised by the state Labor government were inadequate and uneconomic. As a result, a portion of the funding was returned as it was deemed surplus to need for the identified 20 sites and the commonwealth did not want to waste taxpayer funds. My questions to the minister are:

1. What is the real reason the government did not allocate any funding for round 1 of the blackspot program?

2. How did the minister and the government arrive at a co-investment figure of a paltry $2 million?

3. Can the minister confirm how large a role tourism considerations played in the prioritising of sites, from the South Australian government's perspective?

4. Will the minister detail the exact process of how sites are chosen under state government policy and release this detail?

5. Will the minister concede that more state funding will mean more blackspot towers for regional South Australia?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Employment, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation, Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for Science and Information Economy) (14:30): I thank the honourable member for his question. If he was listening yesterday, the evidence is there: more money does not get you more sites. We put forward $2 million and the federal government sent a third of that back. They wouldn't accept our money. We put forward money that they wouldn't use. Things that we took into consideration when suggesting sites were things like community safety, what our emergency services think is important—

The Hon. T.J. Stephens interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: You asked quite a long question without any interjection. Let the minister give—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: I am talking, the Hon. Mr Dawkins. Let the minister answer it without interjection.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Thank you, Mr President. Before putting forward suggestions to the federal government, we consulted with a whole range of people—including, importantly, emergency services, including tourism, and I think including Regional Development Australia associations in South Australia—to see what was needed by people. But, in stark contrast—in very, very stark contrast—the federal government chooses sites by some completely unknown methodology in some unknown way that seems to be based mainly on politics, given they refused to fund one single site in the Labor-held electorates in South Australia. We have no idea of any of the criteria that the federal government uses, whether it is throwing a dart at a board or purely base politics, in choosing the sites that they put up. We don't know.

The honourable member points out, proudly, 'South Australia got 11 sites for zero investment in the first round.' The honourable member seems to be suggesting, 'Don't put money in because you're going to get sites anyway.' We put money into round 2, up to $2 million. A third of that was returned. 'We don't want your money,' the federal government said. Consequently, we see other states doing much better than South Australia. Tasmania put in $350,000 for the first round; they got 31 sites. Compare that to 20 sites this time and 11 sites the first time. We are doing only as well as Tasmania, when they put $350,000 into one single round. What we do stands in stark contrast to the Hon. Terry Stephens's federal mates.