INDEPENDENT candidate for New England Tony Windsor held a meeting at in Flanders House Hall at Inverell on Wednesday night, and fielded a series of wide-ranging questions from the audience.
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But it was the issue of local telecommunications that received a great deal of attention and had Mr Windsor asking for more information.
While questions about agricultural soil health, climate change, superannuation, the cashless welfare card, health, the deficit, political reform and welfare were also brought to a meeting attended by about 70 people, communication was first and foremost, and revisited during the one-and-a half-hour meeting
“I’d like some of my patients in Bundarra to actually get my emails. Not with attachment or photographs or anything along those lines, just emails. It’s appalling, They have to come to town to get telecommunications in this day and age. How do you make the government see you cannot forget about these people?” one audience member asked.
Mr Windsor said while it did come down to priorities, Australia had to follow where the World’s telecommunications industry was going, and that was why the NBN had to be done with fibre, not copper.
Another person talked about mobile phone black spots, saying he had found help was unavailable to solve the problem in Tingha because Telstra was a private company.
“If you travel in Queensland on B-class roads, you get signal everywhere you go,” he said.
“Over here, you go to Armidale and you’re in a blind spot for 90 per cent of the time.”
Another member of the audience said that many of the black spots were not mobile black spots, but carrier black spots.
“We are funding other carriers to go and put infrastructure in, where there is already infrastructure. That is an absolute waste of money,” he said
“Elsmore is a huge black spot only because the service out there is not Telstra. They’re providing a new tower out there now, and the taxpayer is paying for it.
“Could we legislate in this country to open up inter-carrier roaming? They trialled it in Tasmania and it worked, so the technology’s there. It would save a huge amount of this nonsense black spot funding.”
Cr David Jones was in the audience and said he thought the issue of roaming should be pursued.
“I’ve actually put in reports about it,” he said.
Mr Windsor asked if he could be provided with more information on the matter.
“If I could get some examples I would love to have a look at that,” Mr Windsor said.