Constituency questions
South-Eastern Metropolitan Region
Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:03): (962) My constituency question is for the Minister for Government Services. Many times in this place I have previously raised the issue of mobile phone reception in the Clyde North area and the lack of internet and mobile services, which have been raised to me by residents, including again very recently when Mr Tarlamis and I held several mobile offices in the Clyde North area and heard once again the community’s very understandable frustration about lack of progress on this issue. I am delighted to say that we have now seen the first fruits of the Connecting Victoria program, with a brand new tower at Ramlegh Park reserve opening and being switched on late last week. It should not be up to the state government to step in where the private telco market has failed, but that is what we have done – step in. We are not prepared to allow people in this area to be without mobile reception, so it is great to see this first tower up and running. My question to the minister is: what progress has been made to deliver the further and future mobile tower upgrades and new towers for Clyde North?