There’s a saying in politics to describe the practice of dumping out information you don’t want anyone to notice in a press release very late on a Friday afternoon: taking out the trash.
At 4.07pm yesterday, Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland put out a press release about the next round of funding to boost mobile network resilience. There has been many such announcements and press releases about the government’s Mobile Network Hardening Program or MNHP – which is part of the Better Connectivity Plan for Regional and Rural Australia, which was announced in the 2022–23 Budget.
The MNHP co-funds projects with companies like Optus and Telstra to deliver upgrades that reduce the risk of outages and improve restoration times, for example, portable generators, back-up power equipment and physical mobile tower hardening.
In May, a permanent generator at Narrabri West, and a battery upgrade at the Gwabegar Exchange, were funded under this initiative.
We don’t want to paraphrase and misunderstand anything here, so we’ll quote directly from the government’s website.
“The Better Connectivity Plan is a key initiative and part of the Australian Government’s telecommunications agenda and is providing more than $1.1 billion to rural and regional communities. This commitment forms part of the Government’s investment of more than $2.2 billion in regional communications.”
This was a key initiative of the 2022-23 budget, the first one after the election, and has been mentioned many times in many speeches, announcements, parliamentary debate, and even the government’s wellbeing framework, ‘Measuring What Matters‘.
The press release from Michelle Rowland, and the Mobile Network Hardening Program page on the Department’s website, however, indicate that the Albanese Government have redefined rural and regional areas to include capital and major cities. At least for the purposes of this program.
“Round 3 of the MNHP is open to projects located natural disaster-prone areas in regional and remote Australia and, for the first time, in the peri-urban fringe of 19 capital and major regional cities.”
Quotes attributable to the Minister Michelle Rowland include:
““For the first time, this program is available for communities on the urban fringes of our major cities, which are prone to natural disasters.“
New England Times asked the Minister’s office why funding designated for rural and regional communications was being redirected to urban communities. We didn’t get anything attributable to either the minister or a spokesperson in response, only ‘background information’.
Again, not wanting to paraphrase, let’s quote directly from the email.
“Round 3 has been expanded to include projects in the peri-urban fringe of 19 capital and major regional cities. These areas often encompass small farms and acreages, are mountainous, include dense bushland, or are close to rivers.”
“Peri-urban areas are also exposed to natural disasters, and the impacts of bushfires, storms and floods have far-reaching consequences for communities.
“The storms in the outer areas of Melbourne on 13 February 2024 resulted in power outages for up to two weeks, putting communities in Clematis, Emerald, Avonsleigh and Cockatoo at risk.
Aha.
“At the same time, the Government recognises that regional and remote Australia continues to be at risk of natural disasters.”
Ok then.
The move to redefine outer areas of cities for communications funding follows other redefining policy shifts, including the controversial change to include outer suburbs of major cities in the same priority classification as rural areas for doctor recruitment, which is believed to be partially responsible for the GP shortage crisis faced by most parts of the New England.
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