Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2026
Senator HENDERSON (Victoria) (12:48): I move: At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate: (a) affirms that reliable and affordable mobile coverage is an essential service for regional, rural and remote Australians, underpinning personal safety, business productivity and participation in the digital economy; and (b) is of the opinion that the bill: (i) does not provide sufficient certainty that universal outdoor mobile connectivity for voice and SMS services will be delivered to all Australians within the requisite timeframe, particularly for those living in regional, rural and remote Australia, (ii) places a vague and uncertain obligation on carriers and carriage service providers to provide 'reasonable access' to outdoor mobile connectivity on an 'equitable basis', (iii) legislates the use of technologies such as voice to satellite before it either exists at scale or is commercially available, fuelling uncertainty and raising false hope, particularly for Australians living or working in regional Australia, (iv) does not account for the fact that many handset devices in the Australian market will not be compatible with the technology required to access universal outdoor mobile connectivity, and (v) does not include express obligations in relation to universal access to triple zero emergency voice calls and SMS messages which is crucial for the health and safety of all Australians; and (c) notes that: (i) the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission commenced an inquiry on 5 August 2026 into regional mobile coverage across Australia, including whether one or more wholesale mobile services, including domestic roaming, should be declared, and that this inquiry provides the appropriate forum to assess the feasibility of a regional mobile roaming service, and (ii) the Universal Service Obligation, which was designed to ensure reasonable and equitable access to a standard telephone service and payphones, is no longer fit for purpose and should be modernised to establish stronger expectations on carriers and carriage service providers to deliver reliable mobile and internet services, particularly in regional, rural and remote Australia".
The coalition supports the objective of improving connectivity for regional Australians, but aspirations are no substitute for implementation. The Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation) Bill 2026 is big on motherhood statements but, regrettably, has very little substance. And let's not forget the context.
This so-called Labor promise to deliver universal outdoor mobile communications was made in February 2025 in the lead-up to the last federal election. This was all about the politics devised by the office of the previous minister for communications, Ms Rowland, to cover up the fact that Labor was planning to axe vital funding for regional communications. That is exactly what happened in the May budget this year, to the great shame of the Albanese government.
This government has turned its back on the regions by slashing vital programs to support regional connectivity, including the Mobile Black Spot Program. The communications minister even made the heartless decision to axe the Regional Tech Hub, another coalition initiative which has played such a valuable role in supporting regional Australians with their internet and phone connectivity challenges.
While the intent of the bill is broadly supported by the mobile network operators and key stakeholders, the government has very significantly failed to address how universal mobile coverage for text messages and voice calls can possibly be delivered by the commencement date of 1 December 2027. That is because the technology does not currently exist. The satellites are not in the sky, satellite compatible devices are not available at scale, and the mobile satellite spectrum has not been allocated.
While Telstra may have a deal in place with SpaceX to, by the end of next year, deliver text and voice mobile communications via Starlink's low Earth orbit satellite, Optus and TPG have made clear that this is not achievable in the timeframe available. In fact, it may not be possible for TPG and Optus to deliver this technology until maybe 2029 or even 2030 and beyond.
This is a bill that is big on promises and very short on delivery. But, as they say, never let the facts get in the way of the story. Despite this bill being riddled with uncertainty, Minister Wells, when it was introduced into the House and passed in the House, posted a video on social media saying that 'the legislation delivers better service wherever you can see the sky'.
It's completely wrong—completely misleading; we didn't hear from the Ooshies, but we've had another social media video from the minister which is just utter nonsense. The problem is that the government has put up the 'open for business' sign before the shop has even been built. Australians can look to the sky all they like; until the direct-to-device satellites are in place, the technology is proven and the commercial agreements with Australia's mobile network operators are done, there is no universal service to deliver.
A slogan is not coverage, a promise is not a mobile service, and looking at the sky will not make your phone work. As I say, this bill is big on promises, big on talk and very, very small on delivery. I will go through some of the components of the bill.
But we have, of course, proposed a number of amendments, and I am hoping that the Senate will support those amendments. These will try and fill in some of the very significant gaps with this bill. The first one relates to temporary disaster roaming, which currently is only a voluntary scheme.
We don't believe that that is good enough. The government has talked about temporary disaster roaming for a number of years. The technology has been tested, the need is obvious, yet there is only a voluntary scheme in place.
We're told that it commenced as of 1 October. This amendment draws a line in the sand. It makes it clear that, to the extent that the voluntary scheme is not in place or it falters, the minister must act and establish a framework commencing no later than 1 December.
We believe that it's unacceptable—when lives depend on access to communications during a bushfire, flood or cyclone or other disasters and Australians need access to disaster roaming—and a very significant misstep that the minister put in place a voluntary scheme rather than legislating for temporary disaster roaming. So we are very hopeful that this important amendment will be supported by the Senate.
We have also proposed an amendment relating to the minister being required to make standards for the performance and reliability of mobile networks. The government has talked endlessly about coverage, but coverage means nothing if the service is unreliable, congested or simply does not work. This bill, unfortunately, just gives the minister discretion to set standards, and we think that that is insufficient.
Australians need accountability from mobile networks, which are becoming more and more crucial. So this amendment requires the minister to establish minimum standards for terrestrial mobile networks, informed by the ACCC's current inquiry and developed with regulators, carriers and consumers. Australians should not have to accept dropped calls, unusable data and persistent black spots as normal.
This is also in the context of the fact that, despite the recommendation in the Bean review that the triple zero regulatory framework should be reviewed and updated—because we've seen some catastrophic outages, including, of course, in relation to the vital triple zero service—the government sat on its hands for two years. That is simply not good enough, so we believe that there must be a requirement for these standards to be made.
What is very significant as part of this work is the ACCC's inquiry, and I'll come to that in a moment. The other amendment relates to mobile roaming. The government has turned its back on mobile roaming, and there is very good cause to consider how we can improve connectivity in the regions, including through mobile roaming.
Since our bill inquiry, which we conducted through the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, what has been very significant is the announcement by the ACCC of an inquiry to examine regional mobile coverage across Australia and whether regulating wholesale access to some mobile services could improve consumer outcomes. This inquiry will examine a lot of these issues, including mobile roaming.
There have been a number of different inquiries. Back in 2017, the ACCC decided against mobile roaming, but in recent years we have seen investment by the telcos in the regions decline, and that is also the observation of the ACCC. So this is very significant, and this work cannot be ignored.
That is why, as part of making the performance and reliability standards, the minister needs to take this very substantial inquiry and its findings into account. This inquiry, I think, is a game changer, and the telcos are on notice because, of course, the ACCC has the ability to compel the production of documents that we can't access because they are commercial-in-confidence.
We have sought, for instance, the investment pipeline of the telcos to understand what their investment plans are for regional Australia, and those documents have been denied. So the ACCC's work in this respect is very significant, and it will also, I think, play a very important role in the fact that there is just not enough regulation surrounding mobile networks in this country, which have become completely vital to every Australian.
More and more Australians are dropping off their landline and relying on their mobile phone and on connectivity. So, as I say, we cannot overstate the importance of the ACCC inquiry, which I think will hold the government to account for its failure to take these issues seriously enough. I want to address a couple of specific issues with this bill in more detail.
As I say, it is incredibly alarming that the government has slashed and burned regional connectivity funding as if the regions don't matter anymore, because mobile roaming is not going to work if there is no connectivity at all. There are still many parts of this country where large regional communities either have access to deficient connectivity or have no mobile connectivity, and that has been made worse by the government's botched 3G shutdown, which has actually reduced coverage in some parts of regional Australia.
So the fact that the minister is bringing forward a bill, which has got big aspirations but very little meat on the bones, and is pretending that almost everything's fine because we now have this whole new world of satellite connectivity where we can hold our phone, look to the sky and think everything's going to be great is complete rubbish, as I've set out, because the technology is not yet available.
What's made this even more deceptive is that the government has heavily promoted the commencement date of 1 December 2027 when it knows—and it is on notice—that two of the three telcos will not be able to deliver within that timeframe because the technology simply does not exist. Another concern I want to raise is that there are a lot of 'get out of jail' clauses here.
The bill leaves far too much to be decided later by the minister, by way of a general power to make determinations, and critical concepts such as 'reasonably available' and 'equitable basis' are left undefined. There are very uncertain obligations on providing mobile connectivity that's reasonably available on an equitable basis. This means that the parliament is being asked to pass the framework now and trust the minister to write much of the substance down the track.
That is also very concerning. The other really concerning issue with this bill is spectrum. Direct-to-device satellite services depend on access to a suitable radio frequency spectrum, yet the bill has not resolved how that spectrum will be secured, allocated or managed alongside existing terrestrial mobile services.
The Senate inquiry heard all sorts of serious warnings from industry. Optus said satellite services could require carriers to cannibalise spectrum currently used for terrestrial mobile networks. This, of course, is a matter currently with ACMA, but how can a bill be put forward with such definitive requirements while really critical issues such as spectrum are still not determined?
The other major problem, of course, is that this connectivity proposed to be in place by 1 December next year depends on device compatibility. We heard in our inquiry that many existing handsets will not support the full direct-to-device satellite service compatibility that is required. That is a real issue, of course, when Australians are being told that everything will be fine by the end of next year but they are then required to upgrade their phones.
The amendments that we have brought forward, which we hope will be supported by the Senate, expose essential weakness with this bill. We support the intent of the bill, but the government has got to do much better. I say shame on the government for their disgraceful cuts to regional connectivity.
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