Tribune’s note

Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government Catherine King announced the completion of a new Telstra base station in Kelso, Tasmania, delivering improved mobile coverage and emergency-service connectivity to residents, workers and travellers in the area [TA-260505-infras-7ca28caed490:m00AMR]. The project was jointly funded by the Albanese Government and Telstra under the Mobile Black Spot Program's $40 million Improving Mobile Coverage Round.

King framed the Kelso installation as part of a substantially larger national effort: the Mobile Black Spot Program has now funded more than 1,400 base stations across Australia, with combined investment exceeding $1 billion [TA-260505-infras-7ca28caed490:m00AMR]. That investment sits within the government's $1.1 billion Better Connectivity Plan for regional and rural Australia, which is the overarching policy vehicle for closing mobile coverage gaps in underserved communities.

The Kelso announcement is a single delivery milestone within a program of scale, and the ministerial messaging consistently anchors site-level outcomes to aggregate program reach — a pattern that reinforces the government's regional connectivity narrative ahead of any future scrutiny of coverage gaps that remain.

Primary records (1)

The official records this note draws on — the raw primary documents themselves, as published.

MediaKelso connects with improved mobile coverageCatherine KingTuesday 5 May 2026