Residents of Bass will continue to suffer from poor mobile phone coverage as the Victorian Government chooses to subsidise commercially viable mobile phone towers in Melbourne, according to the Nationals candidate for Bass, Brett Tessari.
Mr Tessari said Labor has allocated much of its $300 million Connecting Victoria mobile service program to city areas when people in Bass were still crying out for decent mobile phone coverage.
“It is just astounding that the Labor Party thinks that we need to subsidise mobile phone coverage in places like Werribee and Point Cook, when parts of Bass still have no service,” Mr Tessari said.
“Just this week I was in Cardinia, just a few kilometres from Pakenham, where locals told me of the frustration of poor mobile service and my own calls were dropping out.
“Isaac, who runs the general store, said it was a constant frustration and he’d resorted to installing satellite wifi in the store to ensure he could conduct EFTPOS transactions.
“Labor is subsidising growth areas of Melbourne’s west and to add insult to injury, this taxpayer subsidy is aimed at increasing the provision of 5G services when many parts of Bass don’t even have a signal.”
Mr Tessari said the government’s Connecting Victoria tender documents indicate a significant bias towards city areas that should be highly commercial for private companies to invest in.
“Taxpayer funds should be saved for those areas of country Victoria that don’t attract commercial attention,” Mr Tessari said.
“The government has tender documents that indicate precincts of strategic importance to it, and these include places like Richmond, Brunswick and East Melbourne.
“This is a scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money when the real need is in places like Cardinia and other parts of Bass such as Inverloch and Wonthaggi South.
Mr Tessari said The Nationals’ 25 per cent Regional Infrastructure Guarantee would ensure taxpayer dollars were spent fairly across regional areas and Melbourne.
“The mobile phone spending is a slap in the face for those Bass residents that can’t pick up a signal at all,” he said.
