August 4, 2013
About 40 members of the Proston-Boondooma branch of the LNP gathered at Boondooma Homestead today to chat with Federal Member for Flynn Ken O’Dowd, attend a Branch meeting and enjoy a camp oven lunch.
Mr O’Dowd listened to local concerns about poor telecommunications services in the area, the recent closure of Ergon Energy’s depot in Proston and long response times from emergency services.
He said that in regard to telecommunications, the former Howard Government’s “Black Spot” program had been set up specifically to tackle the issue of poor telecom services in regional and rural areas.
He said it had been making good progress until the election of the Labor Government in 2007 when the program was brought to a “sudden halt”.
He agreed that in a world where it was possible to fly to London in 18 hours, it seemed ridiculous that many parts of his own electorate still struggled for even the most basic mobile phone services, or that some residents had to wait for several weeks to have repairs carried out to vital telecommunications equipment
He said if the Coalition was elected at the upcoming Federal election, they had a policy to reintroduce an updated version of the “Black Spot” program.
He also said that Shadow Minister for Communications and Broadband Malcolm Turnbull had a plan to provide good telecom coverage to all regional and rural areas by 2016 which was separate from the plans of NBNCo.
Mr O’Dowd said the closure of Ergon Energy’s Proston depot and response times for emergency services call-outs were State matters that should be brought to the attention of the State Government.
Branch chairman Kathy Duff said the LNP formulated most of its policies by listening to local concerns, and suggested these two matters should be put to an upcoming Callide electorate meeting that would be held at Boondooma Homestead on September 22 for the attention of local member Jeff Seeney.
Gil won some lamingtons and Percy won some seedlings in a raffle
