A Nationals WA attempt to highlight the lack of mobile phone coverage in Gracetown as part of its Vasse by-election campaign appears to have backfired, with locals discovering a tower is likely to be even further away than they had expected.
Nationals WA leader Terry Redman conceded rolling out the State’s second phase of mobile towers was likely to take at least three years.
Joining his party’s by-election candidate Peter Gordon on the campaign trail in Gracetown, Mr Redman told media and local community groups he viewed installation of a tower in Gracetown as the greatest communications priority in the South West.
Stage two of the Royalties for Regions-funded Regional Mobile Communications Project – to install 80 telecommunications towers in small country communities and strategic sites over the next four years - has already been allocated $45 million in the State budget.
However, Mr Redman said he had yet to secure Gracetown as number one on the State Government’s own priority list for the project.
“It will certainly be a lot easier for us to make that case if our candidate Peter Gordon is elected on October 18,” Mr Redman said.
Pressed on time frames for the tower roll-out, Mr Redman said contracting issues were likely to result in a three-year lag before installation started on the next round of towers anywhere in the state.
Gracies Town Store co-owner Gary Zinnecker said he was appalled at what he described as “a bloody disgrace”.
“We were told that the towers would be in place by December this year at the latest and most locals are of the same belief,” Mr Zinnecker said.
“It’s totally unacceptable. We have had situations here where contacting emergency services quickly has literally been a matter of life and death.”
In the past 18 years Gracetown has endured a cliff collapse in which nine people died, four shark attacks, sea rescues and bushfires in which emergency services have been unable to communicate by mobile phone.
Electoral promises to provide a second access road in and out of the town have also failed to materialise, according to the Gracetown Progress Association.
“If a politician lost someone on the beach here you can guarantee there’d be a mobile phone tower here tomorrow,” Mr Zinnecker said.
“Tourists come in here and they can’t believe it. We’re also trying to run a business and it causes us no end of problems. As soon as I go up the top of the hill my phone starts beeping with about 30 messages.”
Mr Gordon and Mr Redman met with representatives from Margaret River Volunteer Sea Rescue Group, Gracetown Bushfire Brigade and Gracetown Progress Association to discuss the implications of serious communications gaps in the area.
Both Gracetown and Wilyabrup beaches have been identified by local communities and emergency service organisations as two sites needing urgent coverage improvements.
The Nationals said they endorsed the South West Development Commission’s prioritisation of high capacity digital communications as a key priority for the region’s growth and development, as identified in the agency’s draft South West Regional Blueprint.
“There is no reason why communities like Gracetown shouldn’t have the same standard of communications as the city or other regional hubs,” Mr Redman said.
South West sites completed under RMCP Stage 1 include Capel, Tonebridge and Wilga in Boyup Brook, Manjimup West, Yornup in Bridgetown-Greenbushes and Mumballup in Donnybrook-Balingup.