Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has welcomed the announcement of a fourth round of the Mobile Black Spot Program to deliver more coverage to regional and remote communities.

Mr Taylor said the new round represented a $25 million Coalition commitment to ensuring regional Australians had access to 21^st century communications.

“In Hume over the past two years, 12 towers have been switched on or are about to be switched on,” he said.

“I’ve seen firsthand the benefits that reliable mobile connectivity can bring to these communities and I will be fighting hard to secure funding for more towers in Hume under this new round.”

The new round will call for applications from mobile carriers within the coming months, taking input from state, territory and local governments, as well as businesses, community organisations and emergency services.

Mr Taylor said the Mobile Black Spot Program was already more than halfway complete and was on track to deliver 867 base stations nationwide by June 2019.

“The Coalition’s Mobile Black Spot Program has leveraged a total investment of more than $680 million towards improving phone coverage, including funding from state and local governments, and the mobile network operators,” he said.

“When Bill Shorten was a frontbencher under Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, Labor failed to allocate a single dollar to address the issue of mobile coverage in regional Australia.”

The competitive selection process for round four of the program is expected to commence in the second half of 2018.

More information about the program is available at: www.communications.gov.au/mbsp