25 March 2014

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor has announced a major breakthrough in securing improved TV reception for Crookwell.

Mr Taylor said he had this week received confirmation from Minister for Communications Malcom Turnbull that a retransmission licence would be approved. He said the push for funding for a tower was still underway.

“This is no small breakthrough. The need for a licence has been a problem for well over a decade and I am delighted the Minister has recognised the importance of the issue for the local community,” Mr Taylor said.

“After such a short time in office, we are now well down the path of turning around such a long term disadvantage for Crookwell.

“Of course we also recognise the need for further funding to set up the retransmission tower and service. I am fighting hard for this as well.

“The case I’ve put to the Minister is that by erecting a re-transmission tower, instead of using satellite, the Federal Government and the Crookwell community will save significant dollars.

“By my calculation, the capital cost of a re-transmission tower would be around $84,000. This could be further reduced if the community could use existing infrastructure to co-locate the re-transmission service on other towers such as at the Broadcast Australia site, west of Crookwell (currently used by ABC and SBS),” Mr Taylor said.

“Residents of Crookwell are frustrated beyond belief that while the rest of Australia is moving to digital systems, Crookwell has been left with a free to air terrestrial service that’s substandard.

“Even those of us who struggle to get good mobile phone coverage or internet speed, have good TV reception.

“We’re not living in the dark ages and Crookwell shouldn’t have to feel as though it’s dropped off the face of the earth,” he said.