ABC Radio Perth Breakfast 13 August 2026

ABC Radio Perth Breakfast • Aug 13, 2026, 6:13 AM (WAST) • Item ID: R00136799776

Summary 

Luke Coleman, CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, expressed disappointment over regional mobile coverage, highlighting that bureaucratic red tape, including lengthy council approvals and energy connections, severely hinders infrastructure development. He noted that while coverage is better than ever, rising expectations and reliance on mobile services expose gaps, with some rural areas still resorting to UHF radios. Coleman urged the government to streamline planning processes and treat telecommunications as essential infrastructure to facilitate tower construction in commercially unviable areas.

 

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: Well, Luke Coleman is the CEO at the Australian Telecommunications Alliance. Hello, Luke.

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: Good morning. Thanks for having me on the program.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: Oh, no worries. It’s pretty disappointing, isn’t it, to hear some of those numbers from the Ombudsman. Would you say that regional and rural Australia is being left behind?

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: We have got to make it easier to build mobile networks out in regional and rural areas. People are crying out for better mobile coverage, but it’s just too hard to build. We’ve seen examples where local councils have taken almost two years just to assess a development application and then ultimately decide to reject it. And this is at the same time where you’ve got people living out in the bush who desperately need better mobile coverage. They need it for being able to call emergency services, they needed to stay in touch with family and friends or run their agricultural business, but it’s just too hard to build that infrastructure. We’ve even seen examples in WA where it can take up to two years just to get an energy connection to a new mobile tower. Now to put that in perspective, the Empire State Building was built in 410 days. We can’t get a power line to a new mobile tower to get it switched on in under two years. That has got to change.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: That is crazy and what does that mean for mobile networks and coverage? How bad do you think it is these days still?

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: Look, mobile coverage is actually better than it’s ever been. There are still more towers than there ever have been out there, but our expectations are also higher than they ever have been. We need our mobile phones for everything these days in a way that you wouldn’t have dreamt of 10 years ago. We use our phones to tap onto public transport. We use our phones to pay for our coffee at the cafe or pay for your petrol when you fuel up. So, we’re more dependent on that mobile coverage and we need it in more places because we’re so dependent on it now. So, we’re putting the call out there. We need to be much better organised with local councils, with state planning organisations. They’re often working in conflict with one another and it just makes it too hard to get out there and build mobile towers. Australians all want better mobile coverage, so we’ve got to make it easier to get it out there.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: What about that comment from the Ombudsman you would have just heard then saying some people pretty much just have to use a UHF radio to stay connected? It’s 2026. I mean, that’s just crazy, isn’t it?

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: It is, and if you look at the kind of protections that we have in place for consumers, the current Universal Service Obligation; this is a law that means any Australian can get connected anywhere they live. That only applies to the old copper fixed line telephones. Now, fewer than one in 10 households even have a fixed line telephone anymore. But that’s the law that we’ve got in place to keep people connected. That is just not keeping up with the times. It’s 2026. People expect better mobile coverage, but we don’t have any funding to build new towers out in regional and remote areas where the economics might not stack up to do that on a purely commercial basis. But people are crying out for better coverage. So, we’ve got to make it easier to build and we’ve got to help telcos to build in those areas where people need coverage, but the commercial case might not stack up in its own right.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: This is Luke Coleman from the Australian Telecommunications Alliance chatting to you on 102.5 ABC Perth. So, Luke, you know, when you talk about funding, what role does the government have here? The government’s getting a fair bit of blame for a lot of the delays in this infrastructure. Is that fair and what do they need to be doing?

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: It really comes down to just being better organised so that we can build this infrastructure. Let me give you one example. Every mobile tower in Australia is connected to a piece of fibre. That fibre optic cable is what connects your mobile tower back into the internet. There was one fibre cable that a company was building. It required 3,000 land access notices more than 1,000 construction certificates, 1,700 land access surveys and over 170 different cultural heritage surveys. This was more than just a fibre optic cable project; this was a paperwork shuffling exercise. Thousands and thousands and thousands of different planning notices that needed to be filed because you’ve got different councils with different regulations, different land access approvals. They even had to deal with four different government departments just to deal with one section of this build. It’s crazy. It is just too hard to build telecommunications infrastructure in this country. So, what we want the government to be doing is just to get better organised, start treating telco services like the essential connectivity that they are and make it a lot easier to build.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: Just finally, I don’t expect you to know the answer to this question, but why do we keep neglecting people in regional and rural Australia? You hear it every time there’s an election comes around and people in the bush saying they get left behind. When it’s not close to an election, they just say: “the politicians forget about us; they don’t care about us.” I mean it’s a massive part of what keeps this country going. Why do we keep neglecting them?

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: Yeah, that’s right. I wish I had an answer for you because the bush does deserve a much better deal. We’ve got 7 million Australians that live and work across 7 million square k’s of regional and remote areas of Australia. They deserve to have better connectivity, and we’ve got to make it easier to build.

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: Alright, Luke, thanks for your time this morning.

Luke Coleman, CEO ATA: Thanks for having me on the program. 

Mark Gibson, ABC Perth Breakfast Host: Luke Coleman is the CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance.

ENDS 

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