Health News at Your Fingertips

Last week the Morrison government announced a $750m plan to upgrade the fixed wireless component of the NBN to 5G, and bring on around 120,000 homes in the satellite footprint.

Labor has announced it will keep the plans in place if elected, but will go further. The party’s NBN policy for the election would be $3.2bn of investment in the NBN, including:

• Adding another 1.5m homes stuck on fibre-to-the-node to full fibre on top of the government’s existing upgrade plans.
• Upgrading fixed wireless to give 100Mbps download speeds to all users and 85% able to get 250Mbps, and switching over the 120,000 satellite users to wireless.
• Boosting data for those remaining on satellite to 90GB per month, and increasing the unmetering time on the satellite from six hours to sixteen (midnight to 4pm).

Labor also says it will look into reducing congestion on the satellite, which should allow increased data allowances up to 100GB at month.

It says this will mean 80% of people living in regional and remote Australia will be able to get 100Mbps by late 2025. It is now 33%.

I’ve just spoken to the Byron shire mayor, Michael Lyon, as the region again braces for heavy rains and the risk of flooding.

Lyon’s shire takes in areas that were hit hard by the floods in late February and early March, including Upper Main Arm, Upper Wilsons Creek and Mullumbimby.

He says residents in the region are “nervous”, given what they’ve just been through.

The shire’s fate over next day and a half, he says, will depend on whether the rain keeps moving or stays relatively still, drenching the waterways as it did last time:

We’re glad we dodged a bullet overnight, because there was a hell of a lot of rain out at sea that didn’t come over the northern rivers, but could have. So that’s at least something.

From what I can tell we’ve got a good 24-30 hours of more rain. So yes, we’re nervous. But we’re hopeful that as long as it keeps moving, we’ll only see isolated flash flooding. It really just depends on that rain as it passes over.

Lyon said residents in the shire, including in the more remote areas around Upper Main Arm and Upper Wilsons Creek, were now better prepared and more alert to the potential for a sudden change in flood risk. An evacuation centre opened this morning for those who needed it, he said:

It’s just a case where you’re in a situation where, if you can’t afford to be flooded in, especially now that the main road from Main Arm to Mullumbimby is still closed … you’ve really got to get people who need to go, to go today.