By My Sunshine Coast
June 21, 2017

Representatives from councils across Australia have supported a motion calling on the Federal Government to amend the Telecommunications Act 1997 to facilitate consideration of Sunshine Coast Council’s application for a submarine cable protection zone to be declared offshore from the Sunshine Coast.

Mayors, councillors and senior local government representatives have gathered in Canberra for the Australian Local Government Association National General Assembly of Local Government 2017.

Sunshine Coast Mayor Mark Jamieson, who moved the motion at the conference, is representing Sunshine Coast Council and also attending the conference in his capacity as President of the Local Government Association of Queensland and ALGA board member.

“I am delighted my Australian local government colleagues have supported this motion and have acknowledged the national significance of this submarine cable protection zone, if Australia is to have greater security, redundancy and access to bandwidth on the eastern seaboard,” Mayor Jamieson said.

“The importance of fast, reliable communications for cities and regions has been a common theme throughout this conference.

“There are only five international cable connections into Australia – four which come ashore along a short stretch of coastline in Sydney and one into Perth.”

Mayor Jamieson said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had himself identified this as a vulnerable single-point-of-failure for the eastern seaboard of Australia, with the existing cables located in close proximity to each other.

“At a national level, the Sunshine Coast will be playing its part in addressing a major national risk because, with the existing four cables in Sydney located so closely together, they could easily be damaged or disrupted at the same time,” Mayor Jamieson said.

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