Telecommunications Restored in Cape York After Bushfire Outage

Telecommunications have been restored to Cape York in Far North Queensland after a bushfire knocked out phone services for thousands of the state's most remote residents over the weekend.

People were unable to make Triple Zero (000) calls after the blaze near Weipa on Saturday evening damaged cables. A Telstra spokeswoman said services were restored late last night. Tests on fixed and ADSL services will be carried out today. "We thank the local community for their patience while our crews worked to restore connectivity as quickly and safely as possible," the spokeswoman said.

'This isn't good enough' Speaking before services were restored, chief executive of the Mapoon Aboriginal Shire Council, Chad King, said the outage had impacted several towns in the area. He said Mapoon, which is home to about 500 people, was particularly vulnerable because there was no fixed phone system, leaving people completely reliant on mobile coverage. The council had set up additional free wi-fi on Sunday to try lessen some of the impacts. But he was very concerned by the inability of residents to make Triple Zero calls, in what was already a remote part of the state and a long way from police and emergency services. Mr King said it was "a genuine issue" and something he wanted the government to pay attention to. "We're keeping a close eye on the health of our community," Mr King said. Mr King said a single phone tower meant a "single point of failure", saying better services in the bush were needed. He called on Telstra and the federal government to do more to increase services in remote and regional areas. "Closing the gap target 17 is all about making sure that digital access for First Nations communities is as good as it is for other communities in our country," he said.

A spokesperson for the federal government said it was focused on bridging the digital divide for all Australians and had committed $68 million to initiatives aimed at closing it for First Nations people.