The latest complaints data, for the nine months to the end of September 2004, shows that people in remote areas of the country are still the least likely Australians to complain to the TIO.

They may be under-represented in TIO statistics, but many people in rural and remote Australia use technology just as intensively as those in metropolitan areas. South Kalgoorlie-based* Shirley Shinnick (pictured above), her partner and four children have six mobiles and one landline between them. They also have a dial-up connection to the internet and subscribe to Foxtel. In the March edition of TIO Talks, we reported that city-based families are finding that the proportion of their household budget committed to communications is steadily increasing.

We gave an example of a Sydney-based family using two phone lines, one fax, three televisions, three laptops, three computers and two Palm Pilots. In cases like that of Shirley, people outside state capitals are part of the same trend. One of the reasons for the increase in spending on communications is the growing adoption by young people of devices such as mobile phones. Shirley’s four children, aged between 10 and 13, all have mobiles, mainly for security reasons. She is wary of one pitfall experienced by teenagers with their own mobiles – unexpectedly high debt.

“I would never consider allowing my kids to have a mobile phone plan [post-paid] until they can pay for it themselves,” she says. Nevertheless, big landline bills are something that Shirley accepts as inevitable. “Whenever you have teenage children in the house, you are always going to have large bills no matter who your supplier is.”

Shirley doesn’t believe that the services that she receives from her internet and telecommunications providers are in any way inferior to those that people receive in metropolitan areas. “We get pretty good service here and it’s been that way since I have lived in Kalgoorlie,” she said. “We have Telstra people resident here so it’s a lot easier for them to work on the lines if there is a problem.”

But she says that hasn’t always been the case in other country communities she has lived in. Shirley says the good service that she and her fellow Kalgoorlie residents receive and a lack of awareness of the TIO are the main reasons why consumers in rural and remote regions are less likely to complain to the TIO.“I didn’t know that there was a separate Ombudsman for telecommunications, until you called me,” she said.

* The Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies South Kalgoorlie as Outer Regional Australia.

What the data shows

• People in inner regional ACT – those living outside Canberra – are the most likely to complain to the TIO. This is more an indication of a low population than a high complaint rate. The TIO received five complaints from the area’s 744 people in the nine months to the end of September 2004.
  
  
• Those living in very remote areas are the least likely to complain. The TIO receives less than one complaint per thousand residents living in these parts of the country.
  
  
• Residents of South Australia and Victoria are the most likely to complain.
  
  
• The TIO receives more complaints from Adelaide – 3.28 complaints per thousand residents – than any other major city. People in Perth are the least likely of those living in a major city to complain.
  
  
• Those living in outer regional areas of Tasmania are more likely to complain than people living in inner regional areas of the state, including Hobart.

The TIO acquired the capacity to regionalise its complaint data in 2003.

An electronic file of more than 30,000 locality names was commissioned from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. From the locality of the complainant, the TIO’s database is able to determine the relative number of complaints originating from regional and remote areas in comparison to major cities.

The data is classified into five broad regions according to the Australian Standard Geographical Classification (AGSC). According to the ABS, the five regions represent relative remoteness in terms of how far people must travel to access a full range of goods and services.

For example, people living in Major Cities are relatively close to a full range of services while people living in Very Remote areas must travel considerable distances to access some services. For further information, please visit www.abs.gov.au.


Statistics

Complaint by Remoteness Area by State per 1000 residents (PDF 42kb/1pg)