The 2009 National General Assembly of Local Government will be at the National Convention Centre in Canberra from 21-24 June 2009. The focus of this year’s Assembly is Rising to the Challenge – Infrastructure, Climate Change and Financing.

Continuing to foster positive working relationships with Local councils is a priority for both the Mobile Carriers Forum and MobileMuster. This year MCF and MobileMuster will be sharing a stand at the local government expo giving councils the opportunity to discuss various mobile telecommunications issues facing their council areas and how they can work with AMTA in providing solutions for their residents.

MobileMuster will once again be sponsoring the Welcome Reception on the Sunday evening. Over 700 representatives from local councils across Australia are expected to attend the conference. CEO of AMTA Chris Althaus will welcome delegates on behalf of AMTA.

The 2009 MobileMuster Local Government Awards will also be presented on Monday 22 June. Five awards will be presented including Top Collector (by Weight), Top Collector (by per capita), Best Promoter, Working with Schools and National Excellence Awards. Some excellent nominations have been received. The awards are a great way to recognise the contributions of local councils to mobile phone recycling. More then 280 local councils now actively promote and collect mobile phones in partnership with MobileMuster, hosting over 700 public collection points and providing residents information on where, how and why to recycle old mobile phones.

The Assembly brings together over 700 conference participants representing Australia’s 692 local governments. Local Councils together spend over $10 billion dollars each year providing a broad range of infrastructure, economic and community services and employ over 155,000 people.

The MCF will be providing information to assist the local government sector’s understanding of how it can contribute to decisions about mobile base station deployment. “The carriers are continually seeking ways to further improve their community consultation practices. Working with local Councils, helps us to identify community sensitive areas and target all key stakeholders. Our discussions with Councillors at the ALGA Conference greatly assisted with this process” said MCF Program Manager Matt Evans.

The MCF will also be promoting its new video presentation to assist Councillor’s understanding of how Mobile Telecommunications Networks operate and provide services to the community. “This is an effective tool that easily explains how networks operate in the community and it will help demystify a lot of the confusion surrounding the process” concluded Mr Evans.