A payphone in Narooma, on the New South Wales far south coast, has been heritage listed for its role in connecting people during the Black Summer bushfires, when mobile coverage and power were cut off.
The phone outside Narooma Plaza on the Princes Highway handled almost 1,000 calls over two months during and after the disaster. It has now been marked with a bronze National Trust of Australia NSW plaque decorated with gum leaves.
Historian Naomi Parry Duncan, who led the nomination, was holidaying in Narooma on New Year’s Day in 2020 when fires threatened the town. She and others sheltered at an evacuation centre during what she described as a “bewildering and frightening” period.
With no mobile reception or electricity, residents and visitors queued at Narooma’s three public phones to contact family and friends, check on neighbours or tell loved ones they were safe. Some callers used the phones to report that they had lost everything in the fires.
“At all of the pay phones there were queues of people politely waiting,” Duncan said. “It was quite an intimate space in the queue.”
She said the patience and empathy shown by people who were sharing the trauma of the fires had been particularly striking.
“The instinctive thing to help each other was really quite amazing,” she said.
Duncan said the experience had also given her New Zealand-born partner a deeper understanding of Australia. She described public phones as an important part of the country’s social history, including their role in helping women find work and leave abusive relationships, as well as keeping Indigenous communities connected.
Payphones remain critical during disasters
The heritage listing is being sought for other public phones, including one in remote Queensland and another in Melbourne.
Telstra is required to maintain Australia’s 14,000 payphones. Calls to standard fixed lines and mobiles, both local and national, have been free since mid-2021.
In the past year, 25 million calls have been made from payphones, including 300,000 calls to triple zero and crisis support lines.
“Where we’ve got vulnerable people in the community out there who need crisis support and to stay connected, they’re showing us these pay phones are absolutely critical,” said Chris Taylor, Telstra’s regional general manager.
Telstra has been working on measures to improve the resilience of the network during disasters, including power backups intended to restore connectivity more quickly.
