Rural Australians Left up in the Air as Banks Shut Down

People in the city don’t always believe cattleman Don McDonald when he says he has to use a helicopter to connect to the internet. The chairman of 197-year-old farming operation MDH, which runs 150,000 cattle across 14 properties in Queensland’s outback, has had to go to extraordinary lengths to do the most basic business. “To pay the wages on occasions we’ve had to get in a helicopter and fly over the tower, because the strength wasn’t good enough to get out to the property,” Mr. McDonald told a Senate inquiry into rural bank closures. Though connectivity is improving through satellite technology, there are still some “real dramas” getting online, Mr. McDonald said....