QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Sport and Minister for Communications) (14:11): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. We can all agree that the outages that occurred last month by Optus are completely unacceptable. Optus's failings are under multiple investigations, including by ACMA, the independent regulator, and by state authorities.
No-one should be under any illusion: this outage was the fault of Optus and Optus alone, and they will be held accountable. However, Optus's repeated failures have made one thing very clear. The triple 0 system needs reform, and that's exactly what our government is delivering.
Today we've announced six key points that we are prioritising to make triple 0 the most resilient and the most safe system that it can be: (1) introducing a new bill to enshrine the Triple Zero Custodian in law, (2) introducing real-time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services, (3) forcing telcos to test triple 0 during upgrades and maintenance, (4) new requirements on providers to fully ensure triple 0 calls fall back to other networks, (5) mandatory improvement plans after triple 0 outages and (6) within six months of the commencement of the new laws, the custodian, through ACMA, will issue additional performance requirements to telcos to assure Australians of best practice.
With respect to the end part of the opposition leader's question, our bipartisan, new laws to delay access to social media are one of the most important things that our nation has ever done, and they have the potential to change the world. That is why these laws were being discussed at the United Nations, and that is why I was at the United Nations. The member would know if they had met with the bereaved families who have been lobbying for these laws for many years—people like Robb Evans, who was carrying the ashes of his daughter, Liv, in an urn when he came to this place and begged us to act.
They would know if they had spent time with Emma Mason, who lost her daughter, Tilly, to suicide. Emma is just an ordinary woman, but she has acted with incredible courage. Emma went to the United Nations to appeal to the world's leaders to take action as we are taking action, and I do not regret for one minute standing with Emma as she took that mission to the world.
So, if we're going to talk apologies, the Leader of the Opposition should apologise for calling that work 'swanning around'. That is what she said. I call on the Leader of the Opposition to apologise to those organisations and to the parents— (Time expired)