Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2025-2026

Mrs McINTOSH (Lindsay) (17:18): I rise to talk about the mismanagement and broken promises littered across the communications portfolio thanks to this Albanese Labor government. The Australian public are waiting on multiple responses to reports from the government in the communications portfolio. The Labor government has put the Murphy report into the harms of gambling on a shelf, gathering dust for more than two years now.

We haven't heard a peep when it comes to the review of the Online Safety Act. It has been almost a year since the News Bargaining Incentive was announced. There's still no consultation paper.

It seems the government is too scared of the US to want to make a move. We also have a failing NBN, with customers dropping off and prices rising in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Minister, what are you doing to get government responses published, and what work are you taking to ensure the NBN and all of your projects that you promised the Australian people are on track?

I want to raise the most critical issue on Australian families' minds, the state of the triple 0 network. It is our nation's most essential telecommunication service. Four people lost their lives during the triple 0 crisis on 18 September.

As the shadow minister for communications, I will ensure that this Labor government takes this tragic event seriously. I note, in particular, that today the government voted down a select House committee inquiry into the triple-0-network ecosystem. That is shameful.

We also had the Albanese Labor government vote down important amendments to the triple-0-network legislation today. Our coalition amendments would have doubled the maximum financial penalties for triple 0 outages from $10 million to $20 million; established a public triple-0-outage register to keep telcos accountable and to keep the public informed—transparency is so important; put the triple 0 system on the critical infrastructure list as the essential service which every Australian knows it is; and reduced the reporting times from six months to every three months and had those reports published so the public can see what is going on.

Not only did Optus fail but so did the minister, her department and the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The minister says she didn't hear of the Optus outage until 19 September, but her office has an email from Optus on 18 September, as has ACMA and the department of communications. Government agencies didn't speak with each other, and they didn't pass on any information.

And it gets worse. The minister and the chair of ACMA then finally held a press conference days later. This plethora of failures, with a regulator being one party in this careless process, is why I find it completely inappropriate that the communications minister has appointed ACMA to review this Optus triple 0 outage and the triple 0 network.

Essentially, the minister is allowing a government body to investigate itself. That's a joke. How can the minister have confidence in ACMA, given their failures and their involvement in the failed process?

The Bean review was ordered to look into the Optus 2023 outage to make sure it would never happen again. There were 18 recommendations, all of which were agreed to by the Albanese Labor government. We are now a full year and a half on from the report's handing down, but the minister evaded questions on which of the 18 recommendations have been implemented.

One recommendation was to have a triple 0 custodian with powers to ensure the entirety of the system is operational, effective and responsive. It's a pity that today she voted down my amendments in the House to safeguard our triple 0 system. The minister can blame everything on her being a new minister in this portfolio, but the fact remains that she, and she alone, was the custodian, and is still the custodian, of the industry.

Her No. 1 job as communications minister is to ensure our most vital lifeline in anyone's time of need, right across the country, is in service. Why was the minister in New York, doing a promo tour of another policy, when the PM was there representing our country? Minister, do you not think that you should have stayed to deal with the pressing matter of the public's complete lack of confidence in the Australian telecommunications industry's ability to provide the triple 0 services?

And, Minister, will you promise the Australian people that you will never leave your post again as a minister in a time of national crisis?