Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025
Senator DEAN SMITH (Western Australia) (12:14): This morning in the Senate, we are debating the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025. Let's be clear: this bill was rushed through the House of Representatives and is now receiving the same treatment in the Senate, following the Optus triple 0 outage in September.
It is no overstatement to describe that Optus outage, just last month, as a catastrophe. It's appropriate that I rise to speak on this as a Western Australian senator because of the unique impact it had on my home state and the particular vulnerabilities we live with in Western Australia because of the isolation that so many of our communities face day by day.
Tragically, three Australians were unable to reach a triple 0 and died as a result, including two Perth men, aged 74 and 49. Hundreds more also couldn't reach the assistance they needed. WA Labor senators in particular have an opportunity—and, I would argue, a moral obligation—to put accountability before politics this week.
I call on WA Labor senators to support a full Senate inquiry into the outage when it comes to a vote. It's a shocking reality that, earlier this month, Western Australian Labor members of the House of Representatives voted against a coalition motion to establish a select House inquiry into the triple 0 outage which took the lives of two Western Australians. Just think about that for a moment—10 members from the Australian Labor Party in the House of Representatives voted against a House led inquiry into this matter.
Let's be clear: the member for Brand, the member for Burt, the member for Cowan, the member for Fremantle, the member for Hasluck, the member for Perth, the member for Swan, the member for Tangney, the member for Bullwinkel and the member for Moore—all Labor members of the House of Representatives from Western Australia—voted against a House led inquiry into the triple 0 outage.
My request is a simple one: that the five Labor Party senators from Western Australia—Senator Lines, Senator Ghosh, Senator Whiteaker, Senator Sterle and Senator Cox—support, as the media has reported, a notice of motion that will seek to establish a Senate led inquiry into the triple 0 outage matter. Western Australia police have revealed that Optus failed to follow established triple 0 protocols, only notifying police after 9 pm—more than 14 hours after the triple 0 crisis began—and initially disclosing just 26 of 149 failed calls across the state.
Even WA's Labor deputy premier, Rita Saffioti, observed, 'It's clear that Optus has very much failed the Western Australian public.' Optus had even begun conducting its own welfare checks before alerting authorities. During Senate estimates this month, further errors and inconsistencies in Optus's account were revealed by colleagues and me, including Optus's failure to provide real-time information to the department of communications.
Senators were told Optus sent two emails about its triple 0 outage to the wrong Public Service email address, where they sat undetected for more than a day. Optus said that it had detected and then fixed a triple 0 outage that affected 10 calls and that it would conduct welfare checks on those affected. It later emerged that 600 calls had failed and three people had died.
The media regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, ACMA, is now investigating whether Optus breached the law. A Senate inquiry is vital if we are to ensure not only accountability from Optus but also accountability from the Albanese government. Australians deserve clear accountability.
Most of all, the families and friends of those who have paid the ultimate price deserve this level of accountability. Returning to the bill before the Senate this morning, I wish to highlight the three key amendments we will be moving. The coalition will move an amendment, No. 3458, which will create a public register for all triple 0 outages.
This is really important to ensure Australians have visibility of any outages within their community and to restore confidence in the triple 0 system. It will also ensure the minister, the department of communications, ACMA as the regulator and the Triple Zero Custodian created by this bill are accountable to the parliament and function as they should. The absolute disaster we saw with the Optus outage in September showed that clearly no-one was reading their emails, and, quite frankly, this is not good enough.
More transparency in the system will ensure that Australia's confidence is restored and that telcos and the government are held accountable, as they should be, when things go wrong. The second amendment, No. 3459, will change the reporting requirements in this bill from six months to three months and cause those reports to be published on the ACMA website and tabled in the parliament.
The final amendment, No. 3460, will increase the maximum penalty amount to $20 million for a breach of a telco operator's obligations. This is important. Time and time again we have seen the networks go out and triple 0 outages risk people's lives.
This isn't good enough. There must be strong penalties for any operator who does the wrong thing and risks the lives of Australians, especially those Australians living in remote and regional parts of our vast country. I call on the Greens and the crossbench today to support the amendments being moved by the coalition to ensure that our triple 0 system is strengthened and that operators and government have the highest level of transparency to ensure our triple 0 network is protected.
But I also call on Labor senators from Western Australia—Senator Lines, Senator Ghosh, Senator Whiteaker, Senator Sterle and Senator Cox—to not stand in the way of establishing this most important Senate inquiry when the notice of motion for the establishment of that inquiry comes to the Senate tomorrow or this week. They should turn their backs on what their House of Representatives colleagues did.
Ten Labor members of the House of Representatives voted against establishing a House of Representatives inquiry into the triple 0 outage matter—unbelievable!