Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025
Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia—Manager of Australian Greens Business in the Senate) (13:01): I understand you wouldn't have that to hand, but it would be very helpful, Minister, if we could understand and if the public could be reminded what the conditions were when Optus was given the okay by the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Treasurer at the time for Singtel to take ownership of Optus.
When a communications company delivers an essential, critical service to Australians, you must imagine that the Foreign Investment Review Board would have considered whether this corporation could fulfil its obligations. Would it actually put the safety of Australians first? What would be the conditions?
What would be the monitoring of whether they were actually doing that? So I ask the minister to get her advisers to find what those conditions were that were agreed to when Treasurer Costello agreed to allow Singtel to buy Optus. I'm sure Optus, at the time, gave a whole lot of promises: they would do this right, they would do that right, they'd deliver quality services to Australians and they'd offer a competitive nature in the market so that there would be affordable telecommunications.
Did they have to deliver on the triple 0 service? Was that a condition of the right for Singtel to buy Optus? If it wasn't, I would put to you that that was a failure of the Foreign Investment Review Board and the former treasurer Peter Costello.
But I can't imagine that the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Treasurer at the time could have signed off on a foreign owned company coming and taking over this essential service without making sure that triple 0 was to be delivered properly, securely and without a glitch. Could the minister indicate whether this discussion of the review and the conditions of the Foreign Investment Review Board have indeed been raised by the minister?
Has the minister asked any questions about this, since this failure? Has the minister looked at whether that particular agreement has been breached? We know they've clearly failed in their licence conditions, even though the government is too timid to say that at this point—I don't know why; it's quite obvious.
People couldn't call triple 0. Optus have an obligation to deliver that service and they've stuffed it up one too many deadly times. Could the minister please give me an answer as to whether this discussion or these questions, as to whether Optus have breached their Foreign Investment Review Board conditions, have even factored into the government's thinking to date?