Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Triple Zero Custodian and Emergency Calling Powers) Bill 2025
Senator McGRATH (Queensland) (12:39): Minister, we have acted in good faith. For almost a month, the coalition has tried to engage with the government in relation to these issues. The reason we're raising these specific issues is we specifically tried to build these proposals into the proposed bill that is before the chamber, but we've seen from the government a dislike of transparency, a dislike of accountability, and, with respect, a dislike of dealing with the opposition in relation to this particular issue.
Your answers have reflected that today in terms of whether it is the refusal of the government to table the letter that the minister has sent to ACMA. Senator Green: A point of order: I haven't refused to table them; I've taken it on notice. You can withdraw that.
Senator McGRATH: I'm happy to withdraw it for the smooth running of the chamber,but I'd point out that the minister is doing everything in their power to not table the letter. I will be very, very surprised if this letter does end up getting tabled. Senator Gallagher: Standby, Senator McGrath.
Senator McGRATH: Oh, no—it's a burn! What we have seen, sadly, with this government is that they're not telling Australians what the penalties will be. They can't even confirm whether there will be penalties.
They're saying they will go for consultation on penalties. That doesn't say that there will be penalties. They can't give a definition of what is meant by real-time reporting, so effectively they're handballing everything back to the telcos.
We have said consistently on this side of the chamber that the government should be holding the register and that it should be the telcos who are mandated to provide the government with the information concerning outages of the triple 0 network so that it is easier for Australians to hold the telcos to account but also to hold the government to account. Section 151Q of the bill requires ACMA to provide a written report to the minister within three months after the end of each six-month period.
Why will you not support the coalition's amendment or Senator Payman's amendment to have these reports made publicly available?