Joint media release
Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety, Senator the Hon Sarah Henderson
Shadow Assistant Minister to the Shadow Treasurer, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Cost of Living, Senator Dean Smith
Senator for New South Wales, Senator Ross Cadell
Labor took almost two years to commence a Triple Zero review it promised within six months, leaving critical safety reforms unresolved as further outages and the 3G shutdown exposed serious weaknesses in the system.
This delay into the review of legislation and regulations governing the Triple Zero emergency call service compromises the safety of Australians and is unacceptable.
As set out in the Senate inquiry report into the tragic Optus Triple Zero outage tabled today, we have urged this review be expedited.
We have also called for a major independent review into the future of Australia’s telecommunications sector. The Triple Zero service can only be as reliable and resilient as the networks and infrastructure underpinning it.
Our recommendations also include the following:
• Temporary disaster roaming must have legislative certainty. The government must also accelerate SMS-to-Triple Zero and establish a clear pathway to direct text and next-generation emergency communications.
• ACMA needs stronger enforcement tools. Serious telecommunications failures should not take years to resolve through the courts. The regulator needs an effective intermediate mechanism for substantial, proportionate penalties and binding remedial action.
• In the face of Labor’s savage cuts, regional Australians deserve a funding pipeline for communications infrastructure including for mobile black spots, place-based connectivity, network hardening, and disaster resilience.
• As part of a comprehensive review into the future of the telco sector, we have proposed spectrum policy be used more strategically to drive additional investment, regional coverage, and network resilience, with greater transparency around the carriers’ future investment pipeline.
Labor’s broader telco policy settings are pulling in opposite directions. Regional connectivity funding is being slashed while uncertain universal outdoor mobile obligations are being imposed with big questions about future network investment.
We support the ACCC Mobile Services Inquiry which is the appropriate forum to determine whether domestic mobile roaming should be mandated, taking into account regional coverage, consumer benefits, public safety, competition and investment.
The report can be found here. Coalition Senators’ Additional Comments can be found here.