Topic: Triple Zero failures
Jason Matthews: Joining us now is Coalition Senator, Sarah Henderson, who has raised concerns that handing control to the government wouldn’t have actually stopped these recent blackouts. Senator, thanks for your time this morning. I’m in agreeance with you. I mean, how can we guarantee what we can set up is going to be better than what Telstra provides?
Senator Henderson: Well, Jason, good morning, great to join you. And we strongly oppose this recommendation by Labor and the Greens. It doesn’t make any sense to transfer the emergency call person function, which is currently run by Telstra, over to another bloated bureaucracy. I mean, they receive nearly 12 million calls every year. There was no question in relation to the job that Telstra did, these Optus Triple Zero calls never actually made it to the Telstra centre, and so this is another example of the government being focused, frankly, on setting up more bureaucracy, driving more bureaucrats without taking a common sense approach.
We did make some very important recommendations and they include expediting the review into the Triple Zero regulatory framework, which, can you believe, Jason, has been delayed by almost two years as a result of both Michelle Rowland and Anika Wells not doing their jobs, which is just incredible. So we are still waiting for the outcome of that review after it was first recommended in March of 2024. We do know and understand that Triple Zero is a life-saving service, but we need a government which knows what it’s doing, and frankly, this government does not.
Jason Matthews: Wouldn’t we be better served getting ACMA right and making sure that they’re actually doing the job that they’re asked to do and keeping an eye on the telcos? Isn’t that where part of the problem lies?
Senator Henderson: That’s exactly right. ACMA, the regulator, we’ve recommended a strengthening of their powers because they don’t have very strong infringement notice powers at all. They’ve only got the ability to take the telcos to court, and they’re now doing that with Optus, and they need stronger powers to act immediately. It took nearly a year to initiate court proceedings. This may be caught up in the court system for another two or more years. Now that is not in the public interest when telcos do not perform, when people are not able to make Triple Zero calls. And of course when there are tragic consequences, a number of people died from the outage in September 2025, we need immediate answers. We need to know what the breaches of the law are. We need to have those issues with networks remedied quickly. And so this approach taken by ACMA, because of the restriction of its enforcement powers, is just not good enough. And of course, Jason, the government is sitting on its hands. The public, Australians, deserve immediate answers. They deserve urgent action. And we have seen this minister very slowly and sluggishly dealing with this critical problem, and that is just not good enough.
Jason Matthews: I mean, Telstra do have a role to play in this as well, and they do need the kick up the pants as well as Optus. I mean, the best way to penalise them to make sure that this doesn’t happen is massive fines, hold the board responsible or senior management and be tougher. That way, if you’re fining them tens of millions of dollars, their shareholders won’t be happy. So they’ll certainly start toeing the line then?
Senator Henderson: Well, Optus in the court now is facing fines of up to $500 million.
Jason Matthews: There you go.
Senator Henderson: Which is an extraordinary number. Now, frankly, I would much prefer to see significant penalties that the regulator can impose straight away. We have no answers. Now we may have no answers as to exactly what went wrong and what the breaches are, and how they are remedied for another two years. And of course, as you say, there was a Telstra outage in July just a couple of months ago, 600 calls did not get through to Triple Zero, and rather than understand quickly, right, what was the breach? How did Telstra not comply with the law? What are the remedies? What are the penalties? What’s the regulator going to do? Spend another two or three years in court? That is just not good enough.
The other thing that we recommended, Jason, just very quickly, we want to see real-time outage reporting, like a dashboard where people can see what’s going on. Of course, the telcos can see it, but not the Australians who rely on this service. And we want to see, of course, Triple Zero is only as good as the infrastructure networks on which it runs. So one of the big issues is that Labor has savagely cut funding to regional connectivity programs, programs like the Black Spot program, a great Coalition program that delivered literally hundreds and hundreds of mobile base stations. All of that has been savagely cut by Anika Wells and the Prime Minister under this shabby, incompetent government, and that is a shocking reflection on the contempt they hold for regional Australians.
Jason Matthews: Alright, Senator Sarah Henderson, there’s a lot to be done there. Let’s hope that Triple Zero doesn’t end up in the hands of bureaucrats. I appreciate your time this morning.
Senator Henderson: Thank you so much, Jason. Great to talk to you.