Today’s media conference by Anika Wells confirms she does not have the competence to hold the telecommunications carriers to account for their failures.
How can Australians trust this minister to oversee the delivery of critical communications infrastructure when she is not prepared to throw the book at Telstra?
Anika Wells should be instructing ACMA to urgently inquire into and report within seven days, on an interim basis, on the cause of the Telstra outage and potential breaches of the law.
It is inexcusable that ACMA’s inquiry into the Optus Triple Zero outage of last September is still ongoing. What on earth is Anika Wells doing?
Australians deserve immediate answers, not more dithering and delay.
New rules forcing the carriers to better manage outages including real time reporting to emergency services were announced in April 2025 but did not come into force until the following November.
Why did the minister let the telco companies off the hook for seven months, such that these standards were not in place at the time of the Optus Triple Zero outage?
Why has this minister failed to legislate temporary disaster roaming which is critical for the safety of Australians in their time of need?
Where are the mandatory mobile network reliability standards, further evidence Anika Wells is not prepared to get tough on the telcos.
That the minister has introduced into the Parliament defective bills on gambling reform, universal outdoor mobile coverage and online safety also shows she is not up to the job.
The Coalition will not support deficient legislation which fails to put the national interest first.
Under circumstances where Telstra did not provide me with any information until 9.15am, almost five hours after the outage began, I also condemn the Prime Minister’s office for briefing out to journalists false claims against me in relation to my test calls to Triple Zero.
The law prohibits hoax or vexatious emergency calls, conduct in which I did not engage. This Prime Minister will stop at nothing to lie to the Australian people.