ABC News Breakfast TV Interview 22 September 2026

Summary 

Luke Coleman, CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, defended Telstra’s operation of the Triple Zero emergency service, stating that recent network outages affected mobile networks, not the Triple Zero service itself, which continues to meet rigorous performance standards. Luke explained that while the technological environment has grown more complex since 1961, backup systems like Emergency Camp On automatically connect calls to available networks during outages. Nationalizing the service would have made no difference, as the outages were caused by mobile network failures, and Luke reiterated that domestic roaming for emergency calls already exists through the camp-on system. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: Well, let’s get more now on one of our top stories: the sweeping calls for change from a major inquiry into Triple Zero outages. Luke Coleman is the CEO of the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, the peak body for telcos, and he joins us now from Sydney. Thanks for coming on News Breakfast, Luke.  

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Good morning. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: Well first of all what’s your reaction to these recommendations? 

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: It’s important to remember that while there were network outages over the past year from a number of operators, the Triple Zero service itself remained up. So, while a network might go down and your ability to connect through to Triple Zero with your usual operator might have been impacted, the Triple Zero service itself meets very rigorous performance standards and it continued to meet those performance standards. Now, Triple Zero today is a very, very different service to what it was when it launched back in 1961. In 1961, we had one national fixed line network operator. You had one home telephone. You didn’t have a choice. Today, you’ve got three national mobile network operators; you’ve got the National Broadband Network; tens of thousands of different mobile phones. It is a much more complex technological environment today than it was when Triple Zero launched in 1961. As a result, when an outage strikes, there is a lot more that can go wrong in the networks that provide your connectivity. And the solutions that are proposed in this report don’t necessarily address some of those technical problems. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: Okay, well there are calls to nationalise this service so would that make it more reliable than Telstra? 

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Telstra has been operating the Triple Zero service since 1961. It has extremely rigorous performance standards, which it not only meets, but it exceeds. They have to answer calls within a certain amount of time. It exceeds those standards. Every single time it has upheld all of those performance standards, even during outages. So, nationalising the Triple Zero service would have made no difference to the outages over the past year, because those outages were not of the Triple Zero service itself. They were mobile network outages. Now, if your call can’t get through to Triple Zero on your usual mobile network, maybe there’s an outage, maybe you’re out of coverage range, there are already backup options that are built into the system. It’s called Emergency Camp On. It means that you your mobile phone will automatically seek out any other available network during an outage, and it will attempt to make that Triple Zero call through that other network. So, to go back to your original question, if the service had been nationalised, it would not have made any difference to those outages. Telstra has been operating that service since 1961, and it always outperforms those very rigorous performance standards that it’s required to meet under its contract with the Commonwealth Government. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: I guess what everybody wants to know is if we’re ever in a situation where we are in an emergency and we have to call up Triple Zero, is the system equipped better to handle one of these sorts of situations than what it was before? 

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: So what we’ve seen over the last year has been a number of individual mobile network outages, but there are safeguards built into the system. So if your usual mobile network goes down, your phone will automatically try to camp on to another network. Now that service exists for Triple Zero calls. Your phone, it has built into its software that it will look for any available network. Even if you’re out of range of your normal mobile network operator and you try Triple Zero, as long as any network is available that Triple Zero call should go through. Now, it’s a much more complex technological environment today than when Triple Zero was launched. You’ve got tens of thousands of different mobile handsets, different software versions on those handsets, different network setups amongst the operators. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: I just wanted to really quickly get this question in because we’re running out of time. But just briefly, Telstra says that it remains opposed to mandatory domestic roaming. So, what is the problem with that system? Why does Telstra have a problem with that? 

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: We already effectively have roaming for Triple Zero. That is the camp on system. What domestic roaming looks at is to be able to make any call or text or data from any network. So when it comes to Triple Zero, we already have a roaming system with camp on. Any network that is available will enable you to call Triple Zero. The question of domestic mobile roaming, which is more of a commercial service for any calls beyond just Triple Zero, that is already being investigated by the ACCC. They have announced that they are going to conduct an inquiry into domestic mobile roaming and we need to let that process run its course while the ACCC concludes that investigation. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: Luke Coleman, thank you very much for your time. 

ATA CEO Luke Coleman: Thanks for having me on the program. 

ABC News Breakfast Host: Stephanie Ferrier: Thank you. 

ENDS