Transcript: ABC AM 6/10/25
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/am/telco-letters/105855218
Nick Grimm: With the threat of bushfire cyclones and floods set to ramp up in the months ahead, the Communications Minister has written to the big three telcos to put them on notice. Anika Wells says more needs to be done in the wake of recent outages to rebuild the community’s trust in the triple zero system. Political reporter Keane Bourke reports.
Emergency call: Police emergency, this is Giselle, what’s the address of your emergency?
Keane Bourke: The trust people have that phone calls like this will be acted on has taken another hit after last month’s Optus outage, which has been linked to three deaths across WA and South Australia. But Luke Coleman, who heads up the telecommunications industry’s peak body, says Australians should still feel confident their emergency calls will be dealt with properly.
Luke Coleman: The triple zero system has layers of protection in place that make it as best as possible chance that even if your mobile network is offline, that in most cases you will still be able to call triple zero where an alternative network is available.
Keane Bourke: Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh has told Sky News she thinks Australians are starting to lose confidence in the triple zero system.
Melissa McIntosh: Which is disastrous if that happens and they’re certainly lacking confidence in Optus.
Keane Bourke: The Communications Minister Anika Wells doesn’t seem entirely confident in the telcos either. After meeting with leaders from Optus and its parent company Singtel last week, she’s now written to the chief executives of Telstra, Optus and TPG. She’s asked for a meeting with the telco bosses on Tuesday to understand how they’re ensuring triple zero outages don’t happen, especially ahead of looming bushfire, cyclone and flood seasons. Australian Telecommunications Alliance head Luke Coleman says network operators always put a lot of effort into preparing their systems for disasters.
Luke Coleman: That can be pre-placing generators in expectation of where you might potentially have a cyclone or a flood. It could be working cooperatively with emergency services operators.
Keane Bourke: The Minister’s letter also refers to already planned changes taking effect from next month, including making it mandatory for telcos to share outage information with emergency services. While the Australian Communications and Media Authority or ACMA’s rules might be changing, Luke Coleman says in most cases that would already be happening.
Luke Coleman: What these new rules that are set by the ACMA do is to make them clear, it’s to put them in black and white and it’s so that telcos are held accountable by the regulator.
Keane Bourke: One change many are still waiting for though is the introduction of a triple zero custodian to keep watch over the entire system. It was recommended in a March 2024 review into an earlier nationwide Optus outage, which also affected emergency calls. University of Sydney telecommunications regulation researcher Rob Nicholls says the government’s been too slow to implement the oversight body.
Rob Nicholls: But I think it’s actually taken another network outage for the government to realise just how important this is.
Nick Grimm: Rob Nicholls from the University of Sydney ending Keane Bourke’s report.
