The Federal Communications Minister has met with chief executives from Australia's three major telcos today in the wake of multiple outages which prevented Australians from making triple zero calls. One of those outages was linked to three deaths.
00:00Taking steps to prevent further outages has been front and centre for the government today
00:08and that does come after multiple Optus outages last month.
00:14One of those was linked to three deaths.
00:16Now, in the aftermath of that, Communications Minister Annika Wells met with the heads of Optus
00:23and its parent company Singtel last week and this week, today,
00:27she's just come out of a meeting with the country's major telecommunications companies.
00:33That includes Optus, Telstra and TPG.
00:37Now, much of those discussions were focused on the steps that are being taken
00:42to ensure that future outages like this don't occur again,
00:48particularly as we head towards the bushfire season.
00:51Now, it's understood that further meetings were agreed to during that meeting earlier today,
00:59including a drill to ensure triple zero systems don't fail when outages occur.
01:05It's understood there was also agreement from the telcos to drive greater cooperation
01:10with the energy and emergency response sectors and that they'll accelerate work on device testing.
01:18Now, Optus CEO Stephen Roo has also been under intense pressure to respond to this outage
01:28and to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
01:32He arrived at Parliament House earlier where he was met by a number of journalists.
01:39Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
01:42Have you figured out what went wrong yet, Stephen?
01:45Just looking forward to meeting the Minister.
01:47Are you considering your job with the Optus?
01:51Not. Looking forward to seeing the Minister. I'm sure it'll be a productive meeting.
01:54What do you have to say to the Australian?
02:00Do you apologise to Australians?
02:03As I said, I'm looking forward to seeing the Minister. I'm sure it'll be a constructive meeting. Thank you.
02:08Romy, the government has also introduced legislation today to help prevent further outages.
02:14Can you talk us through that?
02:15Yes, that's right.
02:17So, Annika Wells has been asked why all recommendations from a review into a separate outage back in 2023 haven't been implemented.
02:27Now, she says that all of those recommendations have been accepted and that 12 out of 18 are completed.
02:35But one of the remaining recommendations is the creation of a triple zero custodian, which would monitor the triple zero network and ensure that it's working smoothly.
02:48Now, Annika Wells says that custodian has been established within her department, but she says that legislation is needed to bolster its powers and ensure that it can do that job properly.
03:02So, Annika Wells has just stood up just before we started speaking in the House of Representatives, introducing that legislation to Parliament today.
03:13And we've also heard from the opposition, the shadow communications minister, Melissa McIntosh.
03:21She's been quite critical of the government's handling of this.
03:25And in a statement, she says that lives have been put at risk because the government hasn't enacted or implemented the recommendations from that review, the bean review, sooner.
Be the first to comment