Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says Triple Zero management should be nationalised and taken out of private hands. Photo: Region.
The Telecommunications Act needs upgrading, a new national authority should control the Triple Zero emergency call system, and the powers of the current regulator Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) should be reviewed.
That’s according to the Senate committee inquiring into last year’s deadly Optus 000 outage.
The Environment and Communications References Committee has delivered its report, making 11 recommendations for the Federal Government to take strong measures to fix the broken system.
On 18 September 2025, an Optus network outage occurred during a routine firewall upgrade. The outage lasted 14 hours, from 12:17 am to 2:34 pm and affected 605 unique service numbers trying to contact Triple Zero in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and parts of far west NSW.
Deaths have been linked to the outage due to people not being able to make the emergency calls.
The comprehensive report, following extensive parliamentary submissions and public hearings, says time is of the essence if action is to be taken to prevent future outages.
“The committee recommends that the Australian Government’s current review of the Triple Zero framework be used as an opportunity to modernise the Telecommunications Act 1997 and related legislation and regulatory instruments, with the objective of recognising Triple Zero as an essential public safety service and ensuring appropriate oversight, accountability and enforcement mechanisms,” it states.
“Recognising that this will be an extensive undertaking, the Australian Government must consider commencing this work now, with a view to modernising the legislation in future years. If such a review is undertaken, it should not delay more urgent reforms that will keep our community safe.”
The committee also recommends the government considers establishing a statutory authority to assume responsibility for the Emergency Call Person function, and that it commission an independent review of ACMA’s “role, powers, resourcing, technical capability and regulatory approach” in relation to Triple Zero.
This includes whether the current institutional arrangements remain appropriate for regulating an essential public safety service.
“This review should take into account the ACMA’s current responsibilities and whether that is an appropriate model moving forward,” the report states.
“ACMA is the primary regulator of Australia’s telecommunications sector and plays a critical role in enforcing compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements governing access to the Triple Zero emergency call service.
“Recent large‑scale incidents, including the 18 September 2025 Optus outage, have raised questions about the effectiveness of the ACMA’s regulatory approach, the adequacy of its enforcement powers, and whether current arrangements provide a sufficient deterrent to non-compliance in a system that underpins public safety.”
Committee chair Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said telcos have put profits ahead of people for too long, with deadly consequences.
She said a new national government authority must be given responsibility for the 000 system.
“At the moment, Telstra is contracted to do this work. The taxpayers pay it. That’s your money, my money, every Australian taxpayer’s money to fund the operation of Triple Zero,” Senator Hanson-Young said.
“We think it’s time to really consider bringing that back under independent control so that the customer, the public – the safety – is put first and it’s not seen as some kind of chore or add-on for a privately run company … There needs to be an overhaul of the telecommunications laws. Standards and reliability guarantees must be in the law.
“Compensation must be available for people, and Triple Zero must be run for the safety of people, not the profits of corporations.”
The government is not agreeing to do any of it – at least not yet.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers was asked on Tuesday (22 September) whether Labor is seriously considering the push to nationalise 000. He was non-committal.
“If there are additional steps in this committee report that the government needs to consider, I’m sure that Minister [Anika] Wells, in her characteristically diligent way, will go through it,” he said.
The committee also recommended requiring telcos to support a reliable text-based service option for contacting 000, in addition to voice calls, and that ACMA work with mobile network operators and mobile device manufacturers to establish a public register of compliant and tested mobile devices sold in Australia.
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
