New laws aim to rebuild trust in Triple Zero after fatal failures

17 hours ago 1

The Albanese government will introduce legislation this week to give the Triple Zero custodian formal powers, more than 18 months after the role was first recommended, as it faces criticism for failing to reinforce the service despite a string of outages.

The bill, to be tabled in parliament’s final sitting weeks for 2025, will embed the custodian within the Australian Communications and Media Authority, with statutory powers to demand information from telecommunications providers, to monitor performance and to respond to outages.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said the move was critical to rebuilding trust in the emergency call system after three deaths were linked to September’s Optus outage, when at least 600 Triple Zero calls failed in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

Anika Wells in Sydney on Tuesday after allowing Optus to appoint its own external adviser.

“We know Australians’ confidence in Triple Zero has been shaken, and it’s vital that it’s rebuilt,” Wells said.

“With these new powers for the Triple Zero custodian, Australians can be assured of more active and effective monitoring of this most vital of services.”

The custodian role was a key recommendation of Richard Bean’s review into the November 2023 Optus outage, in which more than 2100 Triple Zero calls failed. The government accepted all 18 recommendations in April 2024 but the custodian has operated administratively within the Department of Communications only since March.

The legislation will provide end-to-end oversight of the Triple Zero system and it will work alongside new rules beginning November 1, including real-time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services, mandatory testing of Triple Zero during network upgrades, and requirements ensuring calls can fall back to alternative networks during outages.

Telecommunications providers will also face mandatory improvement plans after Triple Zero failures. Within six months of the laws commencing, the custodian will issue additional performance requirements to telcos.

Wells said responsibility for ensuring Triple Zero calls connect during outages rested with carriers.

“The law in Australia is clear: if an outage occurs, telcos must make sure that Triple Zero calls still connect by being redirected to alternate mobile towers,” she said.

The move comes as pressure mounts on the government ahead of bushfire season. Wells has summoned the heads of Telstra, Optus and TPG to Canberra on Tuesday to explain their preparations for summer and their compliance with the November 1 rules.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh has called for an independent inquiry into the entire Triple Zero ecosystem, saying ACMA “cannot be the investigators” as it was “part of the failed process”.

The Coalition is expected this week to target Wells, who became communications minister after the election, over her handling of the Optus outage when federal parliament resumes on Tuesday. Last week Wells described herself as a “new minister” when asked whether she was listening more to telecommunications companies or to regulators about the deepening Triple Zero crisis.

“I am still a new minister to the industry, so I would say I’m listening to everybody at the moment, and I would say we are fast-tracking our Triple Zero guardian legislation that will give confidence to Australians about the specific role that Triple Zero plays for us in our country with disaster season ahead, and I’ll be doing that as quickly as I can,” Wells told reporters last week.

Wells, the aged care minister in the first term of the Albanese government, was appointed communications minister on May 12.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has also criticised Wells for travelling to New York following the Optus outage, and said she should have remained in Australia.

Industry experts have said the system faces mounting pressures. According to Telstra internal data, calls to Triple Zero surged by 44 per cent over the past decade, from 8.1 million in 2014 to 11.7 million in 2024. The National Emergency Communications Working Group’s June white paper said that “without urgent reform, the system risks becoming obsolete”.

The legislation represents one of the final pieces of business for parliament this year. Just four sitting weeks remain before the summer break.

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