Telco heads hauled in to face angry government

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The heads of the nation’s three largest mobile phone companies have been ordered to Canberra to face Communications Minister Anika Wells and explain how they will avoid a Triple Zero outage during the coming bushfire season.

In a sign of the political pressure facing Wells and the government since the deaths of three people after 600 calls to the emergency phone system failed in mid-September, the heads of Telstra, Optus and TPG will face the minister on Tuesday.

Communications Minister Anika Wells has called in the heads of the nation’s largest phone companies.

Optus chief Stephen Rue, who faced Wells in a meeting last week, Telstra boss Vicki Brady and TPG head Inaki Berroeta will not only be questioned about preparations for summer but whether they will meet new rules starting from November 1 that govern outages.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is holding an inquiry into the events of September 18, when Triple Zero callers using Optus in Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory were unable to connect with emergency services.

Three people died during the incident, and federal and state government authorities had not informed of the unfolding disaster.

A second, shorter outage occurred in NSW several days later.

Apart from the ACMA investigation, Optus has been told to have independent advisers assess the company’s network systems to ensure the problems that occurred on September 18 are not repeated.

Concerns about the looming bushfire season have intensified in recent days after weather forecasters noted a sudden temperature spike above Antarctica called a “sudden stratospheric warming episode”.

Only two such episodes have been recorded, in 2002 and 2019, with months of warmer, dry conditions preceding some of the nation’s worst bushfire seasons.

Wells will tell all three telecommunications company chief executives that, with the bushfire season approaching, the public has to have confidence in the reliability of the Triple Zero service.

She will tie the bushfire system to rules that start from November 1 that require phone companies to share real-time network information about outages with emergency service organisations and ACMA.

One of the complaints about Optus’ handling of the September 18 outage was its tardiness in informing governments and agencies.

Industry Minister Tim Ayres said the outages were due to Optus failures, with the government not to blame.

He said the government was moving quickly to implement a series of changes, including the creation of a tougher Triple Zero “custodian” to enforce compliance on telcos.

“This is all about Optus’ failures here,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh says the government should order an independent inquiry into the Optus outage.

“As I understand it, that role has commenced, not the legislation but the function. The minister’s been working on those questions.

“That is ... architecture that the government has committed to delivering. But in the end this is Optus’ failure, and it’s a pretty devastating failure.”

The Coalition is demanding an independent investigation into the entire issue.

Opposition communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh said on Sunday that Wells had let down Australians by appointing ACMA to investigate when it was “part of the failed process”.

She said the government’s role had to be examined, particularly its response to an Optus outage that occurred in 2023.

“I think that’s going to be an important question as part of the investigation, that the government has done everything in its power, every single lever,” she told Sky News.

“There were warning signs in 2023 when Optus had the first outage. No one died. People died this time.”

The Coalition is expected to target Wells, who became communications minister after the election, over her handling of the Optus outage when federal parliament resumes on Tuesday.

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