Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For some time now, the world has been fundamentally underpinned by technology. For better or worse, an Australian now treats a mobile phone as an extension of themselves which now replaces even wallets, watches and televisions. The world our maths teacher told us about, where we'd never be able to have a calculator in our pocket, is simply not the reality.The average Australian today will, according to one estimate, spend close to 17 years of their life looking at a screen. That accounts for work, play, education, socialising—absolutely everything that a human does. That reliance reaches beyond how we engage with the world around us. It seeps into our actions and our emotions, leaving many of us to feel as though life itself is impossible without that technology.

As a society, Australia, like all nations across the globe, carries that same reliance. Entire countries can be brought to a standstill without their technological systems and assets. When the internet slows or drops out altogether, it can cripple businesses, and it disconnects Australians from vital services and can block them from reaching loved ones, as we experienced in the nationwide Optus outage of November 2023. That single outage was estimated to have cost customers and the broader nation around $2 billion or more in lost economic activity. On an individual level, that one outage meant that 228 calls to triple 0 couldn't be connected. That means 228 emergencies could not be attended to—228 people in need, stranded. That outage lasted just 12 hours, and it affected just the one national network. So all that technology—the backbone of the Australian public at home, at work and even checking the footy scores and the engine that powers the Australian economy, supports our sovereign capacity and safeguards our nation's security—is reliant on the telecommunications sector to operate it. An Australian at work, making calls, sending emails—whatever it is—is now totally reliant on carriers like Telstra and Optus to complete their work. Beyond work, Australians, in their personal lives, are equally reliant on telcos to stay in touch with others, to send and pay their bills and to access essential services. So it's evident that Australia's telcos play a vital role in everyday life, shaping and supporting the Australian way of living.

But with that level of influence on daily life, telcos must be held accountable by the Australians they serve. We've regrettably seen instances where the ACCC has alleged that carriers have acted improperly, where Australians who rely on a telco's services have instead been let down—for example, in being charged for services they didn't request, often without realising they were purchasing extra products. Worse still, in some instances, Australians targeted were said to have been financially vulnerable or living with mental disabilities. Consumers are being exploited by the service they depend on. This cannot be allowed to happen. That's exactly what the Albanese government is trying to address with this bill, because we are working to ensure that it does not happen again.

The Telecommunications Amendment (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 achieves this in two ways. Firstly, it equips the government with greater authority via the Australian Communications and Media Authority to take swift action against telcos that breach their existing obligations. Secondly, it strengthens the penalty framework, ensuring appropriate consequences when a telco missteps while also encouraging companies to prevent such conduct from occurring in the first place. This bill is both reactive, providing a strong and meaningful mechanism to hold telcos accountable, and preventive, making sure providers understand their obligations, how to comply and the repercussions of failing to do so. This is exactly what a robust telecommunications sector requires in a modern Australia, and I'm proud to play a part in advancing this bill.

The Labor government has already taken substantial steps to strengthen our communications sector and, importantly, to safeguard consumers. This is particularly evident in ACMA's financial hardship industry standard, introduced in March 2024 following direction from the Minister for Communications. This standard makes it mandatory for telcos to better support customers facing hardships to pay their phone and internet bills. This means telcos now have to prioritise keeping customers connected, as they always should, when their customers are struggling financially. It mandates that telcos provide targeted support to customers experiencing hardship, including payment plans, to ensure they remain connected. This is a standard that gives ACMA robust enforcement powers to ensure compliance.

As well as ensuring Aussies are getting the fair go they deserve, this is another way the Labor government is taking pressure off families. It's particularly true in the north. The reality is that thousands of families in Spence have had that difficult conversation with a telco provider that they rely on, seeking an alternative way to pay their bills or trying to find a cheaper service. Labor is making policy with those conversations directly at mind. From 1 July 2025, the Albanese government introduced the domestic, family and sexual violence industry standard, ensuring that those seeking support via phone or online can do so safely, securely and reliably. Measures as part of this include minimum requirement for telco policies and staff training, prohibiting alleged perpetrators being connected to victims and tighter privacy rules. This standard also removes requirements for victims to tell their stories multiple times, removing the need to relive traumatic and stressful events.

I return to cost-of-living measures. It requires telcos to recognise domestic and family violence as a possible cause of payment difficulties and financial hardship and to understand the serious impact disconnection can have on someone vulnerable. Consumers are being looked out for under an Albanese Labor government.

Schedule 1 establishes a carriage service provider, or CSP, registration scheme. It is defined broadly under the Telecommunications Act 1997, but, simply put, it is an entity that uses carrier facilities to provide phone or internet services to the public. At present, there is no full list of CSPs operating in Australia, making it harder for ACMA to proactively educate providers about their obligations or to target compliance and enforcement actively or effectively. Introducing a CSP registration scheme will give the government a clearer picture of the market, allowing ACMA to educate providers, streamline compliance and strengthen overall accountability. Amendments to the Telecommunications Act 1997 will also empower ACMA to remove CSPs from the market if they pose an unacceptable risk or cause significant consumer harm, creating a strong deterrent against noncompliance and increasing trust in registered providers, including smaller or new CSPs. These powers will be a measure of last resort, with review processes and protections to maintain connectivity for consumers.

With regard to schedule 2, at the moment, ACMA cannot take direct enforcement action for breaches of industry codes registered under part 6 of the Telecommunications Act 1997. No matter how serious the breach, compliance with these codes was initially voluntary. If a provider is found in breach, ACMA can issue a direction to comply or a formal warning but can only take stronger enforcement action if the provider continues to ignore that direction. This bill changes part 6 of the Telecommunications Act, making compliance with industry codes mandatory from the outset and removing the need for ACMA to first direct a provider to comply before taking enforcement action. Before this bill, it was as if telcos could do the wrong thing once and not get penalised if it occurred again. This bill fixes that. Telcos are powerful and, if that power is being misused, to protect consumers, it must stop the moment it is detected. That's exactly what this bill does.

For schedule 3, although this may seem like an obvious thing to say, telcos are highly profitable organisations. We want to ensure that penalties for breaching industry codes and standards are proportionate to a telco's size and resources, which will provide a strong and effective deterrent. That's exactly what this bill does. It increases the maximum general civil penalty for such breaches from $250,000 to $9.9 million. These amendments will also modernise the penalty framework for industry codes, standards and service provider determinations, allowing penalties to be based on the benefit gained from the conduct or the provider's turnover and enabling fines well above $9.99 million. For example, if a telco were found to have done the wrong thing and gained $15 million from its conduct, this legislation allows for penalties to go higher in order to account for that profit—as it should. In the same way consumers are deterred from doing the wrong thing every day, via the law, telcos need adequate punishments should they do the wrong thing, in order to stop consumers from being taken for a ride.

Schedule 4 complements the previous one by expanding the minister's power to increase any infringement notice penalty ACMA can issue for breaches of telecommunications rules.

Debate interrupted.

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