Tom Venning (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

'Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.' Those words from Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, carry profound weight today. They remind us that the most essential systems must be ready for anything. I rise to speak about the tragic failure of preparation, the collapse of our nation's most fundamental lifeline, triple 0. This is not a technical glitch; it is an issue of profound importance that jeopardises the lives of constituents across regional South Australia. Sadly, that's nothing new under Labor.

The Optus outage was a catastrophic day for all Australians, but, for those living in the country, in remote areas and in the outback, this failure cuts even deeper. The triple 0 network isn't a regular service; it's our only reliable path to emergency help. The network collapse was not brief. It lasted for over 12 hours, during which a staggering 600 calls failed to connect. We know the cost: three deaths, maybe four, including an eight-week-old baby in Gawler in my home state. Think about that moment of crisis—people cut off from health, forced to scramble, find a neighbour on a different network or desperately search for a landline. Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. Alexander Graham Bell was on to something.

As a resident of the northern Yorke Peninsula, I have unique insight into what this borderline-doomsday situation looks like. Earlier this year, the power went out for 24 hours, cutting phone lines, cutting internet and placing essential services into chaos. Only those with generators were able to survive. People were helpless as cell services ran dry. Cars were running out of fuel. Hospitals were on edge. Critical care was on life support. I have it on good authority that, during that 24-hour period, residents were only a matter of minutes away from the full failure of the sewage system in Kadina, Wallaroo and Moonta. But it was the lack of communications that made it all so hard. Unless you have lived it, you really don't know what it feels like to be truly helpless in 2025. It is dystopian.

Broadly, phone service has been significantly reduced in regional SA since Labor came to government. The coalition, on the other hand, has had a strong track record of delivering real solutions to improve regional telecommunications, particularly through initiatives like the Mobile Black Spot Program. Under Rowan Ramsey's tenure in my electorate of Grey, this program delivered 57 mobile phone towers, many on the Yorke Peninsula. In contrast, Labor scrapped the program and have delivered zero new towers—not triple 0, zero. Where was the government's watchdog then? ACMA was asleep at the wheel. The Minister for Communications was not informed of this crisis until a staggering 24 hours later. This is a spectacular failure of departmental and regulatory processes under this minister's watch. Then where was the minister? Having sleepless nights—I don't doubt that. She was, after all, in a city that never sleeps, old New York. And who did this minister appoint to lead this critical investigation? ACMA, the Australian Communications and Media Authority. It's like letting school students mark their own homework. You won't ever get good answers. ACMA was an integral part of a regulatory and oversight process that clearly failed.

If the minister were truly serious about transparency and fixing this life-saving system, she would do what is right: she would commission a full and thorough independent review of the entire triple 0 ecosystem. Nothing less is warranted. We need an external, impartial body with the authority to delve into every corner, every protocol and every point of failure. Only then can we truly understand the full scope of the issues that need to be addressed in the system and, most importantly, ensure that no-one else loses their life.

We are now approaching bushfire season in my electorate. We need a system that is fully functional, with adequate fail-safes, now. For regional communities, who already grapple with less robust infrastructure, triple 0 not working is a death sentence. The Albanese government needs to stop its shambolic response, get its priorities straight and deliver a triple 0 system that works for all Australians, particularly those in regional and remote communities such as the ones I represent.

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