Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Lindsay moving the following motion immediately:

(1) a select committee, to be known as the House Select Committee on the Triple Zero Ecosystem, be appointed to inquire into and report on the health of the triple zero ecosystem;

(2) the committee consist of eight members: five Members to be nominated by the Government Whip, and three Members to be nominated by the Opposition Whip or by any crossbench Member;

(3) every nomination of a member be notified in writing to the Speaker of the House of Representatives;

(4) the committee may proceed to the dispatch of business notwithstanding that not all members have been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy;

(5) the members of the committee hold office as a select committee until presentation of the committee's final report or until the House of Representatives is dissolved or expires by effluxion of time, whichever is the earlier;

(6) the committee present its final report no later than 8 December 2025;

(7) the committee elect a Government member as its chair;

(8) the committee elect a non-Government member as its deputy chair to act as chair of the committee at any time when the chair is not present at a meeting of the committee;

(9) at any time when the chair and deputy chair are not present at a meeting of the committee, the members present shall elect another member to act as chair at that meeting;

(10) in the event of an equally divided vote, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, have a casting vote;

(11) three members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee;

(12) the committee have power to appoint subcommittees, consisting of three or more of its members, and to refer to any subcommittee any matter which the committee is empowered to examine;

(13) the committee appoint the chair of each subcommittee who shall have a casting vote only;

(14) two members of a subcommittee constitute the quorum of that subcommittee;

(15) members of the committee who are not members of a subcommittee may participate in the proceedings of that subcommittee but shall not vote, move any motion or be counted for the purpose of a quorum;

(16) the committee or any subcommittee have power to:

(a) call for witnesses to attend and for documents to be produced;

(b) conduct proceedings at any place it sees fit;

(c) sit in public or in private;

(d) report from time to time; and

(e) adjourn from time to time and to sit during any adjournment of the House of Representatives; and

(17) the provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

This should be an uncontroversial motion, so I will be relatively brief. Standing and sessional orders must be suspended so that this House can have a vote on whether to establish a parliamentary inquiry into the triple 0 ecosystem. It's as simple as this: do we, as members representing our communities across Australia, which is on the cusp of bushfire season, want more scrutiny of this vital emergency service, or less? If we do, the committee's work can start today and this House can work together to ensure all Australians can have confidence in triple 0. If not, members voting must be prepared to explain why they don't support robust oversight of this vital life-saving service by our nation's parliament.

The opposition have been consistent. We have repeatedly called for a thorough investigation into the health of our nation's emergency call service. In light of the gross and tragic mismanagement of the Minister for Communications and the recent Optus network outages, this is a necessity. A formal parliamentary inquiry has special powers, which no other inquiry currently underway has. It can compel witnesses; it can hear evidence in private sessions and travel across the country to hear directly from Australians. It is not a tick-and-flick exercise either. The work and findings of a parliamentary inquiry are fulsome and frank. These are essential qualities, which the other inquiries kicked off by the minister and the telcos may not be.

I envisage that the object of this motion, a select House committee, would be able to hear directly, for example, from affected emergency service personnel and telecommunications experts. This may be inconvenient for the government, but, as they have sought to put the blame for the tragic outages solely on Optus, I would have thought they would welcome some additional scrutiny and transparency.

In view of the Minister for Communications being new to the job, the opposition is working in the national interest. We allowed for the triple 0 custodian bill to be introduced yesterday without notice, and, despite the fact that it is against the conventions of this place, debate on this bill will resume later this morning. I pause here to say that we support this bill being wrapped up before the House rises tomorrow.

It's our job as parliamentarians to do the hard work, to get across our briefs and to not go missing in action when the going gets tough. Our communities expect us, given the shocking triple 0 outages, to apply the blowtorch to the entire system, and that's exactly what this motion tries to do. I call on those opposite, especially the Minister for Communications, to join with the opposition in a bipartisan way, and in the national interest, to support this motion for the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry into the triple 0 ecosystem.

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