Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications. Minister, asked when you and your office were first notified about the triple 0 crisis, you said:

… we were not notified of the catastrophic outage until late afternoon on Friday 19 September.

However, a secret email has revealed the minister's personal office was actually notified 24 hours earlier than what she told the house yesterday. Minister, how can Australians trust triple 0 to work in an emergency when they cannot even trust you to tell the truth in parliament?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to remind of an issue that I did raise yesterday: just moving forward with all questions, if we can just follow the standing orders to make sure the 'you' is not used. It's just reflecting on the chair. I'm sure the leader doesn't want that to occur, so we'll just ensure that's moving forward for all questions.

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for her question. All of this information is already in the public domain. I spoke to that at a press conference on 22 September. I spoke about that incorrect information that Optus provided to my office and to the ACMA regulator on Thursday 18 September. That transcript is available on my website if you would like to peruse. That advice that Optus gave to both my office and ACMA on Thursday afternoon was clearly incorrect, it was inaccurate and it was misleading. That is why we have put in place changes that will be further strengthened on 1 November when the new ACMA determination takes effect. It will mean that telcos must immediately share information relating to outages with relevant emergency service organisations—police, fire, ambulance—and the regulator and people who are relevant. So I've asked and telcos have agreed to start that early.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition on a point of order?

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to table documents which clearly reveal a notification from Optus to the minister's office.

Leave not granted.