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

My question is to the Minister for Communications. Minister, when you were advised of a triple 0 outage that your department had no idea about, why didn't your office raise it with your department immediately? Was it because you were planning your well-publicised trip to a pub in New York?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Mr Speaker, I refer to your earlier instruction that all references to 'you' are in fact references to the Speaker. There were five violations of that in the 30 seconds of that question.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The manager of government business knows that those violations that he refers to are not violations. It's your office. You could say 'the minister' 100 times if you wanted to, but it's not a violation to say 'your'. She did not say 'you' repeatedly; that's what the standing order refers to. 'Your' is a perfectly fine reference in this regard—'your office' or 'your work'. What would you like? What's the problem?

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

Let's all agree that we're just going to follow the standing orders. The shadow minister was within the standing orders. Just to help the House, take the 'you' out of it, and, where you can, take the 'your' out of it as well.

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! It's not a laughing matter. I didn't raise it for fun. I raised it because I want a level of respect and dignity in the House. So, moving forward for everyone, it's not about me; it's about the office that I hold. So I am just asking everyone to follow that. The question is within order.

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

As is a matter of public record, I became aware of the major Optus outage on 19 September at approximately 4.30 pm. My office was contacted by Optus. Through my office, I received briefings and information following the Optus press conference. Overnight, I made arrangements to delay my trip to gather information and inform premiers and the Australian public, which I did at a press conference on Saturday. And we can agree that this is a tragic circumstance. People have lost loved ones, and that hardens my resolve. My department and my office will pursue this with absolute rigour. You have every right to raise these questions, but I am not led by the opposition. I am led by Australians, by telco customers and by ensuring that this system is as safe as it possibly can be and ensuring that all telcos, including Optus, treat this as too important to fail.