Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year, 18 September was a shocking day for this country. A number of people died. There are still conflicting reports about whether three or four people died. They died as a result of a catastrophic failure by Optus. For this government to scramble now, to bring in this bill on the Triple Zero Custodian on recommendations that were made close to two years ago, is a disgrace. That is why I am calling on every senator to support an urgent Senate inquiry into the September Optus triple 0 outage when the vote occurs in the Senate tomorrow.

Senator McGrath set out a very good history of the nightmare that we went through in Senate estimates extracting information, extracting the truth, about what happened—the ducking and weaving and deception from this government. I would also name the department. There's one official, in particular, in the department who, for a number of hours, led senators on a merry dance without giving straight answers as to when the department first knew about this, when the minister first knew about this, when the regulator first knew about this. I can tell you, right now, we are not impressed.

I would send a direct message to the secretary of the department: pull your officials in order. When they come before Senate estimates we expect straight, clear, honest answers to our questions. We were told, over and over again, 'Oh, well, on the Thursday when this happened, yes, there were a couple of emails sent but they were sent to the wrong email address.' We could not get a straight answer about those two emails, including advice that welfare checks were still being conducted because of the outage, for a couple of hours. That is appalling.

When we finally got hold of those emails, we discovered they'd gone to the minister's office on the Thursday! Yet we have the minister telling the Australian people in the House of Representatives, 'Yes, I can confirm we were not notified of the catastrophic outage until late afternoon on Friday 19 September.' That's just simply not true. We now know that those emails went into the minister's office the day before, on the Thursday afternoon. So, again, I stress to the secretary of the department: please, when you come back before us in Senate estimates, in December, and hopefully when the Senate inquiry is established, we expect a much better performance than that. Every official, every minister, is required to give clear and straight and concise answers to our questions, because this was a deadly outcome. I too extend my sympathies to the families and friends and loved ones of those who died.

As the initiator of the proposal to hold a Senate inquiry, and the vote will be held tomorrow, as I mentioned, we are determined to drag Optus executives before the Senate and demand answers. We are determined, and we hope that will happen next week. We also need to know whether Australians can ever again trust Optus to provide a triple 0 service. After misleading Australians about when her office first knew about the outage, Labor's hapless minister for communications, Minister Wells, must also appear before the inquiry. We will not tolerate any more ducking and weaving or deception. While the Senate cannot compel a member of the House of Representatives to appear, it is incumbent on this minister to do the right thing in the national interest and give evidence. We deserve answers. Australians deserve the truth—the full truth and nothing but the truth.

In the terms proposed, which have been lodged and will appear on the Notice Paper tomorrow, the role of the minister in safeguarding the integrity, resilience and public confidence in the triple 0 system is central to our inquiry, and there are very good precedents for this. On a number of previous occasions under our government, ministers volunteered to appear before Senate inquiries. Mr Dutton, who was then the Minister for Home Affairs, appeared before the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation's Committee's inquiry into national security legislation. He was very happy to clarify a number of operational matters concerning his portfolio and the Australian Federal Police. Mr Morrison, when he was the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in 2014 also appeared before a Senate inquiry of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. This was an inquiry into the Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment (Resolving the Asylum Legacy Caseload) Bill 2014.

Of course, as I said, we cannot compel the minister to appear, but this minister, today, must confirm that she is prepared to front up to the inquiry. We are not going to tolerate anything less. It is a joke that the minister thinks it's good enough to ask her own regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, which in so many respects reports to her, which is just one of the conflicts of interest, to inquire into itself and others. That is untenable. I will say this about the former minister for communications, Ms Rowland: at least she had the decency to set up an independent inquiry, the Bean review, which made some very, very good recommendations. Of course, many of those recommendations were not acted on, and many of those recommendations which are in the form of new, enhanced triple 0 rules are still not in effect. I'll say more about that in a moment.

It is appalling that it is clear that the regulator is implicated in what happened on that day, on the next day and in its governance of the triple 0 service. This is an essential service for all Australians. Every Australian needs to know that when they pick up the phone and dial triple 0 they will get the help they need from the fire brigade, from the ambulance service or from the police. I have to particularly condemn the minister and ACMA because there were very important recommendations that stemmed out of our previous Senate inquiry and also the Bean review to enhance the emergency call service rules, rules known as the Telecommunications (Emergency Call Service) Amendment Determination 2025 (No. 1). Would you believe they were made in April of this year? But, extraordinarily, these rules are still not in place. The telcos were given six months to implement these rules. Of course, in September, three or four people died. Just imagine—we don't know, because we don't know all the facts.

These rules are meant to ensure that telecommunications carriers do a better job and are more accountable. These rules include that carriers must wilt a mobile base station if it has lost connectivity so that calls via that mobile tower can be carried by another network. The carriers are obliged to take steps to ensure that their facilities do not impede emergency call camp-on functionality. Providers must test that emergency calls originating on their network can be delivered to the emergency call person—that's triple 0 or 112—including when camp-on is used. Carriers must share real-time network information with specified entities, which include emergency services organisations, but this is currently not the case.

After a major outage, there must be a full report. The new rules provide that, before there is a system upgrade, carriers must submit management plans ahead of proposed changes to show that, where there is a risk of detrimental impact to emergency call delivery, the carriers will have the appropriate measures in place to ensure triple 0 doesn't fail. There are a number of other rules contained in this instrument, which was registered in April, but these rules don't come into effect until 1 November. That is a complete and utter disgrace.

What was the minister doing? She is ramming this bill through at the last minute. It should have happened last year. After ACMA ran its consultation on these new, enhanced triple 0 rules, they should have come into effect straightaway. Now, of course, the carriers are saying, 'We need so much more time.' Well, no, they don't need more time, when there is an outage, to tell emergency services. I recall the outrage of the South Australian Premier, who was also in the dark when we had that scrambled Friday night press conference by the CEO of Optus. He was outraged because services in South Australia and, I assume, in Western Australia were not told—state governments were not told—and the whole thing was a fiasco.

Why is it that, when these rules came into place—really important recommendations from the Bean review, recommendations that were very much supported by the previous Senate inquiry—the minister accepted the fact that it would take six months? We need to put the fire to the feet of these carriers. We need to say that if you are going to have the responsibility of providing such critical infrastructure as telephone services, which are so vital, then we need to see you do the job properly.

I also want to commend Senator Hanson-Young, who, along with Senators Dean Smith and Cadell, is co-sponsoring this notice of motion to set up this inquiry. The Greens have been very, very supportive of this initiative, but we are not going to let the government, the regulator, the minister, Optus or any other carrier off the hook. We are going to go through this with a fine-tooth comb. We are also putting on the table the need to bring mobile phone roaming into this country so that if you don't have a mobile connection or service from one carrier, particularly when you're in a regional area, you can use another carrier's tower. It's a disgrace that domestic customers are barred from mobile roaming in this country. I look forward to the Senate's support of that motion tomorrow.