Anika Wells, the Minister for Communications, has been heavy on the defence given a major and prolonged outage cut access to Australia’s emergency triple-zero service. During a recent oral question period in Parliament, she disclosed that it wasn’t until September 19 that she became alerted to the problem. This announcement sparked outrage over the federal government’s communication with telecom companies.
Wells’ legislation would have made a watchdog the only guarantee of the triple-zero service. In doing so, they affirmed the immediate need for accountability in the wake of this tragedy. The outage reportedly impacted multiple customers in South Australia and Western Australia, leading to serious questions regarding how such crucial information was managed and communicated.
On the day of her address, Wells wore a white blazer and defended her actions amidst tough questioning from opposition members. Perhaps most damningly of all, Melissa McIntosh levelled fraudulent Parliament charges at Wells over when and how the affected outage and its notification to customers unfolded.
Things went from bad to very very ugly very fast. What transpired was an unfortunate comedy of errors. A critical notice about the outage had been sent to the wrong email address. James Chisholm highlighted this misstep, stating, “That communication was sent to the wrong address, which we have told industry a number of times is not to be used as a source for notification.” Additionally, he said the state regulator didn’t properly inform Wells until late Friday afternoon about the planned outage.
In light of these developments, lawmakers began to express their dismay with the government’s response to the incident. Numerous lawmakers, including Sen. They were curious to know whether harsher penalties should be levied against telecoms that breach procedures. The government subsequently voted down an amendment proposing to double the fines for such breaches from $10 million to $20 million.
During the Parliamentary session, Wells maintained that the government takes these matters seriously, asserting their commitment to full transparency and accountability. Still, opponents are doubtful that enough will be done to ensure that no one else suffers the same fate as Goodman.
Wells reiterated the importance of compliance among telecommunications companies, noting that “We expect our companies to act responsibly, and we will certainly expect [parent company] Singtel and Optus to comply fully with the laws, to do whatever they can to cooperate with the investigation,” as quoted by Lawrence Wong.
While the investigation into this incident is ongoing, Optus has released a statement acknowledging the response that led to the incident. An Optus spokesperson stated, “We take these matters extremely seriously and remain committed to full transparency and accountability,” emphasizing their dedication to resolving the issue and cooperating with any independent reviews.
