Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The government will be opposing Senator Henderson's amendment but supporting this motion for the referral of the Optus network outage to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry. Connectivity is absolutely essential for Australian consumers and businesses, and the impacts of yesterday's outage were particularly concerning. The government wants a successful and competitive telecommunications industry. It is vital for consumers, business and the regions. The government has today announced a post-incident telecommunications review into the Optus outage that affected millions of Australians yesterday. The minister has tasked her department with developing the terms of reference for a post-incident review. Additionally, the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, has independently commenced an assessment to investigate Optus compliance with the rules of requiring that emergency calls are successfully carried from mobile carriers to the emergency call person. It is critical that industry and governments take stock following large-scale outages. Given no network is immune, it is essential that communications and access to emergency services are maintained in times of network failure. (Time expired)