Senate panel urges removal of Telstra from emergency call oversight after repeated outages

A cross-party Senate committee released a report urging that Telstra lose its status as the “Emergency Call Person” for Australia’s Triple Zero service, recommending that a new independent statutory authority assume the role. The recommendation follows a string of high-profile telecom failures, notably an Optus firewall upgrade that blocked emergency calls across South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far-west New South Wales for roughly 13 hours, and a nationwide Telstra outage in July.

The report, signed by Labor, Coalition and Greens members, also proposes introducing a text-based method to reach emergency services and mandating domestic roaming for both calls and messaging. It calls for an update to the Telecommunications Act 1997 and a review of how welfare checks are conducted when callers cannot connect during outages. Labor senators opposed one outlet's review of the communications regulator and the domestic roaming mandate.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is pursuing penalties against Optus for thousands of missed emergency calls. The committee chair, Sarah Hanson-Young, described the changes as a “nationalisation” of oversight and urged swift action.