Nationals Lyne MP Alison Penfold asks Anika Wells:

How many triple-0 outages have occurred since you became the Minister responsible for communications?

Anika Wells:

If you read the Bean Review, you would read the disturbing fact that until our government acted, Australian telcos were not required to report outages at all. None at all. That’s what happened under you. We have put in place changes which will be further strengthened on 1 November. It will mean telcos must immediately share information relating to outages with relevant emergency service organisations such as police, fire and ambulance.

Back to parliament and Melissa McIntosh (as the shadow minister) gets to ask another question:

I note that just today you are urging Optus to go faster, three weeks after the devastating outage where lives were lost. Minister, why did people have to die before you instructed your department to accelerate the implementation of triple-0 guardian legislation, as recommended by an independent review to your government over 18 months ago?

Anika Wells:

The only thing that could have stopped Optus from having this outage was Optus themselves. They are responsible for their failure and they are held to account for their failure. However, Mr Speaker, the triple-0 custodian would not exist at all were it not for our government. We commissioned the Bean Review, we accepted all of its recommendations including the design and implement the wok of the custodian. It is a complete fabrication to say that the government has sat on this, a complete fabrication. In March 2024, the Bean Review recommended a triple-0 custodian and that further work be done on the specific nature of the custodian. If you read the Bean Review, and I again I encourage you to, it says this can be done in a number of ways. In 2024, the, committee of industry, government to do that work. They met six times between May and October 2024 providing their final report to the department on 28 November 2024. The department considered all of the recommendations and all the issues identified by that committee, which informed its recommendations to the then minister in March 2025, that the custodian should operate within the department and be supported by new legislative powers.

Upon accepting the recommendation, that work began immediately and work began on the legislation that we are introducing now. So, the Albanese government has and will always work to protect Australians and we will hold those who fail to deliver on their obligations to full account.

Over at the Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee again:

Senator David Pocock asks Senator Penny Wong about the Albanese Government’s failure to implement the Murphy Report into gambling reform and inconsistencies in Government disclosures.

He is particularly interested in a surprising link between the Prime Minister and a lobbying organisation.

Australian Parliament Sports Club is a registered lobbying organisation, and lists gambling peak body Responsible Wagering Australia as a client. The story was broken by Daanyal Saeed in Crikey.

Senator Pocock says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is the president and asks if this is a breach of the ministerial code of conduct.   

Senator Wong says she doesn’t think the club is a lobbying firm as people generally understand it and says Senator Pocock is just trying to get a political grab.

But from my read of Saeed’s story, the Club does seem to sell cash-for-access to gambling and alcohol interests, among others. If anything, that goes beyond mere lobbying.

It’s yet another reason the Australia Institute has recommended requiring all cash-for-access payments to be disclosed. 

Kevin Hogan, the Nationals MP for Page is booted out by Dugald.

The Liberal MP for Lindsay, Melissa McIntosh, who is trying to decide where she sits in party’s Overton scribble at the moment asks Anika Wells:

It has been 565 days since the Bean Review made 18 critical recommendations to government to fix the triple-0 network after the first Optus outage. 18 months on, with a triple-0 crisis, and sadly deaths, why hasn’t the government implemented all the recommendations and will the minister apologise for the government’s delay in acting on these vital recommendations?

Wells:

I invite her to read the Bean Review which has 18 recommendations, 13 of which are now complete, and five which are still in implementation. Of those five, recommendations 3 and 4 pertain to new industry codes in testing of both devices and networks. Recommendation 14 is around temporary outage roaming during natural disasters, and recommendation 15 is a new tribunal assistance of memorandum of understanding. I make these points because the common thread, Mr Speaker is that in each of those four recommendations they are either being led or depend on industry.

So, at my meeting with the chief executives of the three telcos who I summonsed to Canberra earlier today ahead of introducing the triple-0 custodian legislation, I urged industry to go faster on those remaining four recommendations that they have carriage of, and I’m pleased to update the House, Mr Speaker, that they agreed to do so.

One of the good things about this new law is that it creates new levers for the custodian to press industry when they are to get or not with improvement. That is an improvement that will be delivered by the passage of the legislation, with I is why, Mr Speaker, I was very disturbed to hear on Sky News just before question time, after the introduction of legislation, for which the Shadow Minister for Communications was in the House to listen to, that she equivocated on whether the opposition would support the triple-0 custodian bill. This is a shadow minister who is on record criticising me for not going faster when presented with the opportunity to support the bill, dithered and equivocated over whether the opposition would support it. Our role here is to build confidence in the triple-0 system. I have been working as fast as I can to bring this legislation to this place. The question in the legislation, Mr Speaker, is very simple and it should not be difficult for the opposition to answer. The question is: Do you support a stronger custodian for triple-0? If the answer is yes and if you want to be useful, then stop politicising this crisis and support the bill.

Independent MP Andrew Gee gets the next non-government question, which gives us a break from Sussan Ley’s attempts at political relevancy.

Gee:

The rural doctor shortage crisis is a and a shameful indictment. The Charles Sturt University School of Medicine in the Central West of New South Wales is training doctors in the about for practice in the bush, but for half a decade has been restricted by the government to only 37 student places each year across the Commonwealth. This isn’t good enough. When will your government deliver more medical student places to Charles Sturt University so that it can train more country doctors that are so desperately needed.

Mark Butler goes through what the government is doing to open up training places, and then turns to the tenders the government has open for universities to host new medical schools.

There are currently, I think, 100 supported places for medical schools open for tender and Charles Sturt University and other universities are able to apply for that. Obviously it is a competitive process and that will be conducted at arm’s length from myself and from the Education Minister. We have asked in the tender, as I understand it, for universities to indicate a particular focus on general practice because although we want to see doctors more broadly come into the system, we are prioritising an increase in general practice above all things else because we know that a well-functioning general practice scheme is utterly central to a well-functioning health care system. I welcome the question. Obviously I can’t comment on the tender which is open right now, but more doctors, more bulk-billing, more urgent care and even cheaper medicines are the four key pillars of our Strengthening Medicare agenda.

Just a reminder – SingTel the parent company of Optus, earned $8.2bn in total income in 2023-24 and paid $0 tax.

All up since 2020-21 to 2023-24 they earned $32.8bn in income and paid….$0 tax

Sussan Ley is back. She can barely muster up her usual theatrical condensenction, which is how you know she is tired.

After the catastrophic triple 0 outage last month, the minister told a press conference, before her trip to New York, that ‘there had been deaths’. Exactly how many deaths is the minister aware of and has the minister personally phoned each family to apologise for the Albanese Labor government’s inaction?

Anika Wells:

I trust she was watching when the Optus CEO announced news that there had been, as far as he was aware, three deaths, that was late Friday afternoon. The following day, on Saturday afternoon, the Premier Roger Cook said that they had found, within the Ambulance Services of WA, a fourth death that may be connected to the catastrophic Optus outages.

Let us agree here, that is not good enough. What happened in September was not good enough, and legislating a triple-0 custodian will drive real change, but for us here, there is no silver bullet when it comes to corporate failures.

So, have I spoken with the families? I have spoken with Optus, the company who has failed Australians and these families here.

The CEO of Optus has apologised to the families for the failures of Optus and the catastrophic impact that has had on their families, as has the CEO of Singtel, the parent company of Optus. I think we can all agree, it is right and appropriate for these companies to apologise because they are the cause of these catastrophic failures. They have accepted responsibility for this Order, the Leader of the Opposition has asked her question. Frankly, I am disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition seeks to let Optus off the hook and try to say that other people should apologise for the failures of a private company in Optus.

This outage, be and the many failings of Optus, are the fault of Optus alone, and I think the political actions, the politicising of a catastrophe here is letting Optus off the hook, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Mr Speaker, this is a tragic circumstance. There are family whose have lost the ones they love and that hardens my resolve. Optus is accountable and as the minister, I will hold them to account. The independent regulator has an investigation on foot. We will await her recommendations and Optus, I promise you, will face serious consequences for what they have done.

After that uproar, we get to the questions.

Sussan Ley actually manages to find an issue, but then ruins it by once again playing to her party’s base.

They are never going to love you back, Sussan.

Q: 147 days ago the minister was sworn into her portfolio and she still self-identifies as a new minister. Being new is no excuse. Australians dialling triple-0 in an emergency cannot wait for you to learn. The minister isn’t across her brief and by her own admission, people have died.

Given the magnitude of the crisis, does the minister regret her decision to prioritise a trip to New York over dealing with these urgent matters in Australia?

Anika Wells (who has the biggest vice captain energy in the parliament, which means she is PREPARED for this question time). Wells learnt from Wayne Swan and understands all politics is local – which means she puts in the work to keep a personal face on her politics. So yes, she does get out and do the meetings.

We can all agree that the outages that occurred last month by Optus are completely unacceptable. Optus’ failings are under multiple investigations, including Biak Ma, the independent lator, and by state authorities. No-one should be under any illusion this outage was the fault of Optus and Optus alone and they will be held accountable.

However, Optus’ repeated failure have made one thing very clear: The triple-0 system needs reform tanned that exactly what our government is delivering.

Today we have announced six key points that we are prioritising to make triple-0 the most resilient and the most safe system that it can be.

One, introducing a new bill to enshrine the custodian in law.

Two, introducing real-time reporting of outages to ACMA and emergency services.

Three, forcing telcos to test triple-0 during upgrades and maintenance.

Four, new requirements on providers to fully ensure trips calls for back to other networks.

Five, mandatory improvement plans after trips outages.

And six, within six months of the commencement of the new laws, the custodian, through ACMA, there ensure additional perform mans to telcos to ensure Australians best practice.

With respect to that end of parliament and the Leader of the Opposition’s question, our bipartisan new laws to delay access to social media are one of the most important things that our nation has ever done. And they have the potential to change the world, and that is why these laws were being discussed at the United Nations, and that is why I was at the United Nations. The member would know, if they had met with the bereaved families who have been lobbying for these laws for many years – people like Rob Evans, who was carrying his daughter Liv’s ashes in an urn when he came to this place and begged us to act.

They would know if they spent time with Emma Mason who lost her daughter, Tilley to suicide. Emma is just an ordinary woman, but she has acted with incredible courage. Emma went the to United Nations to appeal to the world’s leaders to take action, as we are taking action. And I do not regret for one minute…(there are very loud interjections here)

…standing with Emma as she took that mission to the world and if we are going to talk apologies, the Leader of the Opposition should apologise for calling that work ‘swanning around’. That is what she said.

I call on the Leader of the Opposition to apologise to those organisations and to the parents around the country seeking us to act.

Anthony Albanese continues, but you get the gist. Sussan Ley then speaks, and ramps it all up to 11 in a domestic political attack.

I wish I could be able to say that Australia did all that it could to help release the hostages and the violence to dismantle the terrorist group Hamas, yet to do so would be a lie. To our great shame, under the leadership of the Albanese Labor government, Australia has not stood with the people of Israel nor with the United States as they have sought to dismantle Hamas and establish the conditions for peace. To our great shame, the Albanese Labor government dragged its feet listing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation. Two years on, we stand apart from our friends in this time of their greatest need. Two years on, Australia has failed to stand firm in the face of terror. Australia has been lauded by Hamas and condemned by Israel and by the United States. Australia could have stood firm and to their great credit millions of Australians have, but those Australians and our Jewish community have been failed by their government. We have allowed hate to take root onto our streets and into our communities….

It goes on, but it is a repeat of the deliberate mistruths and one-eyed politics the Coalition have displayed on this issue. Peter Dutton did the same thing – in fact Dutton could be reading this speech and you wouldn’t notice any differences.

And that’s the point – that is how you know how much pressure Ley is to try and keep her leadership. It won’t work and that’s before you even get to how it won’t win any new votes – and in fact will continue to lose the Coalition support.

It’s a party circling the drain.