Senate report recommends triple-0 be nationalised and roaming be mandated after Optus outage deaths

A bombshell probe into an Optus outage linked to the deaths of multiple people has recommended Australia’s triple-0 system be nationalised.

The Senate Environment and Communications Reference Committee has been investigating the September 2025 incident, which impacted triple-0 services across multiple states.

A final report released on Monday recommended the Emergency Call Person function, or triple-0, be taken over by the Australian government through the establishment of a statutory authority.

The report also recommended legislation be introduced to mandate domestic roaming for voice calls and text messages.

It also recommended that the government require telecom providers to support “a reliable text-based service option for contacting triple-0 in addition to voice calls”.

Inquiry chair and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Australia’s telco’s were now “on notice”.

“This is the end of the era of self-regulation,” she said.

“After months of work, this report recommends essential measures the government must enact if they want to end Australia’s telco crisis.

“Telstra, Optus and TPG have all let down their customers and the Australian public. With the litany of outages we have seen millions of Australians affected. Something needs to change.”

Senator Hanson-Young said Australia’s telecommunications laws were out of date, and successive governments had failed to ensure that regulation kept pace with technology.

“Australian’s rightfully expect their phone to work no matter where they are in the country,” she said.

“The federal government must mandate domestic roaming so that all Australians, especially those in rural and regional areas, are always able to contact triple-0, get to work or call their mum.

“Nationalising triple-0 must be top of the government’s to-do list. Putting this emergency service back into public hands will ensure more accountability and more investment in protecting Australians.

Senator Hanson-Young also called for automatic compensation for everyone impacted by the outage.

She also claimed the Australia Communications and Media Authority had “failed” to regulate the telcos.

The report recommended ACMA be subject to an independent review, which would seek to examine its powers, resourcing, and regulatory approach.

‘Essential public service’

The committee noted access to triple-0 was “a fundamental public safety right”.

“Triple-0 is not an ordinary telecommunications service,” the report stated.

“It is a last resort for people experiencing medical emergencies, accidents and other life-threatening events.

“When triple-0 fails, the consequences can be immediate, traumatic and, in some cases, fatal.”

The report noted “deep concern” about triple-0 failures, and the committee was concerned the “current arrangements do not provide sufficiently clear and enforceable obligations to prevent failures”.

“A framework that relies too heavily on industry self-regulation and post-incident investigation is not adequate for a service on which lives depend,” the report stated.

“Successive telecommunication outages have shown that privatisation is not a suitable model for essential services like triple-0.

“In line with this, the committee recommends that the Australian government should consider assuming responsibility for the triple-0 Emergency Call Person (ECP) function to ensure that triple-0 is operated as an essential public safety service and is not outsourced to the private sector.

“To achieve this, the committee recommends that the Australian government should consider establishing a statutory authority to assume responsibility for the ECP function that is currently performed by Telstra.”

September 2025 outage

About 145,000 customers were impacted by the September 2025 triple-0 outage, which was resoled resolved within 20 minutes.

The root cause of the outage was later identified as a failed firewall upgrade at the Regency Park exchange in South Australia.

The upgrade was undertaken by Optus and contractor Nokia, representatives of which fronted the inquiry.

An independent review commissioned by Optus identified “significant deficiencies” in the telco’s risk management and incident response systems.

The report noted Optus chief executive Stephen Rue had led a company-wide transition aimed at “strengthening the resilience and reliability of the network, streamlining complex IT architecture and critical platforms, and improving Optus processes”.

However, the independent review put forward “a range of possible improvement measures” for consideration of the Optus board, including enabling faster tracking of caller details and “addressing the siloed way of working”.

ACMA separately launched legal proceedings in July against Optus over the incident, with a maximum possible penalty of $250,000 for each of more than 1000 breaches.

The matter is still before the courts and no adverse findings have been made against Optus.