Senate inquiry demands Aussie telcos hand over control of triple zero hotline in wake of fatal outages

Triple zero should be government-operated and all phone users should have access to mobile roaming, according to a new parliamentary report demanding a revamp of the telco system.

The Senate report says Telstra, Optus and Vodafone should be forced to let each other’s customers use their cell towers during emergencies and provide a text-based method of contacting triple zero.

Several triple zero network failures over the past year., including outages linked to deaths, have raised serious concerns about Australia’s telecommunications infrastructure

It included a 14-hour Optus outage in September 2025 which was later linked to two deaths from 600 emergency calls which failed to connect across Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

The failure prompted a cross-party parliamentary inquiry, which produced its final report containing 11 recommendations on Monday - more than a year on from the deadly incident.

It demanded the Government mandate telcos to provide domestic roaming for voice calls and texts messages and transfer oversight of Australia’s emergency hotline to an independent authority.

Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Australians had lost confidence in the nation’s telecommunications systems after a “litany of outages” which impacted “millions of Australians”.

She accused companies of eyeing profits above people in their service delivery and insisted the nation needed to start treating telecommunications like the critical infrastructure it is.

“People should be able to know that if they need to call triple zero, their mobile phone will work. Regardless of where in Australia they are,” she said.

“One of the key recommendations is urging the government to nationalising triple zero, at the moment it’s a service which is managed by Telstra with support from the other telcos.

“This is the end of the era of self-regulation. Nationalising triple zero must be top of the Government’s to-do list.

“These companies are not putting the safety of Australians first. They’re putting their profits first.”

Telstra’s current multi-million dollar contract to act as the “emergency call person” for triple zero started in 2012 and is scheduled to run until 2032.

Labor Senators Varun Ghosh and Carol Brown claimed emergency calls already roam and forcing further changes could have complex competition trade-offs, as well as pointing out that Australian Competition and Consumer Commission was already conducting an inquiry into mobile phone services.

“We believe it is important that the ACCC be allowed to conclude its mobile services inquiry and that the conclusions of this inquiry should be carefully considered,” the Labor Senators said.

Coalition Senators were opposed to creating a new Commonwealth statutory authority for the emergency call person, arguing that transferring ownership wouldn’t fix carrier network issues.

Among the recommendations was working with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to develop pathways for mobile network operators and device manufacturers to share their technical specifications.

Senator Hanson-Young also highlighted a greater need for transparency, with one recommendation that telcos publicly report outage data in their annual reports, including the total number, type, duration, cause and impact of service outages.

The committee also recommended a review of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s “role, powers, resourcing, technical capability and regulatory approach in relation to Triple Zero”.

A spokesman for the Communications Minister Anika Wells echoed the calls that Australians should rightly expect to reach triple zero when they need it most, and telcos are legally obligated to ensure that connection occurs.

“The Albanese Government has implemented significant reforms to strengthen the triple zero system and ensure it delivers when Australians need it and this work is ongoing,” he said.

“The telco sector needs to rebuild trust with Australians and they must do better to ensure networks do not succumb to preventable failures.”

“We will consider the committee’s recommendations.”

The Australian Telecommunications Alliance insisted providers had delivered measures to improve the reliability of the triple zero system.

“Australian telcos have not been waiting for the Senate report on Triple Zero outages to improve the reliability of networks and the integrity of Triple Zero,” ATA boss Luke Coleman said.

“Australian telcos, technology vendors, and device makers are leading the world to address gaps in global technology specifications to improve emergency call reliability, not just in Australia but around the world.”