Labor orders comprehensive review of triple zero legislation

The federal government will undertake a comprehensive review of emergency calling legislation and rules “imminently” in a bid to restore public faith in Australia’s triple zero services.

Communications minister Anika Wells said that the review was a crucial step, after describing the Optus outage last September, which has since been linked to two triple zero-related fatalities, as a political “lightning rod” moment for the nation.

The review is essentially the final recommendation of the Bean Review of the 2023 Optus outage that has remained unaddressed since the findings were released in April 2024.

Speaking at CommDay's regional telecommunications policy event in Canberra, Wells said the industry could no longer ignore the “searing experiences” exposed by the triple zero 2025 outages.

“The triple zero failures last year shook public confidence. Frankly, they exposed elements of a system that relied on a best-efforts approach, and sadly, in some instances, those efforts were far from the best," she said.

“At a deeper level, it exposed a discordance between how the industry is regulated, and perhaps how it sees itself, versus how the public expects it to operate.

"We have to face reality. At the end of 2025, public opinion of the communications sector was very low."

Wells said that the current triple zero regulatory regime was designed for fixed-line services whereas 85 percent of calls to emergency services were now placed from mobiles.

“The Optus outage in September 2025 was a clear reminder of how emergency calling has become dependent on our mobile networks. It was a lightning rod moment for Australians who rightfully asked serious questions about how this could happen,” she said.

iTnews has reached out Optus, TPG Telecom and Telstra for comment.

Carol Bennetts, chief executive of consumer advocacy lobby, the Australian Consumer Communications Action Network (ACCAN), welcomed the review.

“Australians must be able to rely on emergency services when they need them most. Triple zero failures cost lives, and consumers need to know that they can contact emergency services every single time,” Bennett said.

Greens Senator and chair of the federal government's parliamentary triple zero inquiry, chair Sarah Hanson-Young also welcomed the review, accusing the telco industry of being too close to regulators.

“Throughout the many triple zero sagas there have been two common threads: big telcos who are putting profits ahead of people’s safety and a regulator who is asleep at the wheel," she said.

“The relationship between the corporations and the regulator ACMA is far too cosy.

“Australians are being let down by a regulator that is more of a lapdog than a watchdog, and a handful of big corporations who know they can get away with poor service and self regulation."

Few were spared mention in Wells’ critique of the way Australia’s triple zero services are currently managed.

She said that providing a reliable triple zero service would require better cooperation across a broad range of entities including the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), Telstra as the industry’s designated Emergency Call Person, mobile network operators, and state and territory emergency services organisations.

Nor was a review solely a response to the highly Optus outages, she argued.

Wells said the review would also draw on lessons from the 3G network shutdown and the way it impacted some mobile handsets.

Wells was referring to so called “camp on” issues associated with the 3G shutdown that became apparent during the transition to 4G but acute following the September Optus outage, which exposed a firmware configuration issue with Samsung handsets.

An estimated 1.7 million Samsung handsets were found to have firmware configurations that only allow them to use TPG Telecom's shuttered Vodafone-branded 3G network to place emergency calls.

Last December, Samsung told the parliamentary inquiry that an estimated 1.6 million of the devices had successfully received software patches necessary to make them capable of placing eVoLTE (Voice over LTE) triple zero calls on TPG Telecom's Vodafone-branded 4G network.

However, at the time, Samsung said that a further 98,000 unpatched devices remained "alive and active".

Telstra was the first to bring the devices to the public’s attention in October last year when it revealed that its tests showed that 71 Samsung handset models’ firmware had been “specifically configured” to rely on Vodafone’s 3G network to call triple zero.

Since then, the list of makes and models of handsets with triple zero calling reliability issues has expanded, the latest being some older Apple iPhone handsets, including the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X iterations of the popular devices.

Apple has since released a carrier update to rectify the problem with its handsets. However, carriers are now giving customers using handsets identified as unable to make triple zero calls 28 days to either patch the devices or replace them if a software fix is not available.

After that the devices will be blocked from all carrier networks permanently.

The September Optus outage and its links to fatalities triggered a flurry of regulatory activity.

By late October, Labor enacted new laws allowing it powers to directly intervene in industry to ensure emergency call services run reliably through the establishment of a Triple Zero Custodian.

The federal government also directed ACMA to amend industry codes to establish a real-time public register of network outages.

ACMA also tightened mobile phone testing standards and imposed new network equipment monitoring rules on carriers. It introduced a new mobile phone testing industry code supported by a federal government funding for a new equipment testing facility at the University of Technology Sydney at a cost of $12 million over three years.

The federal government also launched a parliamentary inquiry into triple zero services late last year.

Starting last November, it hauled Stephen Rue and other Optus senior executives, and ACMA’s chair Nerida O’Loughlin before a senate committee to answer questions about the September outage.

The following month it expanded its witness list calling the chief executives of Telstra and TPG Telecom to appear to provide evidence.

The December hearing also saw representatives from the Australian Telecommunications Alliance, Samsung, ACCAN and the Department of Communications give evidence.

The inquiry committee was expected to report its findings early this month, but Hanson-Young sought an extension until March 30 in order to call additional witnesses.

The inquiry will resume Thursday with witnesses from Ambulance NSW, Google, Apple, Singtel and Optus expected to attend.

The committee has also called Kerry Schott, author of Optus’ internal investigation review into the September outage to give evidence.