Australia politics live: Hastie warns Liberals can’t keep living in the Howard era; telcos face steeper outage fines

Liberal MP reportedly tells party meeting ‘world has changed’; harsher penalties for failing to connect customers to triple zero. Follow the latest updates liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe communications minister, Anika Wells, has told the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) she will formally direct the regulator to require telcos maintain a public register of network outages that is updated in real time, following the Optus triple zero outage in September.The companies are already required to notify affected customers in real time about outage, but Wells said the public register, updated in real time, will provide greater transparency.I will be issuing a direction to the Acma to amend the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024 (CCO Standard) to mandate that telecommunications providers maintain a public register of their network outages.
A public register of network outages will increase transparency and accountability around outages and related impacts on access to triple zero.We are not on the side of corporate criminals on this side of the chamber and we will certainly make sure that these penalties signify what the community standard and expectation is, but also from the government.This should send a message to all the telcos that they are on notice. Failure to ensure that this most basic emergency service is available will result in bigger penalties. Continue reading...