Peak communications consumer body, ACCAN, has welcomed draft legislation to establish a Triple Zero Custodian - a key recommendation of the 2024 Bean Review – but wants to see it strengthened to hold telcos to account.
The establishment of a Custodian is an important step in restoring public confidence in the reliability of Australia's emergency call service following recent high-profile outages, but it needs to be vested with full powers to act in the interests of public safety.
"Australians have been hit with a crisis of confidence in the Triple Zero system," said ACCAN CEO Carol Bennett. "The creation of a Triple Zero Custodian is a vital step towards rebuilding public faith. But it will only be effective if the Custodian is empowered to act and can hold telcos accountable for ensuring the Triple Zero system performs as the community expects."
"Consumer trust in the telecommunications sector is at an all-time low. Our research indicates that almost half (43%) of Australians do not trust their provider to act in their best interests – and this was before the latest round of Triple Zero outages."
"The Triple Zero Custodian legislation should place public interest and safety at the forefront – rather than the profits of telecommunications companies – and establish effective oversight of the entire emergency system."
"While the power to direct the ACMA is welcome, the Triple Zero Custodian should be given additional powers to require service improvements, establish minimum performance benchmarks and have the capability to engage in real-time monitoring so that whenever an outage occurs, it is identified and dealt with as soon as possible."
"The Triple Zero Custodian should also be tasked with undertaking periodic and targeted reviews of the entire triple zero system to ensure that contemporary and emerging risks to services are identified and dealt with at the earliest opportunity"
"This legislation represents a step in the right direction but must be strengthened by imposing positive obligations on telcos to manage risks proactively rather than waiting for someone to issue a direction or undertake a lengthy investigation. Where telcos fail to effectively manage potential risks to the disruption of Triple Zero services, they should be subject to significant penalties and ongoing requirements to invest in their networks, clean-up their processes and ensure their staff and contractors can prevent future outages," Ms Bennett concluded.
About us:
The Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) is Australia's peak communication consumer organisation. The operation of ACCAN is made possible by funding provided by the Commonwealth of Australia under section 593 of the Telecommunications Act 1997. This funding is recovered from charges on telecommunications carriers.
