Dr WEBSTER (Mallee) (09:38): I second the motion. There are serious questions to be answered about the triple 0 outages on this government's watch, and, if the minister and government are adamant that they did nothing wrong, why not bring the Australian public into their confidence and share, through a proper and transparent inquiry, what they knew and when they knew it? The government has commissioned ACMA to stage an inquiry, but, as ACMA is part of the failed system, how can it be held to account if it is running the inquiry? Independence is the key here. ACMA's inquiry is not independent.

We must remember the gravity of the issue at hand. We're talking about the loss of lives—four lives lost. Shirking responsibility is not an option. The Australian people deserve to understand what went on, how the system failed and how it will be rectified to ensure this does not happen again in the future. The minister, the department and ACMA must all transparently explain, at an independent inquiry, when they were first alerted to an issue with the triple 0 connectivity and what actions they took. Serious questions remain about welfare checks and whether they were quick and comprehensive enough to identify the full scope of the problem early enough. Did the minister act appropriately in leaving ACMA to investigate, rather than herself swiftly acting on 18 September?

It simply is not good enough to hide behind Optus's indication about the scope of the outage, which, it turns out, significantly understated the problem. The key issue is notification of the problem, not the estimate of the scale of the problem. If someone reports a fire on their property and tells the responsible authority, 'It's okay; it's only a small fire,' do the authorities take that on trust and adopt a small-scale response, or do they deploy all available local resources to make their own threat assessment and prevent it becoming a disaster?

It is imperative that clear processes exist to ensure triple 0 outages are managed swiftly. There must also be resilience in the system to ensure it does not rely on a single point of failure—for example, a telecommunication company's incorrect estimation of the size of an outage. Triple 0 is the service that underpins all emergency service responses, and Australians need to have absolute confidence it is working. This is not the first outage on this government's watch but the second. And remember: this government sat on a recommendation to legislate a triple 0 watchdog, as per the Bean review, for 12 long months.

They also failed to adequately protect Australians from negative outcomes as a result of the 3G network shutdown, which occurred one year ago yesterday. We do not yet know the full scale of the fallout of that shutdown, with reports in the last week of the discovery of certain models of Samsung phones, which do not currently have triple 0 connectivity as a result of the 3G shutdown.

Regional Australians are acutely aware of how their mobile connectivity has deteriorated since telcos chose to turn off 3G on this government's watch. Many have been left with reduced or no connectivity as a result. No connectivity means no net zero—sorry, no triple 0, full stop. That was a very, very—

MP Mr Conaghan: It was on the mind.

Dr WEBSTER: Yes, it is on the mind. Luck will not fix this Labor government's problem with transparency, timely action and responsibility. Australians want to know that when they call triple 0 they will connect; they want to know that the government understands their experience and will act to improve connectivity in the regions; and they want the minister for communications to take responsibility and take action to ensure this is the case. She needs to turn up to the Senate inquiry that will take place.