Australians’ confidence in the one service that must never fail, Triple Zero, has been shaken by the recent Optus outage.
Federal Member for Bowman, Henry Pike MP, says the incident highlights critical failures in both the telecommunications sector and the Albanese Government’s handling of mobile network resilience.
“When someone dials 000, they don’t care about excuses or politics, they just need help to arrive,” Mr Pike said.
“Here in the Redlands, we know this problem all too well. From Cyclone Alfred’s chaos to everyday dropouts, too many locals have been left stranded without reliable mobile coverage.”
Mr Pike said the Optus outage is not just a corporate failure, but a government one as well.
“Despite a similar outage in 2023 and repeated warnings, Labor sat on plans to create a Triple Zero watchdog for nearly a year,” he said.
“That reform could have forced faster fault reporting linked to three tragic deaths. Now, under pressure, they are rushing laws they should have passed long ago.”
Since being elected, Mr Pike has made fixing poor mobile coverage across the Redlands a key priority. With the help of thousands of residents, he has mapped every mobile blackspot and pushed telecommunications companies to act and securing 43 mobile upgrades in three years.
However, Mr Pike said the Albanese Government has “dropped the ball” on improving regional and suburban connectivity.
“Labor has abandoned the Mobile Black Spot Program and left the Peri-Urban Mobile Program in limbo,” he said.
“The next rounds of funding are long overdue, with no timeline, no budget and no urgency.”
Following Cyclone Alfred, Mr Pike has worked with emergency managers and telcos to boost network resilience by pushing for more backup power, improved tower redundancy and faster disaster recovery. He says the former Coalition’s Network Hardening Program, which has already delivered generators at Dunwich and Russell Island, must be expanded.
“I’ve urged the Minister to fund and extend this program to protect the whole community,” Mr Pike said.
Mr Pike is calling on the Albanese Government to:
- Restore and fund the Mobile Black Spot and Peri-Urban Mobile Programs.
- Expand the Network Hardening Program to cover all at-risk areas.
- Deliver a real, independent investigation into the Triple Zero system to prevent future failures.
“The safety of Australian families should not depend on which carrier they use or which suburb they live in,” Mr Pike said.
“I’ll keep fighting to get results tower by tower, suburb by suburb. The Redlands deserves better and I won’t stop until we get it.”