National

Victoria

Telecommunications

Editorial

The Age's View September 20, 2025 — 5.41pm

A 68-year-old woman. A 74-year-old man. A 49-year-old man. An eight-week-old baby. Australians who needed help. Australians who were unable to receive it.

The consequences of last Thursday’s Optus outage are still being uncovered. What is known is that more than 600 Triple Zero calls were not connected, emergency services were not alerted to those callers’ needs, and people are dead.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, federal Communications Minister Anika Wells said it was “a fundamental requirement for a mobile carrier in Australia” to provide Triple Zero services.

“I find it hard to put into words how this could have possibly been allowed to happen again,” she said.

Because, of course,

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