When the federal government talks about restoring public trust in Australia's emergency calling system, it is acknowledging something serious: that the current framework has already cost lives. Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed this week that a comprehensive review of triple zero legislation will proceed imminently, framing the move as an unavoidable reckoning with a regulatory model that has failed to keep pace with how Australians actually use their phones.
Speaking at CommDay's regional telecommunications policy event in Canberra, Wells was direct about the sector's reputation problem. "The triple zero failures last year shook public confidence. Frankly, they exposed elements of a system that relied on a best-efforts approach, and sadly, in some instances, those efforts were far from the best," she said. She added that public opinion of the communications sector was at a low point by the end of 2025, and that industry could no longer avoid "facing reality".
The review represents the last outstanding recommendation from the Bean Review, commissioned after the Optus network outage in September 2023. That review's findings were released in April 2024, but this particular recommendation had remained unaddressed. The September 2025 Optus outage, subsequently linked to two triple zero-related deaths, gave the issue renewed and unavoidable urgency.
At the heart of the problem is a structural mismatch. Triple zero's regulatory framework was designed around fixed-line telephone infrastructure, yet 85 per cent of calls to emergency services are now placed from mobile phones. As Wells put it, "the Optus outage in September 2025 was a clear reminder of how emergency calling has become dependent on our mobile networks." That dependence, it turns out, was never adequately legislated for.
The complexity deepens when you consider the 3G network shutdown and its consequences. An estimated 1.7 million Samsung handsets were found to have firmware configurations that directed emergency calls exclusively through TPG Telecom's now-shuttered Vodafone-branded 3G network. Samsung told a parliamentary inquiry in December that approximately 1.6 million devices had since received software patches enabling them to use the 4G network for emergency calls. But around 98,000 devices remained unpatched and active at that time. More recently, certain older Apple iPhone models, including the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, were identified as carrying similar vulnerabilities. Apple has since issued a carrier update to address the issue. Carriers are now giving customers with affected handsets 28 days to patch or replace their devices before those handsets are blocked from all carrier networks permanently.
The review will also draw lessons from these handset compatibility failures, Wells confirmed, broadening its scope beyond any single outage event. She identified the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), Telstra in its role as the designated Emergency Call Person, mobile network operators, and state and territory emergency services organisations as entities that would all need to participate in building a more reliable system.
Consumer advocacy group the Australian Consumer Communications Action Network (ACCAN) welcomed the announcement. Chief executive Carol Bennetts said the stakes could not be higher. "Australians must be able to rely on emergency services when they need them most. Triple zero failures cost lives, and consumers need to know that they can contact emergency services every single time," she said.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who chairs the federal government's parliamentary triple zero inquiry, also backed the review but used the occasion to level pointed criticism at industry. She accused large telecommunications companies of prioritising profits over public safety, and characterised ACMA's relationship with the sector as excessively close. "The relationship between the corporations and the regulator ACMA is far too cosy," she said. "Australians are being let down by a regulator that is more of a lapdog than a watchdog."
That characterisation is contested by industry representatives, who point to significant investments in network resilience and the speed with which patching programmes were rolled out following the handset issues. The Australian Telecommunications Alliance and individual carriers have given evidence to the parliamentary inquiry, and the full picture of responsibility is more distributed than any single actor being cast as villain.
The government has not been idle in the interim. Since the September outage, Labor enacted laws creating a Triple Zero Custodian with powers to intervene directly in industry to ensure emergency call reliability. ACMA was directed to establish a real-time public register of network outages, tighten mobile phone testing standards, and impose new equipment monitoring requirements on carriers. A $12 million, three-year funding commitment was also made for a new equipment testing facility at the University of Technology Sydney.
The parliamentary inquiry itself is ongoing. Hanson-Young sought an extension to 30 March to call additional witnesses, and the committee is scheduled to resume Thursday with representatives from Ambulance NSW, Google, Apple, Singtel and Optus expected to appear. Kerry Schott, author of Optus' internal investigation review into the September outage, has also been called to give evidence.
The coming legislative review is likely to force genuine trade-offs between regulatory prescription and industry flexibility. Overly rigid rules risk stifling the investment and innovation needed to actually upgrade network resilience. Too light a touch, as recent history demonstrates, leaves the public exposed. Getting that balance right, with clear accountability and enforceable standards, is the real test of what the review can deliver.