The government’s promised triple zero ‘custodian’ not yet staffed more than a year after previous Optus outage

<p>Consumer advocacy bodies and Greens say Labor failed to act fast enough to prevent last week’s outage linked to multiple deaths</p><ul><li><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2025/sep/22/australia-news-live-anthony-albanese-new-york-israel-palestine-donald-trump-optus-triple-zero-ntwnfb">Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates</a></p></li><li><p>Get our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email</a>, <a href="https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app</a> or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast</a></p></li></ul><p>An independent manager of the triple-zero emergency system has not yet been staffed by the federal government, despite it being a key recommendation of the review into Optus’s last emergency outage.</p><p>The communications minister, Anika Wells, said she wanted to “fast track” that process and others rising out of the latest debacle from the maligned telco, but consumer advocacy bodies and the Greens are critical the government has not worked quicker. Calls are growing for Optus to face multimillion-dollar fines even higher than the penalties from a similar incident in 2023.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/22/optus-outage-government-promised-triple-zero-custodian-not-yet-staffed-more-than-a-year-after-previous">Continue reading...</a>