The Australian Senate Triple Zero inquiry has handed down its final report, and the major recommendation is clear: take the emergency call system away from Telstra.
The report’s 11 recommendations are backed by crossbench support from Greens, Labor, and Coalition committee members, making for an unusual alliance. The list covers public-friendly changes and stronger standards for quality and reliability.
Triple Zero inquiry recommendations
A national Emergency Call Person
The top-line change would strip Telstra of its role as Australia’s Emergency Call Person; the operator who answers Triple Zero calls and transfers it to appropriate police, fire, or ambulance services.
The job would move to a new government-run authority, ending telco self-regulation of what the committee calls an essential, life-or-death service that should never have been privatised in the first place.
Telstra has held this function since it was fully privatised under the Howard government in 2006, and it would be the first time part of the role has returned to public hands.
Text-to-000
The committee also proposes a pilot program that would allow Australians to send a text message to emergency services rather than relying on voice calls alone. The Triple Zero Custodian already has a text relay service in the works, but it’s not what you might expect.
The relay callback service is weaker than a true text service where you could text back and forth with emergency services like in countries overseas. Instead, it only allows you to text once and receive a call back from emergency services.
During the hearings, one opposition member asked why we don’t already have a two-way texting service, and it’s a good question.
Additional comments attached to today’s report go further, calling for the relay rollout to be sped up while the government commits to a clear pathway for two-way text.
Domestic roaming
Under the new recommendations, carriers would be forced to allow customers’ phones to fall back to other networks in the case of an outage. Telstra has previously argued that mass roaming risks overloading remaining networks, and the ACCC knocked the same proposal back in 2017. The watchdog is reconsidering its position as part of a separate mobile services inquiry.
There’s already a safety net for this situation with emergency camp-on, and it partially worked during Telstra’s outage in July when affected customers were told to wait up to 90 seconds for their phone to find an alternative network.
The domestic roaming mandate would be stronger than current standards which have proven less than reliable.
Further recommendations
The remaining Triple Zero inquiry recommendations include minimum performance and reliability standards, a pathway for automatic compensation to affected customers, and an independent review of telco regulator ACMA with new powers to compel evidence from carriers during investigations. A review and modernisation of the Telecommunications Act is also recommended.
Why reform is necessary
The Triple Zero inquiry was triggered by Optus’ September 2025 outage, when a botched network upgrade left over 600 emergency calls unanswered over 15 hours. The inquiry widened after Telstra’s own outage in July of this year knocked out service for nearly 9 million users and dropped 604 emergency calls, and a Vodafone outage in June that took down a number of MVNOs with it.
The current best advice during outages is to simply try redialing and staying on the line to attempt emergency camp-on, but the upgraded service would undoubtedly be an improvement for the Australian public.
Here’s what to expect when you call Triple Zero currently, and here is the current advice from telcos about the service.
Our take
It’s rare to see this level of bipartisan support, but that speaks to how sensible these recommendations are. One Triple Zero outage was too many, and to see such widespread failure across the telco industry to maintain these services is appalling.
Removing the Emergency Call Person role from a publicly listed company ought to lift the quality of service we can expect. Telstra held this role uncontested for the past two decades, and it’s taken a run of outages to see change. Thankfully, the case for reform is about as strong as it gets.
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