Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, , 8:35:31 to 8:45:12
ACMA provides updates on federal court proceedings against Optus regarding emergency call failures and the ongoing investigation into Telstra network outages.
Topics: Public safety, Infrastructure
Speakers: Ms Nerida O'Loughlin, Ms Cathy Rainsford, Senator The Hon Sarah Henderson, Unknown Speaker
Um I'll pass to Ms. Rainsford, but obviously we're before the court at the moment.
Cathy Rains for General Manager Consumer Division, yes, that's um correct since we filed in court, there have been um uh so it's now there and uh awaiting um timetabling and decisions of the federal court.
Have you released a statement of claim? Is that public?
No, there's a there's a short um uh announcement when we went to court uh but there was there's no requirement to release a full statement of claim at this point, is my advice.
And why has the statement of claim not been made public on the federal court's website?
So, Senator, it's my understanding that um uh the court first needs to like there needs to be a procedural type hearing where um the court makes a decision to do that, and that hearing hasn't occurred yet.
And what's the time frame for this litigation because clearly uh this outage occurred in September of 35?
That really is a matter for the court. Um that's something I can't speculate on. Um I would note that and it's a different uh case, but our case it's before the court on the 2022 data breach uh which was then joined privately and also the OISC are investigating. Uh we uh first went to court in 2024 and uh we have a hearing date of 2027.
No, I appreciate it. This is a matter for the court, but I'm asking for your guidance, Ms. O'Lochland. What sort of time frame do you expect this will take to be resolved? Are you confident that it would be resolved in 12 months? Are we looking at two years, four years?
It's a matter for the court, Senator. I would say with the data breach one, it it was a complex case because there are a number of parties involved. I'm hoping this one is more straightforward, but I don't think I have any more advice than that.
So you don't have a hearing date as yet?
No.
I mean it it is a matter for the court, but of course it's always up. It's always open to the parties to settle any litigation. I won't ask you about that. Um but obviously for Australians impacted by that Uh justice delayed is justice denied. Um I am did you consider utilising all of your powers and issuing infringement notices only?
Senator, you remember that there was a an additional breach in 2023 of OPTIS, and in that circumstance, it was at a time where the Bean report had been delivered, there was um much activity being undertaken by government to put in place new regulation. At that point in time on that breach, we decided to pursue an infringement notice because we thought that that broader future compliance would be better resolved by the changes in the law. That was a $12 million infringement notice to the two OPTUS, which I think is the largest infringement notice we've ever issued. Um we thought when we came to this breach that we had reached the end of our administrative powers and we should pursue the matter through the court. Ms. Rainsford is that an accurate reflection?
Oh sorry, did Ms. Rainsford you were going to add anything further? No, so uh could you just quickly touch on the scope of your infringement powers and the maximum penalty that can be imposed for each breach?
I'll pass to my colleagues. Um in terms of our administrative powers, it depends on which part of the law we're dealing with. Uh but in some areas we have things, we have remedial directions, we have formal warnings, we have infringement notice powers, um, and we have uh the ability to seek enforceable undertakings which are enforceable via court, and then we can seek civil penalties through. The court. The way infringement notices work is that they are lesser penalty. They don't meet the peak of a court penalty.
So could you just outline what that penalty is?
I will just pass to my colleague because I can't remember the amount.
So at present. So the amounts of infringement notice penalties gets adjusted from time to time. So under most of our enforcement options under the Telecommunications Act and the Telecommunications Consumer Protection and Services Act. 21,000 $40.
And what type of breach is that for?
So that is for each alleged contravention that has occurred in the previous 12 months.
Okay. And there's no there's no other larger penalties open to you?
Not other than civil penalty pursuit through the courts.
Oh, that's that's simply an infringement notice.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Okay. Without without commencing court proceedings.
Yes. If we don't have another power beyond infringement notice to imply a penalty, then we must pursue it through the courts.
Okay. Could you please update? Sorry, just before we do, in relation to the statement of claim, how many how many breaches are you alleging against OPTIS? Can you just update us on whether there's been a lot of things that are not going to be?
I think that was changed from the original announcement, Senator.
Has there been any change or updates?
No, Senator. We alleged 1,000 that OPTUS. So the ACMA alleged that OPTIS Mobile contravened the Telecommunications Consumer Protection and Service Standards Act of 1999 on 1,05 occasions by failing to comply with obligations under sections 15 and 19 of the telecommunications emergency call services determination of 2019.
Okay. And so that that is that is going to be the claim. That's the claim currently before the court.
That is correct, Senator.
Okay. Could you please update me on your investigation into the Telstra outage?
Yes. So we've commenced that. We opened that investigation on the 8th of July. We've sought information from Telstra under two statutory notices, and we're assessing a significant volume of information that has been received in response from Telstra, but all those responses were received within specified time frames. Again, there's some other information we're considering, but I'll get Ms. Rainsford and her team to run through that.
Thank you, Chair. So the chair mentioned a significant volume of information just to put some scope around that, Senator. We're dealing with over 1,900 documents that Telstra returned in response to those notices. In addition to that, we are looking at the material that is otherwise on the public record. That has come up through a range of avenues to correlate information and inform our lines of analysis there. On top of that, under the emergency call services determination, Chelstra was required to provide us with a report within 45 days of the outage being resolved. That's under section 79. And so we've seen we've received that report on time in compliance with its um with its obligations and that provides further detail on what Telstra understood about that outage at that point in time.
Are you able to provide on notice copies of those notices issued to Telstra?
Senator, I think we've had this discussion previously.
We have, but I thought I would ask you again anyway, Mr.
Senator, I might need to take that on notice, thank you.
I do I do recall uh can is there any other information about your investigation that you're able to share?
Uh not at this stage. It it is um proceeding a pace and we will carefully go through that information coming to our decisions. Um as I mentioned uh there will be various administrative actions available to us in terms of formal warnings or infringement notices or medial directions or enforceable undertakings and alternatively again the AC May might uh decide to pursue proceedings in the Federal Court.