Back to parliament and Melissa McIntosh (as the shadow minister) gets to ask another question:

I note that just today you are urging Optus to go faster, three weeks after the devastating outage where lives were lost. Minister, why did people have to die before you instructed your department to accelerate the implementation of triple-0 guardian legislation, as recommended by an independent review to your government over 18 months ago?

Anika Wells:

The only thing that could have stopped Optus from having this outage was Optus themselves. They are responsible for their failure and they are held to account for their failure. However, Mr Speaker, the triple-0 custodian would not exist at all were it not for our government. We commissioned the Bean Review, we accepted all of its recommendations including the design and implement the wok of the custodian. It is a complete fabrication to say that the government has sat on this, a complete fabrication. In March 2024, the Bean Review recommended a triple-0 custodian and that further work be done on the specific nature of the custodian. If you read the Bean Review, and I again I encourage you to, it says this can be done in a number of ways. In 2024, the, committee of industry, government to do that work. They met six times between May and October 2024 providing their final report to the department on 28 November 2024. The department considered all of the recommendations and all the issues identified by that committee, which informed its recommendations to the then minister in March 2025, that the custodian should operate within the department and be supported by new legislative powers.

Upon accepting the recommendation, that work began immediately and work began on the legislation that we are introducing now. So, the Albanese government has and will always work to protect Australians and we will hold those who fail to deliver on their obligations to full account.