The Coalition and Greens came together to get a senate inquiry into the Triple 0 failure up and running and that will be taking some attention this week.
The committee wants communications minister Anika Wells to attend, but Wells says she has other commitments.
Mark Butler, who is doing media over the increase in bulk billing rates (complicated story, but it is not going to do a lot for many private GP practices) was asked whether Wells should front the committee on ABC News Breakfast this morning:
House of Representatives ministers are accountable in the house. She has been answering questions in Question Time in the house. That is the proper way this parliament works. We welcome the inquiry. We think it is another good opportunity for Optus to be held to account. People are angry about what happened with that triple oh outage. We lost a woman who died because of that outage in my community. People want Optus to be held to account and they want answers. We have our regulator conducting an inquiry. The Senate inquiry is app important opportunity for Optus to be held to account.
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"House of Representatives ministers are accountable in the house. She has been answering questions in Question Time in the house. That is the proper way this parliament works."
Not under Labor. Albanese promised to make parliament a gentler, kinder place with more transparency and integrity - Labor has not just continued the Coalition practice of not answering questions, childish antics towards the Greens and Independents and utter disdain for the public interest, but has been found to have been more secret and less transparent than even the secretive, corrupt Morrison government.
This is Mark Butler being disgracefully disingenuous.
" We lost a woman who died because of that outage in my community."
We lost an Australian aid volunteer in Zomi Frankom, where was Butler's concern for those responsible being held to account then?
The USA seems to think Israel is accountable.
"Several atrocities committed by Israeli forces since the start of the genocide two years ago have triggered reviews under the Leahy Laws.
In April 2024, seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers were killed by three Israeli drone strikes, one after another, on three separate WCK vehicles. The drones opened fire, even though the WCK had shared the convoy’s coordinates and route with the Israeli military in advance. The victims held Australian, British, Palestinian, Polish, and dual US-Canadian citizenships.
In February 2024, Israeli forces opened fire, including with tanks, on Palestinians trying to get desperately needed aid in Gaza. At least 112 Palestinians were killed and 760 were injured in what became known as the ‘Flour Massacre.’
However, the White House claimed it was “not able to reach definitive conclusions” on whether US weapons were used in the attacks." (The Cradle)
They don't deny Israel culpability, just whether US weapons were used. What was the Albanese Labor government's response - 7 months to come back with Israel's word on the deaths.