This past week, I had the opportunity to speak directly to the Australian public through The Canberra Times and Australian Community Media about why telco reform is urgent and overdue.
In my opinion piece, I shared what many of you already know too well—our current consumer protections and service obligations are failing. Inadequate connectivity during disasters puts lives at risk. Telcos continue to fall short on reliability, pricing, and accountability. And unlike any other essential service, they are still allowed to write their own rulebook.
The Enhancing Consumer Safeguards Bill debated in Parliament this week will make a big difference. It offers a genuine opportunity to fix a system that has let too many consumers down. We welcome this Bill as a long-needed step towards enforceable, mandatory protections for Australians. We are glad that this has received bipartisan, consumer and industry support.
ACCAN thanks the Shadow Minister for Communications Melissa McIntosh MP for backing the Bill in Parliament on Wednesday afternoon. As she put it, ‘if telcos aren't adhering to Industry Code, the impact on people financial psychologically and emotionally is significant.’
Dan Reachaproli MP told the House that these reforms are aimed at addressing the failures that have already hurt Australian consumers and will bring accountability to the telco sector. “This system is truly broken, and we are here to fix it.”
Anne Webster MP also brought to the floor stories of regional telecommunications problems in her speech supporting the legislation. David Smith MP acknowledged the widespread support for the Bill, stating the essential nature of connectivity and why this legislation is so critical. The Federal Budget was handed down on Tuesday. While we were pleased to see $3 billion committed to improving broadband speeds for over 600,000 premises, we were disappointed by what was missing: no targeted support for low-income households through a concessional broadband scheme, no progress on an independent comparison tool, and significant funding uncertainty for regional mobile programs.
These gaps show why our advocacy—backed by you—is more important than ever. That’s also why we’re proud to officially launch the Fair Call Campaign page on our website. This is now a central hub for the 23-organisation coalition that’s united in calling for stronger rules and real consequences for telcos that fail their customers. If you haven’t already, we invite you to visit the page, explore the campaign, and share it with your networks.
Finally, we released preliminary polling which showed yet again that deceptive sales, misleading conduct, and poor customer outcomes are not exceptions—they're the shared experience of far too many Australians. In preliminary polling results, telco sign-on pressure, plan changes, low trust and poor coverage were rife.
I encourage you to read our full media release – and I look forward to sharing further research results with you in future weeks.
Together, we’re showing that consumers, community advocates, and service providers are speaking with one voice: fairer telco regulation is not just overdue—it’s essential.
