JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Well, telco chiefs will tomorrow meet with the federal government to explain how they're going to avoid Triple Zero outages happening again. The Communications Minister, Anika Wells, joins me now. Minister, welcome back to the program.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: Morning, James.

GLENDAY: So what are you going to be telling these telco chiefs tomorrow?

WELLS: We'll literally be laying down the law. Australians must be able to rely on our Triple Zero system and telcos must do better to give confidence back to Australians after the catastrophic failure on the part of Optus several weeks ago. It's a good time for everybody to get together, make sure that our expectations are clear and to prepare for natural disaster season ahead.

GLENDAY: This is not the first time Optus has experienced a Triple Zero outage. There was a review after an outage in 2023. Why have some of those recommendations not been put in place before now?

WELLS: That's right. All of those recommendations were accepted and 12 out of 18 are done and the rest of the work is well underway. For example, the Triple Zero custodian, which we will legislate later this week in the parliament, was established in my department back in March and that work has been going on to try and make sure that we're more forward leaning and that the system is best practice, because Australians must be able to trust in Triple Zero. And when there are outages, the system cannot be allowed to fail and that is on the telcos to do better.

GLENDAY: I know you've only been in this portfolio since the federal election but if the government had moved faster and implemented all of these recommendations before now, could this latest Triple Zero outage have been avoided, do you think?

WELLS: This is a catastrophic failure on the part of Optus. They have spoken themselves to some of the things that they have identified about what went wrong in their organisation a couple of weeks ago. And it is my job to hold them to account, to make sure that they face serious consequences on the part of Australian taxpayers, but also to make sure that we restore the system, the confidence in the system, so that Australians can trust in calling Triple Zero when they need it most.

GLENDAY: As you mentioned, we're heading into cyclone storm and bushfire season. Just on confidence, how much confidence do you have, how much trust do you have that Australians won't see more of these outages over summer?

WELLS: About 10 million calls go through to Triple Zero every year. The system itself is more than 99 per cent reliable. But what is at stake here is when there are outages, that the system doesn't fail. So when Optus has an outage, that the Triple Zero system doesn't fail. And they failed here and they failed Australians when they did it. So we're all getting together tomorrow. I've asked everybody to come to Canberra to not just talk about the law and Australians' expectations of telcos complying with the law, but what can we all do to make sure that Australians can trust in Triple Zero ahead of natural disaster season.

GLENDAY: You have a lot going on in your portfolio at the moment. On a slightly different issue, my colleague Steve Cannane has a piece on online gambling on Four Corners tonight. You were friends with the late Peta Murphy. She did a big report. It was called the You win some, you lose more report. What did you personally think of the recommendations contained in that?

WELLS: It's important work, and I'm glad to now be the Minister for Communications who gets to continue that work. The pen's not down, the work continues and I'm having, I think, important conversations to try and plot a path through. Some of those recommendations we've already acted on. As of the end of July, more than 30,000 people have now used BetStop to tackle their own problems with gambling. The Australian Government has a big role to play here. We've put some of that important work in place and we'll keep on doing it.

JAMES GLENDAY: One of the things that the program looks at is gambling advertising. Of course, there were a number of recommendations made by Peta Murphy to effectively stop gambling advertising. I wonder, is that something you're looking at? And how much pressure does the gambling lobby put on you?

ANIKA WELLS: Absolutely looking at that, because I think we all agree we need to do more to reduce online gambling harm, and advertising sits in the communications space and of course I'm doing that work. I'm glad to be doing that work and the work continues.

JAMES GLENDAY: Alright, I will reluctantly now get you to change hats and put on your sports minister hat and your Queensland hat as well. Does Brisbane just get footy a bit more than the rest of the country? Is that how it's going to be for Queenslanders across the country today?

ANIKA WELLS: I think we're going to be unbearable today, James. Brace yourself. I think you're being generous to let me talk about it. But these athletes have made so many of us so very, very happy, and we're so grateful to them. And also a big shout-out to all the workers on Caxton Street that have put in the hard yards yesterday and probably this morning as well.

JAMES GLENDAY: Yes, it was a- did you get to go to the game?

ANIKA WELLS: Yes, I did.

JAMES GLENDAY: Lovely. All right, proud Queenslander, Communications Minister and Sports Minister, Anika Wells. Thank you very much for joining News Breakfast today.