TRANSCRIPT
- Revelations hundreds of people were unable to make emergency calls during the Optus outage
- Students skip school to call for action on climate change
- Pressure for an Adelaide United winger to represent his parent's country of origin.
It's been revealed hundreds of Australians were unable to make emergency calls during the Optus outage and the telco still doesn't know why.
Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says 228 calls to triple-zero failed to go through during a 12-hour outage which affected internet and phone services to millions of customers on November 8.
Asked by committee chair Sarah Hanson-Young if Optus knew why customers were unable to make the calls, Ms Bayer Rosmarin says they had conducted some inquiries but couldn't fully investigate due to what she called complex relationships.
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin: "I think it's too early to tell where the issue actually occurred."
Sarah Hanson-Young: "So you think it's somebody else's fault?"
Kelly Bayer Rosmarin: "No, the triple zero system is supposed to be able to pick up the traffic when we have an outage like this. So it is important. It's very important. And if someone else has an outage, we should be picking up some of the calls."
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South Australia's Premier Peter Malinauskas has declared that flags will be flown at half-mast in honour of a police officer who died after being shot during a violent confrontation.
53-year-old Brevet Sergeant Jason Doig died in a shootout on a property at Senior, near Bordertown after he and two colleagues responded to reports of a disturbance.
A second police officer, Sergeant Michael Hutchinson, was also shot and is being treated in hospital for non-life-threatening injuries.
Mr Malinauskas has expressed his condolences.
"It has not been since 1985 that a serving police officer has lost their life at the hands of a firearm. This is a day that will dread and It is a great tragedy that a good man at the age of 53 has lost his life in service of our state in what would otherwise be a perfectly routine day on the job.”
A 26-year-old male suspect was shot by police on the scene and is currently being treated in a hospital under police guard for serious life-threatening injuries.
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Thousands of school students have gathered across the country to protest against the federal government's approval of nine fossil fuel projects in a year and $9 billion in subsidies to the industry.
The group, School Strike 4 Climate, claim the Albanese government has failed on its promise of climate leadership.
It's their first national climate strike, with students in Sydney gathering outside the office of federal environment minister Tanya Plibersek.
From 11-year-olds to grandparents, the overall message reflected frustration at the lack of government action in tackling climate change.
"Climate change is really bad, and it needs to be fixed. Climate change is like impending doom, but we can definitely stop it, but it's just when we stop it as a matter. Well, we're here because the Labor government's inadequacy in tackling the climate crisis by approving new coal and gas in Australia. I had exams today that I've actually decided to miss because I think this is such an important cause. And we are the people who are going to take on this fight."
Meanwhile, former diplomat Gregory Andrews has been taken away from Parliament House in an ambulance, more than two weeks into a hunger strike which drew attention to the need for urgent climate action.
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New research from the University of Melbourne has revealed how refugee and migrant communities faced additional barriers accessing legal and justice services after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The report found barriers such as isolation and stigma were worsened by the lockdowns, making access to legal support and services an even greater challenge for refugees and migrant communities.
Report author Jennifer Balint says one of the key failures found were in relation to the snap lockdowns which took place in Melbourne's community housing towers.
"Really simple things like a failure to use interpreters well in that situation, which is really surprising still that that was not done well. The way in which communities were isolated from providers, the surveillance of communities at that time, the really differential treatment that was given, that community organisers and community leaders were not included and had to actually push their way in to the decision-making forum."
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In football,
The Burundi Football Association is hoping to convince 17-year-old Adelaide United winger Nestory Irankunda to represent his parent's country of origin.
The young athlete recently smashed the Australian transfer record after signing for German powerhouse Bayern Munich for a fee of $5.7 million.
Irankunda was born in a Tanzanian refugee camp, however both his parents are from Burundi.
The President of the Burundi Football Association says having Irankunda play for their nation would show the country's great potential.
A product of South Australia's football academies, Irankunda has represented Australia at the junior levels.
