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Can I just clarify

this is not going to work.

Sorry, sorry.

I'm clarifying my question.

Sorry, now when I'm speaking, please, both.

It's the kind of storyline you could expect from Utopia.

A telecommunications company sending an email to the communications department to raise the alarm.

The only problem, wrong email address.

You'd laugh if it wasn't so serious.

More precisely, deadly serious, as it proved with the Optus 000 outage.

So how is it that such a crucial email was left unread?

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Brett Worthington filling in for PK.

And I'm David Spears, butting in on you there, Brett.

Rearing the break.

You're ready and you're up and out of it.

Excuse me.

We do love that.

And we will get to some of the government's acrobatics that would even impress Simone Biles shortly about what is going on with this group that has returned from Syria and why the government is so resistant to offer pretty much anything about that.

But we really do need to start with Optus fiery exchanges.

I can't remember the last time I saw shouting what it felt like watching it.

Yeah.

You've been keeping an eye on Syria.

I have.

I've been glued to this for the last couple of hours.

Look, it's still going today, but in the first couple of hours this morning, the Senate estimates hearing into the Optus outages, it has been, well, revealing.

First, we got a bit of a timeline.

Most of this we knew already from the Department of Communications as to what went on.

And it's important to just, I guess, step this out.

So the department opens the hearing today by going through the timeline.

It says they were first notified by Optus at 2.45 p.m.

on September 18

about the outage.

That didn't include the details of how many triple zero calls had gone unanswered and so on.

But it wasn't until the next day, September the 19th at 3 p.m.,

that that they fully learned about the impact of the outage via the regulator ACMA and then from Optus at about 4 p.m.

Now, it then turned out about an hour later under questioning that that September 18 notification was a wrong notification because it went to the wrong email address.

Brett, we're talking about, as you say, a telecommunications company and the communications department.

Now, look.

You and most in the office will know I'm no guru when it comes to texting.

Last one, I'm there with you.

But if I changed my email address, I would probably set up or ask someone to help me set up, right?

What do you call it?

Auto forward.

So that like when you move house, your letters all go to your new address.

You set up that auto-forward.

It's unclear whether this happened.

So what we learned through the questioning was that the department was getting...

after July 1 and some changes that required all notifications to come in was getting overloaded on this email address, they set up a new email address for triple zero outage notifications.

And that new email address is outagenotifications at infrastructure.gov.au.

It's what it says on the tiny bit.

What it says on the tin.

They let the telcos, optus and so on know, this is the email address to let us know when you've got an outage.

But this email went to the old one, which is still, it's not defunct, still being used for other technical information that needs to be passed on, but it didn't go to the right email address.

But it's very unclear whether they had an auto forward.

It's also unclear, under questioning, exactly when this change happened, sometime between July 1 and September 18,

but exactly when, and did they set up an auto forward?

They just wouldn't answer under the questions from Sarah Hanson-Young and Sarah Henderson from the Liberals.

And then it was just sort of even more perplexing because then at some point the departmental officials are saying, well, Optus has actually used the correct email previously since then.

But this on this one day, as it's turned out to be, a catastrophic outage as the government is keen to label it as really trying to put the focus back on Optus.

And you're seeing that, obviously, at the ministerial level, but the departmental officials today very fired fired up trying to make this about Optus less about the department's response.

And it's worth underlining that because clearly the fault, the majority of the fault here lies with Optus is what the department's saying.

It's what the minister's been saying.

The government's view is we're not to blame.

Optus is to blame.

Even if this earlier email on the 18th had gone to the right address, it didn't include the information about how many outages, the three deaths linked to the outages, and so all that came the next day.

Did that really change a lot in the scheme of things?

Well, clearly you'd think the department should be notified as soon as possible.

That's what's required under law.

But they're saying that the fault lies with Optus.

They didn't let all the people know that need to know, the state emergency departments, the regulator ACMA, the Federal Department of Communications and so on.

None of this happened as it should have happened.

Optus is to blame.

Optus is going to, you know, there's investigations underway, will be held to account and so on.

But what we're seeing here is, you know, the opposition and the Greens are searching for some way to attach blame to the government for this.

And what we're seeing here is an example of where the Department of Communications,

you would think, should have had some sort of auto-forward arrangement in place so that when the triple zero network goes down, that people who need to know know.

And it's just baffling to me that it's an email.

And maybe the more you see the way the sausage is made, and maybe there are reasons why an email should be being used in this case.

But when you heard from the South Australian Premier Peter Malinowskis talking in an interview saying, we only found out about this thing because we detected a drop-off in the calls that were going through to SA ambulance or SA police.

The government, yes, of course, wants to make this about Optus, but surely there's a lot of internal questions being asked about is this system that is currently being used to oversee this system and to detect when there are issues up to standard and meeting what is expected by the public.

And there just seemed a real sensitivity from the departmental officials at the hearing to want to get their case forward because they're feeling that pressure internally.

You could pick that up, absolutely.

They were very defensive.

They also were very defensive of the minister.

Sarah Henderson was particularly keen to probe whether Annika Wells should or shouldn't have gone to New York.

She did delay the trip to New York.

This was for the event at the United Nations around the social media kids ban.

And so, with the timing there, just so everyone's cross-so, the Prime Minister flew out at the weekend and was heading there.

So, we had the Thursday and then the Friday when the government's finally making clear about what's going on here.

We saw those press conferences happening.

Annika Wells was meant to go with the Prime Prime Minister on that plane.

That gets delayed a couple of days, but still goes over there.

She still goes and has that event over there.

So the Department Secretary Jim Betts told the hearing today there was not one moment when our response or the regulator's response to the outage was impaired or delayed by the fact that Minister Wells was overseas.

So an emphatic rejection that that, you know, they were in constant contact while she was there.

There was not an issue at all.

We were getting the definition of 24-7 at one point in this hearing.

Look, Senator Henderson pointed out that Annika Wells did attend the Old Mates Bar in New York with some of those campaigners on the social media kids band, along with the Prime Minister and so on.

When she had a wine in hand, was she really working 24-7 on the Optus outage?

Look, as I say, the department were absolutely emphatic that no, her trip made no difference to the response on this at all.

She was focused on this entirely.

I do think it's at that departmental level that there was the most heat in that hearing today around this email address, the change, when the change, why no auto-forward.

This is important stuff that when the network goes down, the department, the regulator, everyone needs to know.

And we had, we know ACMA, the regulator, will be up a bit later this afternoon and stay across ABC platforms to find out what we learn from ACMA.

But you could probably predict where they're going to go.

They'll refer to this investigation that they're carrying out.

And that's likely going to take six months.

So that's kicking into next year.

Within the parliamentary part, though, we knew that there was a push push for a Senate committee and there's likely the support for that to happen, but now even a reps committee potentially looking at the public.

Yeah, I don't think that'll get up because the government has the numbers in the reps and doesn't look like they'll allow that, but a Senate committee has more chance.

I think there's a pretty good argument to have some sort of parliamentary, presumably Senate, inquiry into this.

What does that give us?

Public transparency.

What does that allow?

Optus to be called before a committee, to be asked these questions.

Why did it apparently send an email to the wrong address?

Why did it take 24 hours to do this?

Why wasn't there all the people being told that should be told, the emergency services in each state, the federal regulator, the department, and so on?

You know, that's who we need to see held publicly accountable here right now.

And Sarah Henderson, who's the Liberal senator who's been doing a lot of the questioning in the committee, used to hold this portfolio previously.

This morning on RN breakfast, her concern that she was loving was that ACMA shouldn't be carrying out this inquiry.

To use her phrase, you're letting Dracula run the blood bank, essentially arguing that ACMA needs to be looked at as part of these investigations, and that's why they want a body, the Senate.

And that's a reasonable point, too.

I mean, it is.

ACMA's role in all of this, you know, where its powers start and stop, all of that is something that needs to be looked at here.

Look, yes, you can tell Sarah Henderson feeling pretty comfortable back in that space on radio in the hearing today.

And Sarah Hanson-Young, too, to her credit, really putting a lot of valid questions, I think, to the department today around all of this.

And if we look at what we've seen today from the department, it's Nita Green, who's the front pitcher who's sitting there.

Annika Wells being in the reps doesn't go to Senate estimates.

So Nita Green is trying to mount the ministerial defence in the community.

The defence apparently in the minister's family.

Yes, used to chair them and so now getting a real insight into sitting on the other side.

We have seen Annika Wells yesterday though in

the Parliament using question time, the coalition, question after question after question, peppering.

What I thought as an object...

observational thing, Annika Wells very much squaring off, walking up.

She was getting her steps in, but she was question after question, staring down Susan Lee, staring down Melissa McIntosh, her opposite number, and trying to level not just a criticism at Optus and putting the blame on them, but also then accusing the coalition of politicising a catastrophe, she was saying, by not making the focus on Optus.

What did you make of that appearance?

Well, look, you can understand this line from Annika Wells that the opposition, you know, are wanting to let Optus off the hook.

I mean, clearly, Annika Wells would like all of the attention to be on Optus, none on the government's role in all of this.

And look, she does have a fair point that this is Optus's fault by all that we know.

However, that doesn't mean with a system as complex as the triple zero network, which

the regulator, the government

regulator ACMA has oversight of, shouldn't be asked questions about this as well.

What are the redundancies when these sorts of things happen?

What is the system in place to ensure people can still make a triple zero call?

So I think that scrutiny you know, is is absolutely necessary at a point like this.

And that's why estimates are a very worthwhile thing at times like this and why a more focused inquiry on this that can drag Optus and others before it would probably be a good thing too.

So we know that this is all obviously carrying out as we're sitting here and recording and the way it is moving and contorting this morning, it is guaranteed that there will be some more developments later today.

So do stay across ABC platforms.

Spusy, the great element of Senate estimates is the coalition as a product of being in opposition now for a period of time is working out how to do estimates.

A lot in the first term, it really was a struggle.

You had Simon Birmingham trying to really run a lot of different arguments in different committees, but James Patterson is the Mr.

Fixit, as we talked about at the weekend following Andrew Hasties' departure.

He is in this interim Home Affairs role at the moment.

And there was a light moment right at the start of Home Affairs officials appearing at Senate Estimates where he started off by saying, it's a bit of deja vu.

You probably thought you'd seen the back of me and I thought I'd seen the back of you, prompting murray watt who is appearing there as the minister to congratulate him on his appointment as the interim acting temporary spokesman on home affairs james patterson noted hopefully at the end of hopefully of that he is leading the charge along with michaelia cash who's the foreign affairs spokeswoman on this story that emerged later on on friday and the government has been very resistant to offer too much information about it so we know there was a group of syrian women and their children who returned to australia now this cohort is a mixture of women who either went to Syria by choice or were coerced into going to Syria as the partners of Islamic State fighters.

I think the broader cohort is about 40-odd people that would like to come back to Australia.

Yesterday, Penny Wong was representing the Prime Minister in the Prime Minister and Cabinet part of Estimates.

And the way in which Estimates works, it's very bureaucratic.

Her argument was, you need to refer this to a different committee

when I won't be there, probably was the underlying part of it.

But

it was very clear how specific Penny Wong was with the language.

There's no public confirmation that this group has returned, even though at the weekend the ABC has been told and understands this cohort came back.

We understand that they smuggled themselves to Beirut.

In Beirut, Lebanese officials and Australian officials carried out a level of scrutiny and testing.

Passports were issued, which allowed then for the cohort to come back.

That's the critical point here, right?

What is assistance?

What is assistance?

Exactly.

What is assistance?

Because the government says there was no assistance, but James Patterson will argue the issuing of passports, the recognition of citizenship by dissent is the government having a level of awareness.

What have you made of the ways in which the government has been commenting on this story, both in the committees and the painful interviews we have seen this morning from Julian Hill and Claire O'Neill?

There's stone walls, there's brick walls, and then there's what we've seen from the government on this thing, right, Brett?

I mean, not even saying, not even publicly confirming that anybody from this cohort has come in.

There is just this absolute fear, I suppose, of being seen in any way to have helped people linked to ISIS come back into Australia.

They are so sensitive about this.

It's extraordinary.

I mean, we have seen others brought back in under the previous government.

They're happy to point that out.

But they just do not want to be seen at all to have assisted.

This is the word, isn't it?

In any way, but it is a definitional question.

That's right.

And like some of the interviews that the front benches were doing this morning, painful to watch.

I'm not confirming anything.

I'm not saying anything possibly about anything.

I'm not the minister.

Do not talk.

I don't even know what story you're talking about.

It looks very paste.

It looks very awkward.

And because Penny Wong is such a considered person, there were these long pauses yesterday at the committee, which James Patterson was keen to clip up for his social media, saying that she'd frozen, wanting to be word perfect with what she was saying and getting into this definition of assistance.

And what it is clear is the government is saying we were not involved in in any repatriation flights or the support of people getting into Lebanon.

However,

they also will then say authorities are monitoring what is happening around the world.

They are aware of the cohort of people that do want to come back to Australia.

And that if there are people who make it their way to Australia, you can be satisfied that authorities and security agencies in particular are aware of it

and have deemed it to be okay.

Which you would expect

they are doing and were doing in preparation for this.

As I say, it's not the first time this has happened.

So you'd expect, you know, they know what they're doing.

And look, I get it.

There's absolutely debate around the culpability of these women, the kids, do they deserve any of this treatment?

Do they deserve it to be made public where they are and what they're doing?

And shouldn't they be allowed to readjust after an awful experience there?

And aren't they entitled to

a sanctuary of safety in the world?

Yeah, and that point of privacy was a key one that kept coming up from the officials, but then also Penny Wong in yesterday's hearing.

Yeah, but you know, all of this means great awkwardness for the government in this stonewalling that we're seeing.

It's

a very difficult one for them.

And such is the case of this building and estimates, and people are wandering around left, right, and centre.

A short time ago, I bumped into someone from the coalition and wondered, what are you making of this?

And they were surprised that, and it's all well and good for you to say this in opposition, that there hadn't been possibly a statement by Tony Burke given in the House of Representatives that then all ministers could refer to.

I refer you to what the minister said.

I refer you to what the minister says.

Now, that's probably acute on behalf of the coalition, but they're up for the fight.

And anything to not talk about themselves is something that there was almost, you wouldn't want to call it a pep in the step of some of the coalition figures, but it has been a brutal couple of weeks for them with all the infighting bubbling over.

Here now, with Optus and this story, they are keen to dig into government accountability, which is what estimates will offer them.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, I know we said and everyone noted that the timing of Andrew Hastie's departure on Friday and all that, how that played out over the weekend was terrible timing for Susan Lee because they had some opportunities this week in estimates.

I still think they're making the most of those opportunities where they can.

I mean, obviously,

the mess internally is still a mess internally, and there's no easy pathway out of that for any of them.

They are making the most of the opportunities, I think, in estimates today.

I was wondering if Andrew Hastie had got some earplugs, because his new seat in the House of Representatives have him right on the back bench next to a South Australian called Tony Passon.

And you have to be right in the political weeds to know who Tony Passon is, But the one thing you would know is he's really going to run up the scoreboard as the politician who's likely to get most kicked out by the Speaker in this Turbo Parliament.

He'll be there chirping away.

Very quiet, Andrew Hastie, by contrast, sitting next to him.

There's always one, Nick Champion, who's now in South Australian politics.

Graham Perrot, the former Labour politician, he was

Labour is in opposition years.

You know, there'd be someone on the back bench who would just make themselves heard.

He will certainly not go quietly into the night, but Andrew Hasty, much more quiet in what we are seeing.

And interestingly, there were some conversations about this in the Liberal Liberal Party room yesterday, where the moderates are muscling up to try and make sure that it's not just the Conservative wing of the party that is shaping a lot of the pressure.

Which I think was interesting.

I thought that was interesting.

Mary Aldred, a first-term Victorian, potentially saying, we know what happens if you keep going in this direction and it's the Victorian State Liberal Party, which has been...

Yeah, I'm going to lose my seat and we'll end up looking like the Victorian Liberals.

What a sledge.

What a sledge.

You wouldn't want to.

But using the proper process, the confines of the party room to make those points internally.

Obviously, there's an awareness that these things get leaked, but that's the forum where you're meant to be able to make those points.

I don't think they often do, but she certainly did.

Yeah, one other issue we should touch on briefly here, Spearsy, is there's a milestone moment this week with Chrissy Barrett becoming the first female commissioner of the Australian Federal Police.

She's the ninth person to hold that job, and we are now getting a sense of what she sees as key priorities for her tenure at the top of the AFP.

Interesting that she's stood up this new team, which is going to be focused on national security, working with Five Eyes Nations, working with state police.

She's particularly concerned about crimes and incidents that sit below what terror law thresholds are, but are inciting issues right across the country.

And her comments

not necessarily timed around, but obviously comes after October 7 and the graffiti incident that we saw yesterday.

She's clearly making plain that the work that she wants to do, she's got a background in

counter security, that this is where she's going to be heading in her tenure here.

And it feels like the right time, if not overdue, for that sort of focus, particularly given all that we've seen over the last couple of years that, as you say, may sit below the threshold of a terrorist incident, but can

inspire, inflame, influence.

That seems to be that missing middle, I suppose, where you can see why the new federal police boss wants to focus there.

And so we saw earlier this year tougher crimes around mandatory sentencing to do with terror-related crimes.

It was interesting, Chrissy Barrett said that that has prompted some further investigations that police are looking into, but also warning that we will be offering feedback to the government.

And if there are loopholes or areas where they think more legislation is needed, keen to be quite front advancing on that.

And it's just interesting that this is in a week where the Coalition is trying to push the government on more mandatory sentencing separately to do with child sex crimes.

That is an issue that in the heart of Labor, they are vehemently against a mandatory sentencing.

They've gone there twice, though, since coming to government, once with NZYQ and then earlier this year with terrorism.

Do you think there is any appetite within Labor to take up this coalition call?

I think Labor is vehemently opposed to mandatory sentencing until the point at

which it becomes politically difficult.

It's a little asterisk somewhere in the policy.

That's right.

When it starts to hurt us, we shift.

That seems to have been their approach.

So I've no doubt that that would continue.

And look, particularly if there was frank and fearless advice from this new commissioner of the federal police to go there, it'd be pretty hard to see Labor saying no.

Yeah, particularly given Chrissy Barrett has been put up in lights lights as someone who Labor identified as someone they wanted in that role, and so clearly wanting to wish her well.

Gosh, it's a bit going on.

There's a lot going on.

I know.

We've got to get back to it.

I know.

So, thank you very much for joining.

Thanks, mate.

Tomorrow, Charles Croucher from Nine News will join Melissa Clark and myself for the party room.

If you've got a question that you want an answer to, send us a short voice note to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

And in the meantime, it's busy and I are getting back to estimates.

See you, David.

See you, mate.