EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Approved by the Australian Communications and Media Authority
Telecommunications Act 1997
Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No.1)
Authority
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) has made the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No.1) (the Amending Instrument) under section 529 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (the Act) and subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (the AIA).
Subsection 33(3) of the AIA relevantly provides that where an Act confers a power to make a legislative instrument, the power shall be construed as including a power exercisable in the like manner and subject to the like conditions (if any) to repeal, rescind, revoke, amend, or vary any such instrument.
The Amending Instrument was determined on 18 September 2025 and will commence in full on 1 December 2025.
Background
On 8 November 2023, a major service outage occurred involving Optus’s[1] mobile and fixed line telecommunications networks, significantly disrupting services for customers of Optus and its telecommunication service resellers. It interrupted critical services for consumers and businesses, as well as essential government and public health and safety infrastructure, including access to the emergency call service Triple Zero.
On 9 November 2023, the Australian Government announced it would undertake a post-incident review into the Optus outage (the Optus outage review). The objective of the review was to determine what industry, government and the community could learn from the event. It focused on emergency calls, customer communications, complaints handling, and compensation processes.
The final report on the Optus outage review[2] made 18 recommendations for improvements across the functioning of Triple Zero, coordination between relevant parties during a service outage, communication to customers and the public, complaints-handling and compensation relating to network outages, and network resilience.
Recommendation 12 of the Optus outage review recommended that the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard 2018 (the Complaints Handling Standard) and related Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules 2018 (Complaints RKRs) should be amended to ensure they account for the impacts of network outages, and that the definition of a complaint in the Complaints Handling Standard, meets community expectations in relation to crisis events.
In the government’s published response to the review, it agreed with all recommendations, including Recommendation 12. The response noted that ‘it is appropriate to consider if the Standard, and its related Record Keeping Rules, meet community expectations, specifically in regard to their recourse when impacted by outages. It is important that the Standard provides clear guidance to service providers, and enables efficient processes to escalate complaints for review when necessary.’
The response also noted that the government would direct the ACMA to review the Complaints Handling Standard and make appropriate changes within 12 months, and that the ACMA would consult with industry and the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) to update the Complaints Handling Standard and its related rules.
The ACMA made amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard[3] on 24 April 2025, which commenced on 30 June 2025. These amendments include a new complaints-handling process for retail carriage service providers (CSPs) to manage complaints from consumers whose telecommunications services are affected by major and significant local network outages.
The ACMA made the original Complaints RKRs instrument in 2018 as part of a suite of new rules to improve the experience of consumers moving onto the NBN, which also included the Complaints Handling Standard.
Current instrument
The Complaints RKRs apply to retail CSPs with 30,000 or more telecommunications services in operation (qualifying CSPs) and require them to record a range of data about these services, including the number and type of complaints they receive from consumers directly and referred via the TIO, and their performance in resolving them. A qualifying CSP must report this data to the ACMA each quarter.
The ACMA uses this important data set to analyse trends and identify areas of concern relating to complaints handling across the industry and at the individual CSP level.
The ACMA also uses this data to inform individual qualifying CSPs about their complaints-handling performance compared to the average performance across all qualifying CSPs. In addition, it reports publicly on industry-wide key complaints-handling performance metrics and publishes rankings of each qualifying CSP by complaints-handling performance and broken down by service type. The public reporting is intended to inform consumers about the performance of their current CSP or inform their choice of a new CSP. It also provides an incentive to qualifying CSPs to lift their customer service performance.
Purpose of the amendments
The key purpose of the Amending Instrument is to take the recent amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard into account by requiring a qualifying CSP to include complaints data about network outage complaints in its reporting. The amendments set out how network outage complaints must be recorded and reported to the ACMA each quarter.
This additional reporting will give the ACMA visibility of all contemporary complaint types, including network outage complaints, to help the regulator monitor industry’s complaints handling performance, compliance with the Complaints Handling Standard, and for its public reporting on these matters. This will include being able to assess performance of the way that qualifying CSPs handle complaints related to major and significant local network outages.
The Amending Instrument also provides new and modified definitions that are consistent with recent amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard to support network outage complaints recording and reporting requirements. Other minor amendments are being made to the Complaints RKRs to ensure consistency with the Complaints Handling Standard.
Operation
The Amending Instrument has been made to implement the Government’s response to Recommendation 12 of the Optus outage review, as well as other minor amendments. The amendments made to the Complaints RKRs include:
Part 1 - Preliminary
Section 5 of the Complaints RKRs sets out the definitions that are used in that instrument. This section has been amended to change and add terms relevant to the recording and reporting of network outage complaints by qualifying CSPs. Where relevant, the definitions of these terms align with the same terms used in the Complaints Handling Standard.
Definitional changes that are unrelated to network outage complaints have also been made to ensure consistency with the Complaints Handling Standard where the same terms are used in both instruments.
Minor changes have also been made to improve clarity and to conform with modern drafting practices.
Part 2 – Keeping of records
This Part imposes obligations on qualifying CSPs to keep a record of the number of services in operation (in total and by service type) being supplied by them. They must also keep records of the number of complaints they receive about these services, as well as various metrics related to the resolution of complaints.
New section 9A in this Part sets out the records that qualifying CSPs will be required to maintain about network outage complaints for the purposes of reporting this data to the ACMA. Other amendments clarify that data about non-network outage complaints must be recorded separately from network outage complaints-related data.
Schedule 1 – Information to be included in a complaints report
Schedule 1 describes the information that must be contained in a complaints report which must be submitted to the ACMA. It requires qualifying CSPs to include the new data related to network outage complaints in their quarterly reporting in addition to the existing complaints handling data that must already be reported.
A provision-by-provision description of the Amending Instrument is set out in the notes at Attachment A.
The Amending Instrument is a legislative instrument for the purposes of the Legislation Act 2003 (the LA) and is disallowable.
Documents incorporated by reference
The Amending Instrument incorporates or refers to the following Acts and legislative instruments (including by the adoption of definitions), which are available free of charge on the Federal Register of Legislation (http://www.legislation.gov.au):
1. the Act
2. the AIA
3. the LA
4. the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard 2018.
The Acts and industry standards listed above are incorporated as in force from time to time, in accordance with section 10 of the AIA, subsection 13(1) of the LA and section 589 of the Act.
Consultation
On 18 June 2025, the ACMA held an industry-focused online briefing session about the changes being proposed to the Complaints RKRs and to provide an opportunity for participants to comment and ask questions about these changes. The ACMA invited CSPs, including all those who are currently reporting under the Complaints RKRs (and would be most directly affected), and other relevant industry stakeholders to attend this briefing. Approximately 36 individuals from 18 industry organisations registered for the event.
The briefing was timed to occur at around the same time as CSPs were likely to be establishing new systems and processes to comply with complementary amendments related to network outage complaints in the Complaints Handling Standard that were due to commence from 30 June 2025.
Between 15 July and 6 August 2025, the ACMA also conducted a public consultation process, through the release on the ACMA’s website of a consultation draft of the Complaints RKRs with proposed amendments highlighted, accompanied by a consultation paper explaining the proposed changes. Invitations to comment were sent to a range of CSPs, industry and consumer representative stakeholders, the TIO and other relevant stakeholders.
Before the Amending Instrument was made, the ACMA was satisfied that public consultation was undertaken to the extent appropriate and reasonably practicable, in accordance with section 17 of the LA.
The ACMA received 8 submissions from a range of stakeholders including carriers and carriage service providers, the Internet Association of Australia, the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, the TIO and the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communication, Sport and the Arts.
All non-confidential submissions were published on the ACMA website as part of the consultation process.
The submissions provided feedback on the proposed changes that the ACMA considered when making the amendments to the Complaints RKRs. Issues raised by stakeholders included the following:
a concern about the practicality of applying the definition of ‘network outage’ in the Complaints RKRs, and in particular the ‘significant local outage’ part of the definition. Instead, it was suggested to broaden the definition to accommodate existing CSP systems and processes to support customers during outages on a network that disrupts customer services. The following explains why the ACMA has not incorporated this change:
o Adding the definition of ‘network outage’ to the Complaints RKRs will ensure that it aligns with how network outage complaints are defined in the Complaints Handling Standard.
o Changing the definition of ‘network outage’ in the Complaints RKRs would lead to differences between what constitutes a network outage complaint and which complaints about network outages are reported. It could also create inconsistency in reporting across the industry and undermine the comparability of data collected.
expanded metrics relating to network outage complaints were proposed by another stakeholder, such as the duration and cause of network outages, and the number of follow-up ordinary complaints that arise from network outage complaints for each CSP.
o The ACMA considers that, under the amendments made here, the data required to be reported about network outages will be sufficient to monitor and analyse industry performance relating to network outage complaints. However, the ACMA plans to evaluate how the amendments are working after 12 months and will consider whether additional metrics as suggested may be advantageous to incorporate in the Complaints RKRs.
Minor amendments to some new definitions and drafting in the new section 9A to align more consistently with the Complaints Handling Standard, which the ACMA has incorporated in the amendments.
Other issues were also raised that were not directly related to the amendments themselves. They included having greater clarity and consistency about existing reporting, adding more granular reporting, and how the new data about network outage complaints would be used in public reporting. These issues will be addressed outside the scope of the amendments to the Complaints RKRs.
Statement of compatibility with human rights
Subsection 9(1) of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011 requires the rule-maker in relation to a legislative instrument to which section 42 (disallowance) of the LA applies to cause a statement of compatibility with human rights to be prepared in respect of that legislative instrument.
The statement of compatibility with human rights set out in Attachment B has been prepared to meet that requirement.
Attachment A
Notes to the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No.1)
Section 1 Name
This section provides for the industry standard to be cited as the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No. 1) (the Amending Instrument).
Section 2 Commencement
This section provides for the Amending Instrument to commence on 1 December 2025.
Section 3 Authority
This section identifies the provision of the Act that authorises amending the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules 2018 (the Complaints RKRs), namely section 529 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 (the Act).
Section 4 Amendments
This section provides that the Complaints RKRs are varied in accordance with Schedule 1.
Schedule 1—Amendments
This schedule sets out the amendments to the Complaints RKRs.
Items [1 to 10] amend section 5 of the Complaints RKRs.
Section 5 defines a number of key terms used throughout the Complaints RKRs and notes that a number of other expressions used in the Complaints RKRs are defined in the Act. Several terms have been amended, and new terms inserted, that relate to the inclusion of “network outage complaints” in the Complaints RKRs. Other new terms that are not directly related to network outage complaints have been inserted and amended to provide consistency with the same definitions used in the related instrument, the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard 2018 (the Complaints Handling Standard).
Item 1 inserts the new definition of “advocate” to describe a person who is nominated by a consumer to be able to deal with a retail carriage service provider (CSP) on their behalf but does not have the full authority to act as their “authorised representative” with access to their account information with the CSP. This definition matches the definition of “advocate” in the Complaints Handling Standard to provide consistency across both related instruments.
Item 1 also inserts the new definition of “authorised representative” to describe a person who has the authority from a consumer to deal with their CSP as their authorised agent. This definition matches the definition of “authorised representative” in the Complaints Handling Standard to provide consistency across both related instruments.
Item 2 repeals and substitutes the definition of “complaint” to specify that it includes a “network outage complaint”, a new complaint type that was introduced in amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard commencing from 30 June 2025.
A complaint does not include an initial call by a consumer to report a fault or service difficulty to their CSP unless the consumer wants it to be treated as one, or if the consumer expresses dissatisfaction and explicitly or implicitly expects a response.
However, if, in an initial call, a consumer indicates that they cannot establish or keep a connection with their carriage service (voice, internet connection or both) then this is a “service outage report” and the CSP must determine whether it constitutes a “network outage complaint”.
Item 3 inserts a note after the definition of “complaint type” to specify that one category of complaint type must be a network outage complaint. This has the effect of requiring qualifying CSPs to record whether network outage complaints are in the top three complaint types in each quarter (under paragraph 9(1)(e)) and, if so, include this in quarterly reporting to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Item 4 amends the definition of “consumer” to increase the threshold annual spend amount of a business or non-profit organisation to their retail CSP to be considered a consumer under the Complaints RKRs from $20,000 to $40,000. This matches the annual spend threshold in the definition of “consumer” in the related Complaints Handling Standard to provide consistency across these related instruments.
Item 5 inserts at the end of the definition of “consumer” that a reference to a consumer includes a reference to the consumer’s representative. Item 8 inserts a new definition for “representative” to mean an “advocate” or an “authorised representative”. This amendment is consistent with the definition for ‘consumer’ in the Complaints Handling Standard.
Item 6 inserts the definition of “default resolution”, which has the same meaning as in the Complaints Handling Standard and relates to the resolution of network outage complaints. “Default resolution” in the Complaints Handling Standard refers to the outcome of restoring a consumer’s access to a carriage service after it has been affected by a network outage so that the consumer can establish and maintain the affected carriage service.
Item 7 inserts and defines the terms “network outage”, “network outage complaint” and “network outage complaints handling process”. These three terms are important in clarifying which complaints, relating to consumers who are affected by network outages, must be included in new record-keeping requirements under section 9A. All three terms have the same meaning as in the Complaints Handling Standard and provide consistency across both instruments.
The new definition for “network outage” means a “major outage” or a “significant local outage” which are both specifically defined in the Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard 2024.
The new definition of “network outage complaint” encompasses the case when a consumer contacts their CSP with a “service outage report” and the CSP determines that there is reason to suspect that a network outage is occurring that is affecting, or is likely to affect, the consumer. If the sole or predominant cause of the network outage is a natural disaster, however, the consumer’s service outage report does not need to be treated as a network outage complaint.
Item 8 inserts the new definition of “representative”, which means an “advocate” or an “authorised representative” of a consumer who acts on their behalf in dealings with their CSP. This has the same meaning as in the Complaints Handling Standard to provide consistency across both instruments.
Item 9 repeals the note after the definition of “service in operation” in section 5 and substitutes it with the same text in a font size consistent with the other notes in this instrument. Item 9 also inserts a new definition of “service outage report” which has the same meaning as in section 5 of the Complaints Handling Standard, for clarity and consistency across both instruments.
Item 10 replaces “(e) public mobile telephone service” with “(e) public mobile telecommunications service.” in the note at the end of section 5 to correct a typographical error.
Item [11] makes a minor technical amendment to paragraph 6(b) to improve the drafting of this provision.
Items [12 to 18] amend provisions in section 9 to specify that the records required to be kept by qualifying CSPs under this section are to exclude records about network outage complaints (except the requirement in paragraph 9(1)(e)). This is to ensure that data about non-network outage complaints and how they are handled by qualifying CSPs are recorded separately from metrics about network outage complaints. It also enables non-network outage complaints to be reported separately to the ACMA for analysis and further reporting purposes.
Item [19] inserts a new section 9A that sets out the records that qualifying CSPs must keep in relation to network outage complaints each quarter. Qualifying CSPs must keep records about the total number of network outage complaints received, how many complaints are referred from the TIO about network outage complaints, the average number of days it takes for the default resolution to be implemented and the number of network outages occurring that generate at least one network outage complaint.
The record-keeping requirements for network outage complaints are different and separate from the requirements for other complaints. This recognises the different nature of these two kinds of complaints and differences in the way they arise and are managed.
Item [20] repeals the note after paragraph 14(6)(d) and substitutes it with the same text in a font size consistent with the other notes in this instrument.
Item [21] omits “section 9” from clause 3 of Schedule 1 and substitutes it with “sections 9 and 9A”. This has the effect of requiring qualifying CSPs to add data about network outage complaints to their existing requirement to report quarterly on non-network outage complaints to ACMA for analysis and other purposes.
Attachment B
Statement of Compatibility with Human Rights
Prepared by the Australian Communications and Media Authority in accordance with Part 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011
Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No.1)
This Instrument is compatible with the human rights and freedoms recognised or declared in the international instruments listed in section 3 of the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Act 2011.
Overview of the Instrument
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has made the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules Amendment 2025 (No.1) (the Amending Instrument) under section 529 of the Telecommunications Act 1997 and subsection 33(3) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901.
The Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints) Record-Keeping Rules 2018 (the Complaints RKRs) apply to retail carriage service providers (CSPs) with 30,000 or more telecommunications services in operation (qualifying CSPs) and require them to record a range of data about these services, including the number and type of complaints they receive from consumers directly and referred via the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, and their performance in resolving them. Qualifying CSPs must report this data to the ACMA each quarter.
The ACMA uses this data set to analyse trends and identify areas of concern relating to complaints handling across the industry and at the individual CSP level.
The ACMA also uses this data to inform individual qualifying CSPs about their complaints-handling performance compared to the average performance across all qualifying CSPs. In addition, it reports publicly on industry-wide key complaints-handling performance metrics and publishes rankings of each qualifying CSP by complaints-handling performance and broken down by service type. The public reporting is intended to inform consumers about the performance of their current CSP or inform their choice of a new CSP. It also provides an incentive to qualifying CSPs to lift their customer service performance.
The ACMA made amendments to the Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard 2018 (the Complaints Handling Standard) on 24 April 2025. The amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard commenced on 30 June 2025. These amendments included a new complaints-handling process for CSPs to manage complaints from consumers whose telecommunications services were affected by major and significant local network outages.
A key purpose of the Amending Instrument is to take the recent amendments to the Complaints Handling Standard into account by requiring qualifying CSPs to include complaints data about network outage complaints in their reporting. The amendments set out how network outage complaints must be recorded and reported to the ACMA each quarter.
This additional reporting gives the ACMA visibility of all contemporary complaint types, including network outage complaints, to help the regulator monitor industry’s complaints handling performance, compliance with the Complaints Handling Standard, and for its public reporting on these matters. This includes being able to assess performance of the way that qualifying CSPs handle complaints related to major and significant local network outages.
Human rights implications
This Amending Instrument does not engage any of the applicable rights or freedoms.
Conclusion
This Amending Instrument is compatible with human rights as it does not raise any human rights issues.
[1] Optus Mobile Pty Limited, Optus Networks Pty Limited, Optus Internet Pty Limited and Optus Fixed Infrastructure Pty Limited (collectively “Optus”).
[2] Review into the Optus outage of 8 November 2023 – Final Report, published on the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts website, 30 April 2024 at https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/publications/review-optus-outage-8-november-2023-final-report
[3] Telecommunications (Consumer Complaints Handling) Industry Standard Amendment 2025 (No.1)