Senator Gerard Rennick, Senator for Queensland and Senator Matt Canavan, Senator for Queensland, Joint Media Release, 8 November 2023

Today’s Optus mass outage is a timely reminder as to why banks need to remain open in times of emergency, so people can access cash to pay for essentials, said Queensland LNP Senators Gerard Rennick and Matt Canavan.

Senator Rennick said the outages affecting more than 10 million Australians brings the digital weakness into focus.

“Unless people had cash on hand how many of our small businesses missed out on sales this morning?” Senator Rennick said.

“Aside from the inconvenience and distress a mass outage event like this causes people, it can be financially disastrous for your local coffee shop or retailer.

The current regional banking inquiry by the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee has heard evidence of more than 100 regional bank closures negatively impacting communities.

“Many communities have lost their ability to get cash, if they have telecommunications outages how are they meant to be doing payments if there’s nowhere for people to get cash?” Senator Canavan said.

“People don’t just rely on Optus services for touching base with friends and loved ones, or calling 000, businesses rely on telecommunications services to be able to operate, and leaving impacted businesses in the dark as to when they can effectively operate is just disrespectful to those that pay for the service.”

On Wednesday morning there were large numbers of photos showing cafes and small businesses asking for cash only, or relying on the honesty system of coming back and paying when their systems were back online.