The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) today agreed to develop a national telephone emergency warning system.
The Commonwealth will invest up to $15 million to assist the States and Territories to establish the national system.
It will be operated on an ongoing basis by State and Territory authorities and will be developed following an open tender process.
The system will help warn the public in the event of a major emergency, and will add to a range of measures including television and radio alerts, public address systems, doorknocking, sirens, signage and the internet.
Under the early warning system, emergency warning alerts will be sent by recorded voice and text to landline and mobile phones based on an owner's billing address.
The system will be developed to ensure it can appropriately address network congestion issues.
Technological gaps currently limit the system to sending alerts to mobile phones based on the billing address, rather than where the handset is at the time of the emergency.
COAG has agreed to undertake collaborative research with industry on ways to deliver warning messages to mobile phones based on the handset's physical location.
The Australian Government has already committed $11.3 million for this purpose and to provide access to the Integrated Public Number Database (IPND) through a new secure database providing real-time access to up-to-date telephone numbers, while protecting the identity of individuals. The tender process to develop this database closed last week.
The Government has passed legislation through the Federal Parliament facilitating access to the IPND.