TZV SUPPORT EBA MEMBERSHIP MEETING - VIP

ALL TZV Support staff are invited to a Zoom meeting on MONDAY 7 SEP at 7.30pm to hear and determine our response to the TZV walking away from EBA negotiations. JOIN ONLINE LINK (see email)
The agenda will be
- Report on negotiations to date
- Consideration of the pay offer
- Consideration of some EBA clauses
- Consideration of protected industrial action

TZV SUPPORT EBA - TZV WALK AWAY

Negotiations between our CWU EBA Committee and TZV have broken down and TZV have walked away stating that they will meet with us again after the upcoming Victorian election. They set out a slightly revised offer in their response but concludes as follows:
Given the polarity of the parties' respective positions, we do not believe a meeting on 4 September (Friday) will enable the parties to move any closer to a resolution of the matter. Therefore TZV .will recommence negotiations after the Victoria state election.
The full letter is below.
We spent many weeks trying to understand the proposed new structure, and as difficulties arose, TZV amended their proposal. We saw the development of a new structure needed many more weeks before it could be put to members for consideration. In those circumstances we suggested separating the new structure from the EBA development.
The headline issue with the EBA is always pay. The last "without prejudice" offer is contained in their email below. This week we had responded to a slightly different offer proposing 1 January for all dates, and higher SCDA (Strategic Continuous Development Allowance) increases. The email was their response.
There are also a number of changes to some other terms in our EBA some are positive.

TZV SUPPORT EBA - TZV WALK AWAY

The following is the last letter from TZV dated 2 September 2026.

I wish to advise that Triple Zero Victoria is unable to agree to your Without Prejudice counter offer received this morning. As we have previously indicated. TZV is not in a position to offer any settlement that provides for a backdated wage increase to I January 2026.
Our offer was structured in a manner to offer a patience in bargaining quantum payment of 1.5% effective 1 July 2026 in recognition of the six (6) month delay and to include recognition for the continued efforts of the support office workforce in capability uplift, and technological changes. Nor can TZV agree to the proposed commencement date for all entitlements payable from January 1 of each year of the agreement inclusive of the 3% wage increase, the SCDA and the Continuous Improvement Allowance.
As conveyed repeatedly to the Union, TZV has limited capacity to offer any amount outside of the wages policy, beyond what has been tabled. The offer submitted by TZV to the Union yesterday represents a genuine good faith bargaining offer of settlement in recognition of the Union's and IBRs log of claims and the organisation's capacity to fund the increases proposed.
To restate the most recent TZV offer was as stated below;

2026
Sign on Bonus              approx $6K      01 Jul 2026
Patience in Bargaining     1.5%  lump sum  01 Jul 2026
Pay Increase #1            3.00%           01 Jul 2026
SCDA Increase #1           0.25%           01 Jul 2026
Continuous Improve #1      $1000 lump sum  01 Jul 2026
2027
Pay Increase #2            3.00%           01 Jul 2027
SCDA Increase #2           0.25%           01 Jul 2027
Continuous Improve #2      $1000 lump sum  01 Jul 2027
2028
Pay Increase #3            3.00%           01 Jul 2028
SCDA Increase  #3          0.25%           01 Jul 2028
Continuous Improve #3      $1000 lump sum  01 Jul 2028

Agreement ends March 2029
Given the polarity of the parties' respective positions, we do not believe a meeting on 4 September (Friday) will enable the parties to move any closer to a resolution of the matter. Therefore TZV will inform DTF and DJCS of the organisation's inability to reach an in principle agreement with the CWU within the required timeframe and will recommence negotiations after the Victoria state election.
On the matter of the working document, the Union has been provided with the original current agreement, a draft document that detailed progressive changes and again a most current document reflecting the offer detailed above. Any further review of the document regarding changes is a role for you to undertake on behalf of your membership.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you require anything further.

TELSTRA OUTAGE

This week a report was released outlining the findings of an investigation into Telstra's latest outage. The report stated (in part):
There are too few engineering staff and insufficient expertise supporting the NTP platforms.
We met with Telstra on Friday. Telstra (when questioned) acknowledged that the technical staff did their job as required (during the night) and then went home for a mandatory OHS break. Their hardware testing did not reveal any fault. But Technical staff installing the equipment do not have the equipment available at the job site to make software checks.

Telstra acknowledged that software testing was required. Only the GOC can do this software testing. This was carried out but did not reveal a fault. The report does not make the distinction between software and hardware testing. The report did acknowledge that the "Outage recovery process worked well once the root cause of the problem was uncovered"
Telstra agreed that there was not sufficient staff. They also agreed that training was insufficient. Telstra responded to our question that no offshore staff were involved it was all managed by onshore staff. And Telstra did not know it there had been redundancies in the area over the years that the problem developed.

Our impression: Overall, staff did their job correctly. The Telstra designed protocols were insufficient due to staff levels and training.
We have asked for a summary of actions that Telstra has taken and will take.

TELSTRA OUTAGE REPORT EXTRACTS

The CEO Response What we've learned from the external investigation of our July outage and the TAP Findings for Telstra Outage can be found here.

Technology Audit Partners (TAP) has been engaged by Telstra to conduct an external expert review and analysis of the 8th of July 2026 network Outage, being the outage events from the beginning of Wednesday, July 8th through to Saturday, July 11th and also including follow-on impacts after the outage which involved post-Outage resolution by Telstra.
The Outage recovery process worked well once the root cause of the problem was uncovered and the full MIM (Major Incident Management) bridge took over problem detection, isolation and recovery. It took several hours to determine the root cause of the Outage from its origin at 2:50am. There were several reasons for this primarily due to insufficient clarity of responsibility regarding NTP ownership and support, lack of visibility to the planned event to replace the Melbourne chassis that night, as well as a lack of understanding of the alarms that were the earliest indicators of a problem in the network.
3.9 Resource & capability management
There are too few engineering staff and insufficient expertise supporting the NTP platforms. On the night of the Outage the two primary NTP engineers who were involved in the planned change on the chassis were on mandatory standdown by the time the impact of that change became known. Overall, there is not sufficient knowledgeable staff to do all the necessary work and peer review for NTP to fulfill all product ownership and support responsibilities. Our recommendation is to review the NTP staffing to ensure it is sufficient and bolster capability depth for NTP and timing overall. More

OPTUS RETAIL AGREEMENT

The FWC has approved the Retail Agreement. A copy of the agreement is here. Optus Retail EBA. The FWA said:

[2] The Employer has provided written undertakings. A copy of the Undertakings is attached in Annexure A to this decision. I am satisfied that the effect of accepting the Undertakings is not likely to:
(a) cause financial detriment to any employee covered by the Agreement; or
(b) result in substantial changes to the Agreement.
[3] The views of each person who the Fair Work Commission knows is a bargaining representative for the Agreement have been sought in relation to the Undertakings.
[4] Pursuant to subsection 190(3) of the Act, I accept the Undertakings. The Undertakings are taken to be a term of the Agreement.
[5] Subject to the Undertakings, I am satisfied that each of the requirements of sections 186, 187, 188 and 190 of the Act as are relevant to this application for approval have been met.
[6] The Agreement is approved and, in accordance with section 54 of the Act, will operate from 6 October 2026. The nominal expiry date of the Agreement is 5 October 2029.