At long last I have a few moments to update the journal and it’s a vent piece, because I’m getting to the point in my life that I’m calling out bullshit that I see daily.
First, let’s talk about AusAlert.
What’s AusAlert?
AusAlert is basically the Australian Government’s way of broadcasting a urgent message when Australians might be under threat of terrorism, Australia being under attack from angry nearby countries, natural weather disasters or something like a child abduction alert – I believe our terminology for that last one is called “AMBER“.
AusAlert uses cell broadcasting services to relay a urgent message to devices that are connected to the cellular/mobile network.
If you’re from the US, you may have received “Presidential Messages” or “Message from the US President” pop-ups on your phone. This is similar technology to blast a message to lots of devices fast.
The test took place at around 2 PM on Monday, 27th July 2026 and was predicted to reach millions of devices on various carriers – TPG, Optus, Telstra, et al.
Did it work?
While not all my devices received the test message, my main iPhone 14 Pro did and that is my daily driver. It did the warning tone for about 10 seconds, and then kept vibrating but went silent.
My backup iPhone XR did not receive the AusAlert test alert. My Google Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS did receive it… only to then have it ask “do you still want to receive cellular broadcasts?” afterwards. Funny that.
Overall, the test went well and I think AusAlert has potentially the ability to be proactive and as we go back into summer later this year, warn us about bush fires and areas of the country that are going to roast alive.
THE Ventilation SHAFT
With that out the way, I need to vent as this is the part that really pisses me off. There is always a small minority of people on social media that love to spin things like AusAlert as “mind control”, “government wants to control you” or just conspiracy theories – the truth is that AusAlert is none of that.
AusAlert is designed to keep you alert that there’s shit going on and you should be prepared to act. Take the bush fire scenario: AusAlert warns you that you’re in the line of fire and you need to either get ready to defend or evacuate.
If you’ve got your head in the sand in a bush fire zone with cellular alerts turned off thinking nothing could possibly go wrong, then that’s your funeral. Given the power of some of the bush fires we’ve seen in Europe, it could easily engulf your residence within minutes with a high chance that you would die.
Meanwhile, if you had AusAlert turned on, you could have had hours of notice to prepare defense against the incoming wall of fire and/or collect your stuff before evacuating.
Another scenario is you’re driving down to a conference in Sydney and there’s a terrorist attack going on in that city, and you need to cancel the drive because the city is in full lock-down mode.
But that’s a What-If …
Yes, I’m aware these are what-if scenarios, but they demonstrate completely valid cases of the AusAlert system. The whole point is to keep you, a citizen of Australia, informed that there’s something going on and you should be aware of it.
I’ve seen some comments saying that people should be able to select what alerts they want to receive from the system, and I personally agree on that point – it should be opt-in for the types of alerts you get. This would allow you to narrow down what alerts you get – for example, you might only want to know about natural disasters rather than everything – terrorist attacks, etc. Not everyone wants every broadcast message.
However, claiming that the alerts are “conspiracy theories” or “mind control” quite frankly demonstrates your lack of awareness due to the whole “government bad” movement – and that’s okay: I hope nothing bad happens to you. Go stick your head back in the sand, everything’s going to be OK, here’s a cookie, that’s a good person. You do you.
I personally value my life and if there was a terrorist attack nearby my location, I’d want AusAlert to warn me that I’m in the hot zone and I should get out of there as soon as possible.
Anyway, rant over as I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!