AUSALERT: Australia's new emergency warning system to be tested Monday
The Australian Government will be testing a new national warning system this coming Monday (July 27, 2026) at 2pm AEST.
The system, known as AusAlert, will be ready to use in October 2026, but Monday’s critical alert test will be sent to most mobile phones, some smart watches and tablets across Australia in the form of a notification and ten-second, siren-like warning sound.
You can hear a sample sound on the official website here. According to the AusAlert website, the alert will not be received by Apple iPads.
The AusSMC spoke to experts about the new system and the upcoming test, who said the alerts will be incredibly useful in Australia, a country which regularly experiences natural hazards.
“It's not hard to think of situations where authorities may need to get an urgent message to people,” said Dr Cameron Anderson from the Rural Health School at La Trobe University.
“A rapidly evolving bushfire or a truck crash releasing a poisonous chemical late at night may require people nearby to take time-critical action to ensure their safety. AusAlert represents a far quicker and more reliable way to notify all people in a specific area than existing methods, which may be slow, unreliable or resource intensive (such as door knocking),” he added.
While Monday’s test might be noisy and disruptive for many, Associate Professor Suman Majumdar from the Burnet Institute said: “Testing the system before it is needed is exactly what good preparedness looks like.”
He said technology and response plans work best when they’re backed by clear communication, public trust and strong connections with communities, and a national test will help the government understand how people receive and respond to such alerts, and where the gaps might be.
Aside from coverage gaps in rural and regional areas, cell tower malfunctions, outdated phones, and other technical issues that could limit the alert system, one concerning safety issue has already been identified by the community: this alert could put ‘safe phones’ at risk – which are often used by those in domestic violence situations.
Dr Li Eriksson from Griffith University said for many, “Mobile phones are often used by perpetrators as a tool of coercive control to monitor movements, track locations, and search communications.”
Safe phones “are designed for victim-survivors to be able to contact support services, lawyers, family members, and police without being monitored,” she added.
For those in such situations, turning a phone to silent will not be enough to prevent the alert sound. It is recommended for those in critical situations to either turn the phone off during the test, switch the phone to airplane mode, or follow the instructions on the official AusAlert website.
Overall, the experts AusSMC spoke to agreed the warning system is a welcome addition to the safety toolkit that can be used when disaster strikes, sitting alongside existing warning systems such as radio emergency broadcasts.
“This system uses cell broadcast technology that is global best practice for emergencies in natural disaster-prone countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and Japan,” said Professor Daswin De Silva from La Trobe University.
"Cell broadcast connects to any compatible phone within the range of a mobile tower. It is faster than SMS, avoids network congestion and does not require an active mobile connection," he said.
Associate Professor Paula Dootson from Queensland University of Technology added that “for most people, it will be the first they hear of a threat, and its job is to prompt them to seek more information and act early - not to be the whole warning.”
You can read the full AusSMC Expert Reaction on the Scimex page here.
AusAlert information is also available in 19 languages: Please visit the community resources page here for more information.
This article originally appeared in Science Deadline, a weekly newsletter from the AusSMC. You are free to republish this story, in full, with appropriate credit.
Contact: Olivia Henry
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Email: info@smc.org.au