Senator Abetz asked the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations, upon notice, on 29 August 2011: (1) Has the department contracted out the emergency short message service (SMS); if so, what is the cost of the contract. (2) What is the purpose of this emergency service. (3) Under what kinds of emergencies will an SMS be deployed. (4) What is the standard text message sent. (5) What is the anticipated amount of text messages that will be sent.