Mr Francis, who has offered assurance that the cost has no bearing on deciding whether to send out alerts, said WA and other States had started to argue at a Commonwealth level that Telstra, as the controller of the majority of the infrastructure, had a community service obligation to offer the service for no charge. Shadow emergency services minister Margaret Quirk agreed that Telstra should be providing the service free as a community service. "I have contacted several Federal ministers and I would expect that the Government would have at least done the same," Ms Quirk said. A Telstra spokesman said Telstra was committed to public safety, including providing the national triple-0 service, communications services such as land mobile radio networks and Emergency Alert.