Optus is matching Telstra's offer of waiving mobile phone bill fees for volunteer firefighters, for the months of December and January.

Volunteer firefighters can use the Optus hotline - 1300 301 671 - to arrange the waiver.

Apologies for linking to a new story only, I'm searching for an official announcement by Optus but it's not easy to find. I'll post it here as soon as I can find one. See the edit below, but for the curious this is the original article I linked to. Ozbargainer Now Gone also posted a link to another news story in the Telstra thread.

Edit 1: Okay, due to the lack of an official announcement or other information I rang the number above and asked them what they need. This is what they told me:

This is national and applies to all States and Territories.

and applies to all States and Territories. Ring the hotline above to register.

You need to quote an official identifier from the fire service you're a volunteer with: badge ID, employee number, etc. (I asked if it extends to other volunteer organisations but it currently only applies to fire services. Hopefully they'll change this.)

Pay your Dec & Jan bills as normal.

Optus will collate all information and provide a credit to your bill in Feb.

Edit 2: Finally…something official from Optus which I've now made the primary link in the deal. Strangely, it's not up on their media page yet, I scraped this from their Twitter feed. It also doesn't shed any more light on the subject than what we already know, but at least it's coming direct from them.

Mod: Deal title is tagged [BF] which is a tag for all deals related to Bushfire Victims/Volunteers etc. You may choose to deprioritise this tag by using the new front page. Please click 'new' on the OzBargain home page, then 'personalise', then add bf in 'add a title tag', drag the slider to less, then save preference. You may also choose to add other tags to see more/less of those deals (eg your state, other states) or see more/less from particular stores.

For those affected or involved, see the Bushfire Relief event page. You can also use the new front page to prioritise the [BF] tag.