TRANSCRIPT
The Federal Communications Minister. Anika Wells, is talking tough.
"People have a right to be livid about what has happened here. Right now, our focus is getting to the bottom of what went wrong, before we determine what happens next, but Optus will be held to account. I will say it again for the people whose confidence must be shaken by late Friday afternoon: this is not good enough."
The outage – resulting from a network upgrade and primarily impacting South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory – blocked more than 600 emergency calls over 13 hours, during which three people died.
Two customers contacted the telco's call centre early on Thursday [[18 September]] to alert them to the triple-0 failure.
But A-C-M-A Chair, Nerida O'Loughlin, says they weren't notified of the details until it was resolved more than ten hours later.
"It wasn't until the Friday, and very late in the day before the press conference, when we were informed by the CEO that there was 624 calls in play and of the deaths. As part of our investigation we also need to look at just what information they need to provide to all of us when they can get it to us because it was just too late."
South Australia's Premier, Peter Malinauskas, has told the ABC he was equally left in the dark.
"We understand that things go wrong. There are technical failures that occur from time to time. Governments themselves aren't immune from that. It's the way you handle them that often really matters, and at the very least, there's been a fundamental and, in many respects, an inexcusable failure of communications from Optus"
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese similarly describing the triple-0 failure as completely unacceptable.
"We want to see the investigation take place. What we want is to ensure something like this shouldn't happen. Optus has obligations, as do other communications companies, and clearly they haven't fulfilled the obligations that they have."
A previous Optus outage in 2023 affected about 10 million people's phone and internet services, more than 2,100 of which were unable to make triple-0 calls.
The telco then failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had tried to make an emergency call in that time.
It prompted the then-Chief Executive to resign – cost the company over 12 million dollars in fines.
While law does not allow for criminal charges, Ms O'Loughlin says Optus will again likely face significant financial penalties.
"The ACMA's investigation will look at a number of matters, but firstly, the requirements and obligations under what's the fundamental piece of legislation: Emergency Call Services Determination. What that requires is that carriers have networks and facilities in place to provide emergency call services and that every person that goes to use emergency call services will be connected to an emergency call services centre."
But independent analyst, Paul Budde, says these punitive measures may not be enough.
"Optus is definitely getting a blow – their brand is damaged, their trust is damaged. But people don't have a lot of choice. They're on the system; they need communication. We also, as a country, need Optus. It's not that we say we can only deal with Telstra – that's not what we want to do. It is important that Optus get its act together, and if it happens again, we need to have a different system in place to cope with the problems we are seeing happening in social, economic and life-loss situations."
Greens Senator, Sarah Hanson-Young, is now calling for independent oversight.
"For too long these big telco companies have relied on self-regulation rather than direct regulation, and it's not costing people's lives. This is one of the most basic essential services. Safety and access to the emergency service when you need them. Our communication devices are now essential ... How many more strikes does this company need?"
Under Optus' current framework, Mr Budde says this incident may not be the last.
"It could well take Optus several years to fix the underlying problem – get rid of the underinvestment that took place in the network. In other words, we can't wait that long for that to happen. We have to start looking at an alternative for how we can ensure that the triple-0 system is working in Australia, and perhaps we should take it away from the telcos, create an independent organisation who manages this system – still of course using the Telstra, Optus and Vodafone infrastructure."
Ms Wells has indicated the government is considering introducing an independent, holistic system in response to the scandal.
