The government has asked Optus’s parent company to appoint an external reviewer to hold Optus to account after triple-zero outages this month, to address the “serious lack of confidence” Australians have in the telco.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said Optus had “let down its customers and has let down the nation” after two outages in less than a fortnight piled political and public pressure on the company.
The communications minister, Anika Wells, met Singtel’s chief executive, Yuen Kuan Moon, the Optus chair, John Arthur, and its CEO, Stephen Rue, in Sydney on Tuesday morning.
On 18 September, a network firewall upgrade blocked emergency calls for Optus customers in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and parts of New South Wales.
The deaths of two people in SA and one in WA have been linked to the outages (a fourth death – an infant in SA – was found likely to have been unrelated).
A separate outage on Sunday affected nine calls to the triple-zero network on one tower in the Illawarra region of NSW but Optus has confirmed the welfare of all who tried to call.
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In comments after the meeting, Wells said she had conveyed that the outages had been “completely unacceptable” and could not be allowed to happen again. Wells said she sought assurances from Optus and Singtel that their upmost priority was restoring Australian confidence in triple zero, and she asked Singtel to appoint a role to hold Optus to account to ensure it makes the changes necessary.
Asked whether she had confidence in Rue to remain as CEO, Wells said he “has a lot of work to do”.
“The CEO of Optus now needs to work with the parent company, Singtel on the systems and holistic change required within their own company to give that confidence back to Australians,” she said.
Rue began as Optus CEO last November after moving from the CEO role at NBN. He replaced Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who left the telco after the company suffered a massive data breach and a national mobile network outage that also resulted in triple-zero calls not being able to transfer to other mobile networks as they are supposed to.
Moon told reporters on Tuesday Rue had been brought on to transform Optus, and it was “very early days”.
“It takes time to transform a company,” Moon said. “An initial investigation of the 18 September incident … is due to a people issue, and it takes time to transform and change the people. He is here to provide the solution.”
Arthur said Rue had been recruited to fix issues at Optus and the board was satisfied he was making progress – “but it is a work in progress”.
In a later statement on Tuesday afternoon, Arthur said Rue and the Optus executive team will “undertake the critical reforms to continue to transform the business, and strengthen the Optus mobile network, restoring the confidence and trust of the Australian public”.
The Optus board appointed global consulting firm Kearney to begin immediate oversight, quality assurance and verification as Optus “uplifts its mobile network management and services consistent with required standards”, Arthur said.
Kearney will report regularly to Rue and the Optus board.
Wells said while human error and technical error was involved in the 18 September outage, Optus was not in compliance with its obligations to the Australian people.
The federal government has resisted calls from the opposition and the Greens to launch a wider inquiry into the triple-zero system, instead pointing to the Australian Communications and Media Authority investigation into the outage.
Wells said the company would face “significant consequences” but those decisions would be made after the Acma investigation.
“Once that independent regulator investigation is complete it is for the Australian government to hand down any further penalties beyond what you could expect from the regulator, and any further systemwide change that may be required to give Australians confidence back,” she said.
The shadow communications minister, Melissa McIntosh, ridiculed Wells after she described herself as a “new minister” – more than four months after her appointment to the portfolio.
“The lacklustre performance by the communications minister this morning speaks volumes about what action she has been taking on this incredibly important issue,” she said.
The Greens communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, accused Wells of attempting to “wash her hands” of responsibility as she repeated calls for an immediate review of Optus’ operating licence.
Speaking from Abu Dhabi, Albanese backed his minister.
“Minister Wells has been very strong, as is entirely appropriate here, for what is an unacceptable failure of service by Optus to its customers and to the nation,” he said.
Wells said the federal government would fast-track legislation to appoint a triple zero custodian, although it’s yet to be confirmed if that would happen when parliament returns next week.
The government has not staffed the role for almost a year after it received a report on how the custodian should be structured.
