MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: I've just finished meeting with the Group Chair and CEO of Singtel, Mr Moon, and the Chair of the Optus board, Mr Arthur and the Optus CEO, about the two outages that have affected Australians over the past couple of weeks from Optus. You’ll be unsurprised to hear I conveyed our collective conviction that this is completely unacceptable and they couldn’t allow this to happen again. I sought assurances from both Optus and Singtel that their utmost priority is restoring the confidence of Australians in their Triple Zero system, and that they are taking steps to make sure that these things do not continue to happen and impact Australians when it matters the most.

I have also asked Optus to appoint external accountability to make sure that Australians can take advice, not just from Optus themselves, but from an independent external party that the systems in place in Optus will serve Australians when they need it the most. This is for Optus to take accountability for. They will take accountability for it. We will make sure that the Australian Government holds Optus to account and you will hear from Optus shortly.

JOURNALIST: Are you satisfied the CEO should still have his position with Optus?

WELLS: I think the CEO of Optus has a lot of work to do, given these two outages have happened in short succession and has given rise to a very serious lack of confidence in both Optus and their ability to deliver Triple Zero services to Australians when they need it most. The CEO of Optus now needs to work with their parent company, Singtel, on the systems - a holistic change required within their own company to give that confidence back to Australians.

JOURNALIST: You spoke about confidence in the Triple Zero system. Why not give Australians confidence and launch an independent review into the ecosystem more broadly, given we've seen two outages, some of them appear to be fatal?

WELLS: I'm of the view that we did that - a full, long, holistic, independent inquiry, it’s called the Bean Review…

JOURNALIST:  I mean, we’ve had two outages.

WELLS: … It's called the Bean Review. And those recommendations were delivered, and on the face of it, on the facts that we know so far, this is a compliance issue of Optus in their inability to comply with those recommendations, rather than further holistic recommendations being applied to address the Triple Zero outages in the system. I think Optus accepts that. This is a compliance issue on their part, and they'll speak to the human error that was involved here, to the technical errors that were involved here. But no one is shying away from the fact that Optus has not complied with their obligations to the Australian people, so that is what needs to be fixed here.

JOURNALIST: Minister Wells, is there any update on why calls won't bounce into other networks of people trying to call Triple Zero?

WELLS: Yes, there are, and I think you can expect the Chair and CEO of Optus and the CEO of Singtel to address you shortly. And they can speak to the technical elements that have been identified and the work that they are doing to give confidence back to Australians.

JOURNALIST: Can we be assured that it won't happen again now that we know what the problem is? I mean, the public doesn't know what the problem is, but it needs to know 

WELLS: That's a question you should put to the Optus CEO.

JOURNALIST: They've failed to do what they were supposed to do. You've talked tough today. Is it time to start going even harder and starting? It's great to talk tough and promise investigations but they keep doing it. 

WELLS: I have said that Optus would face significant consequences as a result of what has happened here, but it is for me as the Minister to take those decisions after the ACMA investigation is complete. It is the right thing for the independent regulator to conduct an investigation into what has happened here, and specifically on the facts of it - a compliance issue by Optus, one of our telecommunications carriers. Once that independent regulator investigation is complete, it is for the Australian Government to hand down any further penalties beyond what you can expect from the regulator, and any further system-wide change that may be required to give Australians confidence back.

JOURNALIST: For weeks, Four Corners has been trying to get an interview with you about the Government's inaction on the Murphy Review and the 31 recommendations. It's now nearly two and a half years since that report was released by your friend. Why has the Government not acted on that yet?

WELLS: As you heard, we spoke briefly in Parliament a few weeks ago. The work continues, it's important work. I continue to talk to and engage with stakeholders about how we plot a path through to deliver some important reforms.

JOURNALIST: Is it the Prime Minister who's blocking this?

WELLS: The work continues. There is no blockage. It's complex work. If it was easy to have completed, we’d have completed it already. However, the work continues, it's important, and I'm grateful to be doing it.

JOURNALIST: Do you think Singtel is a fit owner of Optus, given the continued outages over the past few years? And what do you mean by external accountability when you're talking about appointing another entity?

WELLS: As Minister with responsibility to Australians who elect us as a Government, I've been given thought to what we can do to restore public trust in one of our major telcos. Because I guess it's a visceral fear, it is a worst nightmare that when you need help most and you call for it, that call doesn't go through. So for me, it's about what do Australians need. I think Australians need confidence in their telcos. So I think what I've asked Optus to do is to find a way to have an external account into their systems so that Australians can have confidence from the external investigation and advice, rather than just hearing from Optus again that it will be fine.

JOURNALIST: Have you insisted on these investigations, these reports which you keep on commissioning- they never get made public by Optus - have you insisted to them that they make it public, that we see a full transparent account? This has been echoed by premiers such as Malinauskas and Minns.

WELLS: I have asked for one independent investigation. That is by the ACMA, the independent regulator of the Australia’s telecommunications industry. That is the right and proper thing that the ACMA can hold, this investigation. I stood up with the head of the ACMA, Nerida O’Loughlin, last Monday morning, and we had a press conference about the beginning of that investigation. That work continues and I suspect you'll hear from ACMA about that investigation and everything will be finished that we require from it, when it is completed. But it's currently under way.

JOURNALIST: Is it time that Optus returns to Australian hands?

WELLS: I think there were any number of obligations that were put on Optus when Singtel acquired it a number of years ago - positions on the board, particular roles that need to be conducted onshore. We have spoken to some of the minutia of that today and what could be done differently from the outage two weeks ago. Particularly compared to the (other) outage, because they are quite different in their nature, to give confidence back to Australians and to make sure that the system as a whole is not working as a matrix but as a cohesive unit that Australians can trust.

JOURNALIST: Should Government to be enabling a regulator such as the ACCC, the TIO and so on, to enforce regulations rather than just being toothless watchdogs. Are you listening more to the telcos rather than the regulators?

WELLS: I'm still a new minister to the industry, so I would say I'm listening to everybody at the moment. And I would say that we are fast-tracking our Triple Zero guardian legislation that will give confidence to Australians about the specific role that Triple Zero plays for us in our country with disaster season ahead. And I'll be doing that as quickly as I can.