FEDERAL MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: This is completely unacceptable and we are going to get to the bottom of it. I have spoken with the three state leaders and the three affected governments this morning, and you would have seen Premier Malinauskas on the television earlier today and I think it's fair to say that we are staggered by the way that Optus has navigated this with our governments. I've also spoken to the head of the regulator, the Australian Communications Media Authority, about ensuring that there is a full and thorough independent investigation into what has happened here. And I will be looking at what other requirements need to be applied upon providers to ensure that they alert emergency services properly, which it is clear on the facts that we know at the moment, Optus has not done. 

We never want to see failures like this happen, and we're disappointed that it's happened again. No Triple Zero outage is acceptable, and this will be thoroughly investigated. It would have been incredibly distressing for people to call Triple Zero in their time of need and not be able to get through. And the impact of this failure has had tragic consequences, and personally my thoughts are with those families today. 

Optus and all telecommunications providers have obligations under Australian law to ensure that they enable emergency services calls. Optus have let Australians down when they needed them the most, and this isn't good enough. Delivering access to Triple Zero for when people need it most is a fundamental requirement for a mobile carrier in Australia. We will be closely monitoring these investigations and Optus' response and we will act in the best interests of Australians to keep failures like this happening again. 

JOURNALIST: Have you spoken to anyone at Optus about what has happened?

WELLS: Yes, I spoke with the CEO, Stephen Rue, of Optus earlier today. You wouldn't be surprised to hear that I conveyed this is completely unacceptable and I put a number of questions to him that I had personally about how this has happened, and you will be hearing from him later this afternoon. 

JOURNALIST: Minister, when was the Federal Government notified about this?

WELLS: We were notified late yesterday afternoon that there had been an outage that had significant impact and that there had been deaths. 

JOURNALIST: Was that before or after the Optus press conference?

WELLS: It was slightly before. 

JOURNALIST: Have you had a conversation with Mr Rue about why that was the case, why the delay in letting the Commonwealth know?

WELLS: Yes, that formed part of the long conversation that I had with him earlier today. 

JOURNALIST: What was the justification for that? 

WELLS: Well, not to speak for Optus, because these are very serious questions for Optus to answer, I think we can all agree. You would have heard Premier Malinauskas speak earlier today. Obviously, the Australian Government interacts with Optus. I guess we have all been taken aback by how long it took for us to find out the gravity of what has happened here. But I guess what Mr Rue would say is that they themselves are still gathering that information. 

But these are serious questions for them to answer, particularly why didn't they know? You know, why didn't the alarms go off? Why did the testing fail? How long did it take them to work that out? These are questions for them to answer, and Stephen Rue will appear later this afternoon. 

JOURNALIST: How concerning is this from the Federal Government's point of view following the 2023 network meltdown? 

WELLS: I find it hard to put into words how this could have possibly been allowed to happen again, given what happened in 2023. There was the full Bean Review into what happened with the Optus outage in 2023. 

Those recommendations were accepted by Government, we have been working diligently on hem. Many of the things that happened in this outage are failures to implement some of those recommendations, including alerting the public or emergency services authorities, and that is what I find to be particularly disappointing.

JOURNALIST: So can Australians have faith in Triple Zero?

WELLS: Australians have every right to be livid that Optus cannot get these basics right. And we have been doing good and important work, for example, on the Triple Zero custodian to instil it within Government, that is live within my department right now to make sure that Australians can have confidence. But like I said, it is a fundamental requirement for a mobile carrier in Australia to be able to deliver Triple Zero services. 

JOURNALIST: Has Optus given you any indication of why Telstra or Vodafone towers weren't pinged after they found failure? 

WELLS: No, I think that's another serious question for Optus to answer why these calls weren’t transferred as part of camp-on.

JOURNALIST: What is the usual process when a Triple Zero call fails? Like, what should have happened in this instance? 

WELLS: A question for Optus to answer and for them to explain why that hasn't happened in this instance. But I guess I'd refer you again to, a lot of good people have done a lot of important work in this space since the Optus outage of 2023. And some of the things that Optus now needs to explain is why those particular recommendations that were designed to stop this from happening again were not implemented at the critical moment on Thursday. 

JOURNALIST: Will the ACMA investigation also look at those failures of recommendations that weren't implemented from 2023? Will that form part of the investigation? 

WELLS: It's an independent investigation for ACMA to run, but I have spoken with Nerida O'Loughlin today as well about, I guess, what I would like to see them investigate, and that investigation will happen.  

JOURNALIST: With the three that are dead, what do you know about the victim in Western Australia? 

WELLS: I know a little but I don't think it's a matter of public record yet and I understand it may be for the WA Government to speak first in this space. But, I guess, in each of these instances, as part of a broader outage that lasted, what we understand, from just before 1am to 2pm on Thursday, it sounds like there is still a lot of detail that has yet to come out and that Optus needs to provide. And one of the things that Stephen Rue assured me of when we spoke earlier today was that they are working to get that detail to you and you will hear from them regularly, this afternoon, tomorrow, until we get to the bottom of it. 

JOURNALIST: Do you think this is grounds for a coronial inquest? 

WELLS: Obviously it's a matter for the coroner to decide whether they investigate particular deaths and which elements of various failures have contributed to those deaths, it's not for me to decide. But I would point to, already, this occurred late yesterday afternoon, that's when we were told, there are already several investigations on foot. Premier Malinauskas said that they'd be looking into it, ACMA will be looking into it, possibly a question for WA Health to look into it. There will be multiple investigations. That is a right and good thing, but it will then be for me to wait for those investigations to come back whilst closely monitoring what happens and Optus's response. And then once we get those investigations back, for me to decide whether we can do anything more in the regulatory space. 

JOURNALIST: In terms of the fine, it was stated it would be around $10 million. Can you speak to that, about what that could be, or will that be a full result of the ACMA findings?

WELLS: I would be taking the advice of the chair- the head of ACMA with respect to the results of this investigation and penalties. You may recall that Optus was penalised $12 million back in 2023. 

JOURNALIST: So it's expected to be likely higher than that given that we've had significant issues with this particular outage in terms of deaths?

WELLS: Each investigation should consider the merits and failures of each occurrence. This has quite a different nature to what has happened here, you'll remember in 2023 it came to the public attention before it had been resolved. So, there was national fear and scrutiny because there was a live question around whether you could call Triple Zero and get through. What has happened here is that we were advised late yesterday afternoon that there had been an issue and that it had been rectified and we were advised at the same time. And I guess there is a question for Optus to answer then, about whether they should have advised both emergency authorities on the ground in places like SA and WA, and national authorities when it was happening and then when it was rectified. 

JOURNALIST: Would you call this also a failure of leadership then within Optus? 

WELLS: Look, I don't actually think today is about Stephen Rue or about me. It's about both the immediate impact upon the families that have lost someone, and it's about a systemic failure. And I would say, in particular, a second systemic failure. And what investigations are required to make sure that this systemic failure is put to bed. 

JOURNALIST: So, do you have any sort of idea what punishment Optus might face? 

WELLS: That would be a question for the independent regulator to advise me upon and I will wait for that investigation to conclude. 

JOURNALIST: Any idea when that might be finished? 

WELLS: No.

JOURNALIST: What is the process for conducting welfare checks when Triple Zero calls fail? 

WELLS: So that is one of the recommendations out of the Bean Review that was implemented out of the ‘23 outage. So, in this instance, it is a requirement for a carrier, in this case Optus, to check on numbers that have placed a call to Triple Zero and had it not go through. So that is the welfare checks that they were undergoing yesterday. You would have heard Stephen Rue speak to that in his press conference last night. That is a requirement under Australian law, and that is an improvement to the Australian law that was made out of the Bean Review. 

JOURNALIST: Have you been updated regularly with the states that are involved in terms of the outcomes of the welfare checks? Have there been any other reported deaths or issues, health issues that have come out of that? 

WELLS: No, but I am speaking constantly with Premier Malinauskas and Chris Picton, who is the South Australian Health Minister, about what's happening there. I spoke with Lia Finocchiaro this morning as well about the NT … because there's obviously particular concerns in the NT around remote communities and what happens if a call doesn't go through. And the WA government, like I said, have been in discussion with us about what that looks like for them with respect to their health department as well.

JOURNALIST: I saw on the Today show this morning that the South Australian Premier, he was originally told that it was a four-hour outage and then later on notified that it was a 10-hour outage. What kind of communication and response from the Federal Government do you think this is? 

WELLS: Well, that was me that told him it was a 14-hour outage. We are communicating constantly as we garner more information. But I think as you'll find this afternoon when you speak- or when Stephen Rue speaks to the media, Optus themselves don't appear to know enough about what's happened here. I don't think that's good enough that they, even now, what will be 24 hours on, not have good answers as to why there have been failures, why alarms didn't go off, why things didn't connect, why they didn't know that things weren't connecting, why it took so long to complete the welfare checks, why it … wasn't a matter of instant obligation to alert the emergency authorities on the ground so that they could do their work. These are all questions for us to answer.