FEDERAL MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIIONS ANIKA WELLS: Optus has perpetuated an enormous failure upon the Australian people and they can expect to face significant consequences. People have a right to be livid about what has happened here, and 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’ll say it again for the people whose confidence must be shaken by what has come to light since late Friday afternoon. This is not good enough. It seems that Optus was told about this issue and to not act, which is not good enough. They have serious questions to answer now about their own processes, why they weren’t followed, and what went wrong. And the reasons for this will be part of the investigation.

This incident is now being thoroughly investigated by the Australian Communications Media Authority. And last night, the head of ACMA, Nerida O’Loughlin, who joins us this morning, spoke with both the CEO and executives at Optus, so that work has now begun.

Optus and all telecommunications providers have obligations under Australian law to make sure emergency services calls go through. Now, we're going to be considered about our response, but there will be consequences for (Optus) and the broader telecommunications sector. Optus will be held accountable for this failure. They, and all providers, have no excuses here. They must now work with government and ACMA to make their systems better. So, I'll now ask Nerida to talk you through what ACMA will be looking at as part of their investigation.

AUSTRALIAN COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA AUTHORITY CHAIR NERIDA O’LOUGHLIN: So obviously the ACMA is very deeply concerned that we're facing another Optus outage that has affected calls to emergency call services. Triple Zero and emergency call services are a fundamental requirement for all telcos. They are there for people when they are at their most vulnerable and they have devastating effects if they are not in place, and we have seen that play out over the last few days, and our thoughts and our condolences are with those families who have been affected.

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, the emergency call service determination. And what that requires is that the carriers have networks and facilities in place to provide emergency call services and that every person who goes to use an emergency call service will be connected to an emergency call service centre. It also requires them to notify their carriage service providers, people who may be running over the top of the Optus network so they can look after their own customers. And finally, they also require welfare checks, either that Optus needed to ring people who couldn't get through to Triple Zero or they needed to seek the assistance of local, state and territory police to go and check on those people.

These are the same rules under which we breached Optus back in 2023, and following that we put penalties on Optus of over $12 million. We did not expect to be here again so soon, less than two years after that breach. Following the breach the government responded to an independent review by Richard Bean and put in place and asked us to put in place further requirements. So, we'll also be looking at … compliance with new requirements around communications with their customers. That requires them to tell their customers what's going on through an outage, to let them know when that outage will be resolved and to give them assistance through the process, and also to let others such as the emergency service organisations know as well.

So, they're the major parts of our investigation. We have started that by alerting Optus to the investigation being underway. We will be seeking significant information from Optus. Telco networks are complex. We will need time to dig into what's exactly happened here. But as the Minister said, we will, as the regulator, be holding Optus to account for this second outage over the last couple of years.

JOURNALIST: Minister, when did you find out about the outage? Were you contacted before they stood up on Friday afternoon? And is Stephen Rue’s position still tenable?

WELLS: So, we and my department, and I believe the ACMA, though I'm sure Nerida's happy to answer your questions as well, were first emailed a notification that there had been an outage affecting 10 calls on Thursday afternoon, about 3pm I think from memory. We didn't hear anything further until 3.40pm Friday afternoon where we were told the outage had affected about 100 calls. And then shortly after 4pm we were told the outage had affected 600 calls. And then we found out from our department that there had been three deaths and then we were told that there would be a press conference from the CEO of Optus shortly.

JOURNALIST: Is his position still tenable?

WELLS: I think that's the question for Optus and for another day. The question today is getting to the bottom of what went wrong. 

O’LOUGHLIN: I think also the emails we received on Thursday were pretty perfunctory and actually some of them were inaccurate. So, it was not until the Friday and very late in the day before the press conference where we were informed by the CEO that there were 624 calls in play, and of the deaths. So, I think 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.

JOURNALIST: Minister, when will Australia have a Triple Zero custodian and why has that role not been established yet?

WELLS: That role has actually been established and is operative within my department at the moment. It's one of the recommendations of the Bean Review that has been implemented but not yet in full. One of the things that I've been looking at across the weekend is how I can fast track regulatory and legislative relief to make sure that all of these are delivered in full.

JOURNALIST: Will private companies still have a responsibility for delivering Triple Zero calls or will that be also done with the Triple Zero custodian role? 

WELLS: Look, I think that is a question that we’d need to consider as part of this investigation because as Nerida has said this morning, this is the second significant and egregious failure on the part of Optus, but also other telecommunications providers have had Triple Zero outages as well. This isn't entirely a matter for Optus. So, we are now considering what needs to be done holistically or as part of legislative relief for Australian people, given their confidence has no doubt been shaken by what has happened here.

JOURNALIST: So what penalties are you considering against Optus, and could any of the Optus executives face criminal charges?

O’LOUGHLIN: There are various penalties under the determination and the other standards that we administer. They are really more directed towards financial penalties, I'm not going to speculate on the size of penalties because they're quite complicated in terms of number of contraventions. But they're $19,000 per infringement notice, and the court can impose up to $250,000 per contravention. So there are financial penalties. We can also seek enforceable undertakings from Optus to take specific actionable steps to improve their processes, but the law doesn't have any criminal convictions available to us.

JOURNALIST: And do you think Optus' owners, Singtel, take Australian regulations seriously enough? And are they spending enough money on internal systems to stop these from happening?

WELLS: All companies who wish to operate in Australia are subject to Australian law, and Optus has failed the Australian people in what has happened here. They have perpetuated a failure upon the Australian people with what has happened here, and they can expect to suffer significant consequences as a result.

O’LOUGHLIN: And I'd just add to that, I think that's what we'll be looking through the investigation, whether there's been significant investment- enough investment in the network to make sure it's reliable and accessible for emergency call services. But also whether there are systems and processes in place to alert Optus to when things are going wrong, because we're seeing this big gap between when the outage actually occurred and when people were notified.

JOURNALIST: So Optus says there's no formal notification process in place when an incident like that occurs. Is that true?

O’LOUGHLIN: That's not correct. There is a formal notification process already in place, and that will be enhanced later this year as well.

JOURNALIST: Could you explain sort of the timeline of that typical process?

O’LOUGHLIN: That typical process is as soon as somebody is aware of what's called a major outage or a local significant outage, they are required to inform a number of stakeholders, ourselves, the department, the National Emergency Management Agency. So, there are a number of stakeholders that they're required- and the Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman. So, the ombudsman is alerted to the outage. In this case, we weren't notified of the outage at all until the outage was resolved.

JOURNALIST: And what's the typical timeframe for that sort of slew of different agencies you just mentioned?

O’LOUGHLIN: I'd have to say it's variable, but particularly with the local significant outages, we receive multiple emails per day, usually as soon as the telco is aware that something has gone wrong. In this case, we did not know that something had gone wrong until the matter had been resolved more than 10 hours later.

JOURNALIST: Minister, have you spoken to the Optus CEO over the weekend? How did they respond to your conversation?

WELLS: Yes, I've spoken with Stephen Rue, the Optus CEO. You would be unsurprised to hear that I expressed my unbelievable disappointment that we were here again so quickly, or here again at all, and here again so quickly, as I think you've heard Nerida speak to this morning. The Bean Review was designed to make sure that this never happened again after it happened last time around, and what appears here to be, despite the fact there has been an independent investigation into Triple Zero outages and what needs to be done, it appears here that on the face of it, there has been ineffective implementation of those recommendations by Optus, and that is now what needs to be addressed by the ACMA investigation.

JOURNALIST: Do you think that Singtel are fit owners of Optus? And does the Federal Government have the powers, if need be, to force Singtel to divest Optus?

WELLS: I think the questions that we're answering today are trying to get to the bottom of what went wrong. And once we have the sequencing of what has gone wrong here, what processes were not followed, what alarms did not go off, what alerts didn't happen. I think we've been talking about camp-on arrangements and whether they did and didn't work and why not. Once we have the facts about what has happened here and once I take Nerida's investigation and the recommendations that come from it, then I can consider what is an appropriate regulatory or legislative response for the telecommunications sector as a whole.

JOURNALIST: Has Optus signified a willingness to comply with your investigations?

O’LOUGHLIN: I met with the CEO and his senior executive team last night, and they have given that commitment.

JOURNALIST: You’ve mentioned that the general process is typically an email of those outages. At what point should people at Optus be picking up the phone and telling the department something has gone catastrophically wrong … ?

O’LOUGHLIN: That's exactly what we look at during the investigation. What is the level of information we need? And in some respects, you just need to know something's gone wrong. You don't necessarily need to know chapter and verse about that. It's really most important that the Australian community knows that something is happening and that their customers know that something is happening so they can be alert to that and take alternative action if they need to.

JOURNALIST: Was there anything in the Bean Review that kind of set that precedent of when they should be picking up the phone?

O’LOUGHLIN: Not really. The Bean Review more talked about putting in place a standard that there was better communication, but that I think is what we will look at through the investigation – is there enough granularity in that about what we need and when we need it, and what the Minister needs and her department needs at the time.

JOURNALIST: Do you think it was an intentional decision by the bosses at Optus to hold off on letting the department know until they had resolved it? 

O’LOUGHLIN: I couldn't speculate on that.

WELLS: No, we couldn't speak to that yet, and that's exactly why we're having an investigation by ACMA to try and get to the bottom of how this has happened, how the decisions were made, who made them and why.

JOURNALIST: How long do you think the investigation process will take?

O’LOUGHLIN: I'm not going to speculate on that at the moment, but it will need to be very thorough. As I mentioned, telco networks are very complex. But I know that in discussions with the CEO last night, they're very keen to push forward on that investigation as quickly as possible, so we will be working with them as quickly as we can.