‘Optus fails again:’ Senator calls for tougher penalties after deadly Optus outage

Leaders have called for tougher penalties after a deadly Optus outage resulted in three deaths including an eight-week old baby.

An upgrade resulted in a technical failure that left customers in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia unable to phone triple-0 for 10 hours on Thursday.

Optus chief executive officer Stephen Rue fronted media on Friday evening to confirm three people had died who were unable to call emergency services during the outage.

Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh said a $12m fine that Optus faced last year had not prevented this horrible incident form happening.

Ms McIntosh said a review by government following a similar Optus incident resulted in a number of recommendations being implemented.

“This is people’s lives, three people have sadly passed away,” she said.

“Australians need to have reassurance that every single telecommunications provider in this country will be operational in their greatest time of need.

“Australians wherever they are, should be able to have that reliability and call triple o when they need it.

“As we face summer, we’ve got bush fires ahead … people should feel comfortable that if they need to call triple zero at any point of the day, 24/7.

“The communicaitons minister should be using every single lever of government, every mechanism available to investigate what has happened, because three lives have been lost.

“Whatever review happened in the past was not strong enough, because we’re standing here today on a Saturday, when this incident happened on a Thursday, and we’re all pretty much still in the dark, including the premier of South Australia.”

Greens communication spokesman Senator Sarah Hanson-Young blasted Optus for breaching national protocols after it was fined $12m over a similar outage last year.

Senator Hanson-Young called for a regulation overhaul to prioritise safety, saying there was clearly a problem at Optus after it breached regulations a second time.

“How on earth can this happen again, and this time with such deadly consequences?” said.

“It is just not good enough that a an essential service like contacting emergency, the ambulance, the fire department or the police, is not able to happen.

“This is the most basic essential service for our community, and it must be able to be delivered.

“For a communications company they are pretty crap at communicating.”

The senator said she was devastated for the families who lost loved ones and parents who lost a baby during the deadly outage.

“Two of these deaths occurred in my home state of South Australia,” she said.

“I know the South Australian Premier is very angry about this and so am I, Optus has failed again.

“Optus has put profits over safety, and now it has cost people’s lives, it’s simply not good enough.”

On Friday night SA Police said they identified two deaths citied by Optus during their outage on Thursday.

The deaths involved an eight-week-old boy from Gawler West and, a 68-year-old woman from Queenstown, they said.

Optus chief executive Stephen Rue told reporters on Friday evening that two people died in SA and one in WA.

“Yesterday, Optus conducted a network upgrade and within this process a technical failure impacted triple-0 calls,” Mr Rue said.

“This resulted in the failure of a number of triple-0 calls … our investigation is ongoing but at this stage I can confirm that approximately 600 customers were potentially impacted, of which a proportion of their calls did not go through.

“I can confirm that this technical failure has now been rectified.

“I have been advised that during the process of conducting welfare checks, three of the triple-0 calls involved households where a person tragically passed away.”

Mr Rue said the welfare checks were ongoing.

“I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers who could not connect to emergency services when they needed them most,” he said.

He also offered condolences to people who lost loved ones.

“I am so sorry for your loss,” he said.

“What has happened is completely unacceptable. We have let you down.

“You have my assurance that we are conducting a thorough investigation and once concluded, we will share the facts of the incident publicly.

“We will co-operate fully and transparently with all relevant government agencies and regulatory bodies while we investigate this matter further.”

But there were still many unanswered questions, including the duration of the outage and why it was only triple-0 calls rather than all calls that were affected.

“That will be part of the investigation,” he said.

Asked why the announcement was coming late on a Friday, Mr Rue said they had been conducting welfare checks during the day.

Last year, the telecommunications company was fined $12m after thousands of people were unable to access emergency services during a national outage.

Following an investigation launched by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, it found the November 8, 2023 triple-0 outage was not only “preventable” but had the potential for “devastating” consequences.

A total of 2145 customers could not access triple-0, while Optus then failed to conduct 369 welfare checks on people who had attempted to access emergency services during the 12-hour outage.

At the time, Optus said it would never happen again.

“I share your frustration,” Mr Rue said when asked on Friday how something similar had happened again.

“This should not have happened. We’re doing a thorough investigation.

“The facts are still being established … once they once they are established, we will make them public.”

SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has slammed Optus’ handling of the situation, saying the telco did not tell his government about the deaths before the media conference.

“I have not witnessed such incompetence from an Australian corporation in respect to communications worse than this,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“I cannot believe that anyone in the senior levels of Optus thought they should craft a media statement and conduct a press conference before advising the South Australian government that they had ascertained two deaths had occurred.

“I think quite frankly that is reprehensible conduct on behalf of Optus.”

“This outage will be thoroughly investigated.

“The Australian government accepted all recommendations from the previous Optus Outage Review and has fully implemented 12 of the 18 recommendations, with the remaining six underway.”