Optus has failed Australians, Anthony Albanese says, as the Singaporean owners of Optus stand behind embattled chief executive Stephen Rue over repeated triple-zero failures.
The prime minister said his government was not satisfied with the behaviour of Optus and its handling of an “unacceptable failure of service”.
“Optus has let down its customers and has let down the nation,” he told reporters in Abu Dhabi on the last stop of his international trip.
His comments followed a crisis meeting between Singtel chief executive Yuen Kuan Moon and federal Communications Minister Anika Wells in Sydney on Tuesday following two emergency call outages in a fortnight.
The pair, flanked by Mr Rue and the Optus chair John Arthur, discussed technical details about the outages and ways to restore trust in Australia’s second-largest telco and the triple-zero system.
Three deaths have been linked to an outage on September 18 during an Optus firewall upgrade while a separate, localised issue on Sunday barred several calls south of Sydney.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Yuen was asked whether he maintained confidence in Mr Rue, who was appointed in November 2024 after another major outage claimed the job of his predecessor.
Mr Yuen initially tried to have Optus chair John Arthur answer questions before offering gentle backing of Mr Rue, a former NBN Co boss.
“It’s a people issue and it takes time to change and transform the people,” Mr Yuen said.
“He is here to provide the solution.”
Mr Arthur offered more full-throated backing, reiterating Mr Rue’s cultural change at Optus was “a work in progress” while stressing he had only been in the job for less than a year.
“(September 18) was a process-related issue, people made mistakes,” Mr Arthur said.
“It’s not a question of investment. In due course, we will be speaking about the Singtel investment in Australia, which goes beyond Optus.”
Optus says human error caused the September 18 outage after no one diverted calls to a separate part of the core network, as required.
A second outage on Sunday in Dapto, south of Sydney, was a separate technical issue.
The communications minister said Singtel was also accountable for the telco’s failures in making sure calls to emergency services went through.
“That’s why I’ve asked Optus to … find a way to have an external account in their systems so that Australians can have confidence … rather than just hearing from Optus again that it will be fine,” Ms Wells told reporters in Sydney.
But the Greens criticised Ms Wells for appearing to “want to wash her hands of any responsibility”.
Sarah Hanson-Young called for conditions to be placed on Optus’ licence, including the appointment of an independent expert by the government.
“These big telcos have for far too long put profits ahead of people’s safety,” the Greens’ communications spokeswoman told reporters.
“Unless the government steps up and holds them to account over that, we will see more failures.”
The opposition was equally as scathing, arguing the Australian Communications and Media Authority-led inquiry was not sufficient as “they are part of the failed process”.
Communications spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh repeated her plea for a wide-ranging triple-zero services review and a public register of outages.
Optus apologised to 4500 customers in the NSW south coast town of Dapto after they were unable to make emergency calls for eight hours on Sunday morning.
One person needing an ambulance was able to use a phone on another network.
The revelation came after Optus suffered an outage on September 18 that hit households in SA, WA and the NT.
That incident, linked to three deaths, is the subject of an Optus probe and a federal communications watchdog investigation.
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