Following the catastrophic communications disaster, Leader of the Opposition Sussan Ley has called for an independent inquiry. She is calling for a full inquiry into Optus’s triple-zero emergency call system. Unfortunately, a regularly-scheduled firewall upgrade in South Australia on September 18th triggered a disaster. This crisis prevented almost 600,000 triple-zero calls from connecting to emergency services across the country’s five largest states. Ley doggedly pointed out that it’s getting worse in Australia and called for accountability.
The outage left consumers in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and far-western New South Wales disconnected from central control. On that unfortunate day, the turmoil prevented people from calling for help. This resulted in four of those attempts to reach triple-zero being diverted to NSW Police, who followed up with welfare checks. Ley stressed that Australians should have confidence in Australia’s triple-zero communications system. She argues that Optus’s recent behaviour has breached that integrity.
Ley remarked on the seriousness of the situation, asserting, “They have perpetuated a failure upon the Australian people with what has happened here. They can expect to suffer significant consequences as a result.”
The incident arose from issues related to a mobile phone tower in Dapto, New South Wales, which affected around 4,500 users on Sunday between 3 am and 12:20 pm. It’s another disappointing indication of Optus failing to deliver. Finance Minister Katy Gallagher has described the Optus issues as “another discouraging sign of Optus dropping the ball.” She further commented that it would be unthinkable for the company to not route emergency services calls first.
Minister Gallagher remarked on the necessity for further action: “It’s still disappointing and, although I understand Optus did make the necessary reports over the weekend, there’s clearly more work to be done.”
In response to the community uproar, an Optus spokesperson provided assurance that the investigation into the Dapto site is still active. They focused on downplaying any panic, insisting the problem was fixed. “Optus continues to investigate the cause of an issue involving a mobile phone tower site in the Dapto area in NSW. The issue has been restored,” said the spokesperson.
The crisis has certainly resulted in increased scrutiny on Optus’s duty to ensure that emergency service calls are prioritized and properly routed through to them. While recent investments and sensitive restoration work is promising, doubts remain about whether the right processes are being instituted to steward the organization.
Unfortunately, when the minister responsible for the oversight of telecommunications like Anika Wells telegraphs the awful ramifications of these outages as a real possibility. As you would have seen or read from an Optus’ perspective over the last week, this has caused devastation and disruption. These are very egregious deficiencies when they happen,” said Wells.
Calls for accountability intensified following Ley’s remarks, which criticized the government’s response to the crisis. “It isn’t good enough that the minister responsible was swanning around in New York, was absent and appears missing in action on this critical matter,” she stated.
Stephen Rue, the now former CEO of Optus, was grilled for days over the company’s lack of preparation. He attempted to shift blame by saying these problems went beyond simple investment issues. “That’s not an investment issue, that’s people not following process,” he remarked, as he addressed concerns about procedural lapses within his company.
Rue expressed remorse over the ramifications of the outage, stating, “There are no words to express how sorry I am about the very sad loss of lives.” He admitted that “lives have been lost” because of failures in call center procedures and in the management of the network.
Public outcry seems to be mounting, as are the calls for an independent inquiry. What impact this will have, and what steps will be taken to reestablish confidence in Australia’s triple-zero emergency system is still to be determined.
