A Senate committee is investigating the Optus network outage that prevented customers from calling Triple Zero for 14 hours in September last year, a failure linked to several deaths. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has described the emergency call system as 'failing Australians' and called for a complete overhaul.
During a hearing on Wednesday, Optus CEO Stephen Rue, Singtel independent director John Arthur, and Kerry Schott, who led the review of the outage, faced questioning. Senator Hanson-Young told reporters the evidence revealed 'cultural problems within Optus' and a lack of proper risk management, with processes 'either ignored or people just didn't even know about them'.
The outage, which began in the early hours of September 18, affected 605 Optus customers trying to reach Triple Zero. Most callers heard only silence. Dr Schott described listening to calls from distressed families who alerted Optus call centre staff about the problem, only to be met with technical discussions instead of urgent action.
The committee heard that call centre staff were not informed of the outage by upper management, leading to a failure to escalate the crisis. Senator Hanson-Young expressed a lack of trust in the system, stating, 'No Australian should be left not being able to call when they are desperate and need help.'
The terms of reference include the cause of the outage, the performance of emergency 'camp-on' arrangements, and the role of the communications minister in safeguarding the Triple Zero system. A report titled 'The Triple Zero Outage At Optus: 18 September 2025' has been published, detailing errors in network upgrades and risk management.
