Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. The
Speaker 1: Communications Watchdog has opened a formal investigation into Optus after
Speaker 1: a thirteen hour failure blocked about six hundred Triple zero calls,
Speaker 1: now linked to three deaths. The government is furious, calling
Speaker 1: it completely unacceptable and warning of significant consequences. But is
Speaker 1: it actually their fault too? Today journalist and contributor to
Speaker 1: Cracky Michael Sainsbury on what went wrong and how the
Speaker 1: government's choices led to this disaster. It's Friday, September twenty six, So, Michael,
Speaker 1: last week hundreds of Australians discovered that they couldn't get
Speaker 1: through when they tried to call Triple zero with catastrophic
Speaker 1: and we now know some fatal consequences. So tell me
Speaker 1: about what we know about what was happening with Optus's
Speaker 1: network while this was going on.
Speaker 2: So it was just a regular network upgrade and the
Speaker 2: telto networks thirty thousands of these a week, so there's
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff they're doing every day. There's obviously
Speaker 2: thousands of base stations across the country.
Speaker 3: They're very sophisticated.
Speaker 2: Software systems that connect those things to the fiber optics
Speaker 2: underground to the big computers that go out to your phone.
Speaker 2: So that's very very complex networks and there's always stuff
Speaker 2: going on. This was a regular sort of upgrade that
Speaker 2: went wrong.
Speaker 4: Today it was revealed the deadly outage the result of
Speaker 4: a botch firewall upgrade that lasted thirteen hours, six hundred
Speaker 4: customers across three states without access to Triple zero.
Speaker 2: The outage only affected people in the Northern Territory, Western
Speaker 2: Australia and South Australia. Initially they thought it affected about
Speaker 2: six hundred calls made to emergency serve.
Speaker 5: Good evening, we have a major story developing as we
Speaker 5: go to wear. Just moments ago, we learned that three
Speaker 5: people have died during a major Optus network outage that
Speaker 5: affected Triple zero calls.
Speaker 2: Something in their processes was either bad, could have been
Speaker 2: a badly written.
Speaker 3: Piece of software, or it could just.
Speaker 2: Have been a very simple human era where things just
Speaker 2: weren't followed properly and weren't checked. If it had been
Speaker 2: a national thing, again, that may have been picked up
Speaker 2: more quickly by a system. But do those systems have
Speaker 2: enough red flags? It sounds like they don't.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I mean you can see how these things
Speaker 1: might happen, But you would assume that in the case
Speaker 1: of human error or a bad update, that there would
Speaker 1: be a backup, something would kick in if a network
Speaker 1: you know isn't working like this, particularly when it comes
Speaker 1: to triple zero calls. So what should have.
Speaker 2: Happened, Well, there is actually a backup across all of
Speaker 2: the networks in Australia where if for some reason your
Speaker 2: networks aren't connecting to the Triple I SO system, the
Speaker 2: calls will be routed into Celster or voter Phone so
Speaker 2: they can access that system. Now, the TRILEO system is
Speaker 2: actually run by Chelster under contract to the government, so
Speaker 2: all the calls go into a call center Atchelster, which
Speaker 2: is known as Triple O or the Emergency Call Person Officially,
Speaker 2: what seems to have happened is that the customers and
Speaker 2: optists were able to make normal calls, but they weren't
Speaker 2: able to make triple zero calls and this wasn't flagged immediately.
Speaker 2: There were also people who rang and at least five
Speaker 2: people possibly more rang office call centers to tell them
Speaker 2: that the Triple O wasn't working. And again there was
Speaker 2: a failure of process there that that wasn't escalated straight away.
Speaker 4: The customers tried five times to warn the company that
Speaker 4: emergency calls were not going through.
Speaker 2: In the past few hours has confirmed those complaints were
Speaker 2: received by its offshore call center. Now it's Fokes, just
Speaker 2: an engineer one of the other networks, and he said
Speaker 2: the Triple O. When they've got a checklist of network
Speaker 2: up grags, Triplo is absolutely the top of the list.
Speaker 2: It should be the first thing that's checked in, double
Speaker 2: checked before anything happens, and that didn't happen.
Speaker 1: So in the wake of all of this, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of questions being asked about Optus and about
Speaker 1: its governance. So tell me about the company and how
Speaker 1: it is responding to this particular outage.
Speaker 2: Most people probably know it's the second biggest solcon in Australia,
Speaker 2: it's the second biggest mobile network. It's owned by Singaportegal Communications,
Speaker 2: so it's not a publicly listed company in Australia, and
Speaker 2: the Singapore tell Forms is owned by Singapore government, so
Speaker 2: ultimately Singapore's responsible for everything that happens at Altus. But
Speaker 2: this is not the first time this is happen. This
Speaker 2: happened with Optus two years ago.
Speaker 5: We have more on that breaking news on the massive
Speaker 5: Optors outage.
Speaker 4: Ten million OPTS customers are still without mobile and broadband
Speaker 4: services amid a massive nationwide out There is a lot developing.
Speaker 3: There was a government inquiry.
Speaker 4: The Federal government has released the terms of reference of
Speaker 4: an investigation into this month's major optispoutage.
Speaker 3: The eighteen recommendations handed down.
Speaker 5: At its core is ensuring the integrity of the Triple
Speaker 5: zero service and that it continues to operate effectively in
Speaker 5: the interests of all Australians.
Speaker 3: That process hasn't been finished properly.
Speaker 2: Only about two thirds of those recommendations have been implemented.
Speaker 2: In some of the key ones had not been implemented.
Speaker 2: And then a year before that outage, they had that
Speaker 2: dreadful data breach where the data about nine million people
Speaker 2: was stolen. Head of OPTAs says she is devastated by
Speaker 2: the cyber attack which has potentially compromised the personal information
Speaker 2: of nearly ten million customers. But yeah, Octus now has
Speaker 2: got very much a reputation of being a company that
Speaker 2: is kind of making some big technical fails every couple
Speaker 2: of years. Stephen Rue is the CEO who was brought
Speaker 2: in about nine months ago they got rid of the
Speaker 2: last CEO who was in charge of those last two disasters.
Speaker 2: He came from NBN, so he's pretty familiar with self
Speaker 2: communications networks and he's pretty familiar with dealing with government,
Speaker 2: so it's kind of a dent in his record early on.
Speaker 6: I want to offer a sincere apology to all customers
Speaker 6: who could not connect to emergency services when they needed
Speaker 6: them most.
Speaker 2: But nine months is not a hell of a lot
Speaker 2: of time in a big company like I've just to
Speaker 2: fix things. There's obviously some deep seated cultural problems of
Speaker 2: just that allow these sorts of process issues to happen.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, we did hear the Prime Minister Anthony Albanezi saying
Speaker 1: that he would be surprised if Stephen Rue the CEO,
Speaker 1: wasn't considering his position.
Speaker 3: I'd be surprised if that wasn't occurring.
Speaker 1: We also heard from the Communications Minister Annika Wells talking
Speaker 1: about accountability and concert quences. Optis and all telecommunications providers
Speaker 1: have obligations under Australian law to make sure emergency services
Speaker 1: calls go through the South Australian Premier Peter Melanaskis called
Speaker 1: it incompetence.
Speaker 6: I mean the fact that optics were crafting media.
Speaker 3: Statements and arranging press conferences.
Speaker 4: Without alerting satisfy anibalance service.
Speaker 1: About this, tell me what you make of the political response.
Speaker 3: It was pretty fast and it's pretty brutal.
Speaker 2: Look, people die, So I think political leaders feels that
Speaker 2: they have to react. But we we are, as you know,
Speaker 2: living in a world where it's very much blame first,
Speaker 2: asked questions later, and I just don't think it's terribly
Speaker 2: helpful when you've got politicians, you know, talking about significant consequences.
Speaker 3: They want to sound tough.
Speaker 2: There's a whole lot of legislation around these sorts of things,
Speaker 2: and there are some pretty hefty fines that the companies
Speaker 2: can get, and I think I've just has been fined
Speaker 2: ten and twelve million dollars I think for the last
Speaker 2: two of it's problems.
Speaker 3: That being said, for big companies.
Speaker 2: Like these, with bigions of dollars of revenue every year,
Speaker 2: you know, those sorts of fines are kind of slaps
Speaker 2: on the wrists too. So we've seen problems in banking,
Speaker 2: we've seen problems with quanscious, and there've been some pretty
Speaker 2: hefty fines. But they don't really make a big dent
Speaker 2: in those big companies. But this triple zero problem keeps
Speaker 2: coming up, and when governments tend to just coast along
Speaker 2: and people.
Speaker 3: Say, well, yeah, this is very serious. People could die.
Speaker 2: Until someone dies, nothing seems to happen, So they tend
Speaker 2: to be very reactive, and I think it's probably time
Speaker 2: that the government had a bit of a bigger look
Speaker 2: at this. So you've got inaction by the government on
Speaker 2: quite a lot of things as well as the chelcos,
Speaker 2: So it's really it's kind of a joint responsibility in
Speaker 2: a lot of ways, but ultimately, for something as critical
Speaker 2: as this, the government kind of got to be the last.
Speaker 3: Person standing.
Speaker 1: Coming up. Why the government is dragging its feet on
Speaker 1: recommendations that could have prevented this. Michael, I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little more about the government's role here, because
Speaker 1: while it is clear that Optus failed, what is the
Speaker 1: government's responsibility in ensuring that triple zero calls can always
Speaker 1: get through?
Speaker 2: Once upon a time, it wasn't tevery long ago. We
Speaker 2: had one chelco, which was Telecom Australia.
Speaker 3: That changed at Telstra last year.
Speaker 2: Australia's Telecom invested more in Australia and Australian made products
Speaker 2: than any other company. It was privatized and how government
Speaker 2: competition was introduced before that, which is how we got
Speaker 2: off just and we've had a reasonably competitive environment in
Speaker 2: the child communications sector, although you know, the incumbent still
Speaker 2: is the one that makes soll profits. But yeah, these
Speaker 2: sorts of critical infrastructure services like telecommunications, energy, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of privatization that went on without enough accountability
Speaker 2: coming back. I mean, we did have the inquiry into Optus,
Speaker 2: but the fact that eighteen months after that, all of
Speaker 2: those recommendations have not been fulfilled. It's supposed to have occurred,
Speaker 2: they haven't, and this is all about a lack of urgency.
Speaker 2: I think most of the funding for triple zero comes
Speaker 2: either directly from the government or from a government levy
Speaker 2: that's from the telcos, So that triple zero stuff is
Speaker 2: actually government responsibility.
Speaker 3: And improving that system was part of what came out.
Speaker 2: Of that the previous office outage, and the government you know,
Speaker 2: let it linger, and so I think they do bear
Speaker 2: some responsibility here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me more about that. As you say, when
Speaker 1: this happened in the past, it triggered an inquiry the
Speaker 1: bean review. So why do you think it is that
Speaker 1: that has not resulted in the change would be needed
Speaker 1: to have prevented what has just occurred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are eighteen recommendations about a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2: The harder stuff was still not being implemented, particularly this
Speaker 2: setting up of the Tripoo custodian inside the department, and
Speaker 2: that to me seems like a really tea recommendation that
Speaker 2: you've actually got someone that is really having a good
Speaker 2: look at the system, talking to the telcos making sure
Speaker 2: their testing is right Now. I think Anacot Well said
Speaker 2: that has been set up, but it's actually not yet underway.
Speaker 2: What that actually means I don't know, but clearly it's
Speaker 2: not working yet. And you would think that eighteen months
Speaker 2: after something like that happened. For that not to be
Speaker 2: in place after eight months, I think is that's a
Speaker 2: little bit of a shame you on the government and.
Speaker 1: The Communications Minister. Anika Wells. She's fairly new to that portfolio,
Speaker 1: So what sense do you get of her of how
Speaker 1: likely she is to look into these issues.
Speaker 2: Well, certainly to sharpen up her interest in the portfolio. Look,
Speaker 2: people inside the sector have said that she's not as
Speaker 2: engaged with the sector as the previous minister who did
Speaker 2: have a background in telecoms. Indeed, if you look back
Speaker 2: to the previous ministers, we had Paul Fletcher for quite
Speaker 2: some time in the coalition government before Mishare Royland, Mitch
Speaker 2: Firefield before him, and Malcolm Turnbull. All of those people
Speaker 2: did have quite a lot of experience or background in
Speaker 2: either telcos or technology. Amateur Wells doesn't have any of
Speaker 2: that experience. And telecoms is a very very very complex business.
Speaker 2: I mean, as we talked about this, with a mobile network,
Speaker 2: then you've got landline Netwilson that you've got to run
Speaker 2: internet services. There's customer call centers, there's marketing, there's office
Speaker 2: and talk to have a bunch of shops. So they're
Speaker 2: vertically integrated businesses with lots of different moving parts. And
Speaker 2: it requires a very engaged minister and staff and department
Speaker 2: to make sure that the companies that are looking after
Speaker 2: telecommunications are doing their jobs properly. And this incident, and
Speaker 2: it's such a dreadful thing when you know people are
Speaker 2: dead because infrastructure fails, but this incident really should make
Speaker 2: I think the government have a very good look at
Speaker 2: what's happening in telecommunications. It's always been problematic because we
Speaker 2: have such a huge country with not too many people,
Speaker 2: so it's expensive compared to somewhere like Hong Kong or
Speaker 2: Singapore to provide communications infrastructure in Australia. The only thing
Speaker 2: that can stop this happening is for companies like Office
Speaker 2: and Telster and Votefone and the other big telecommunications companies
Speaker 2: TPG to make sure all their processes work, to make
Speaker 2: sure they've got fail saved and back up and all
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, and just look at it through
Speaker 2: what happened with the NBN. Yeah, successive governments were very
Speaker 2: frustrated that the big telecommunications companies weren't rolling up out
Speaker 2: fast enough broadband quickly enough, so they took the decision
Speaker 2: in the end to use public money to build the NBN.
Speaker 2: Perhaps they need to have a look at the mobile
Speaker 2: networks as well, which would take a lot of the
Speaker 2: pain away from companies trying to service a handful of
Speaker 2: people very far away that puts a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and just to take some of that financial pressure off
Speaker 2: the networks so they can really focus on getting these
Speaker 2: things right.
Speaker 3: The things that they're supposed to be doing well.
Speaker 1: Michael, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Really.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Anthony Albanezi has addressed the
Speaker 1: United Nations General Assembly in New York, using the occasion
Speaker 1: to renew Australia's push for a seat on the UN
Speaker 1: Security Council ahead of elections in June twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 1: The Security Council has five permanent members China, France, Russia,
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom and the United States, with ten other
Speaker 1: countries selected for two year terms. The last time Australia
Speaker 1: sat on the Council was in twenty fourteen, occupied by
Speaker 1: then Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Liberal Front venture Andrew
Speaker 1: Hasty has brushed off suggestions that he's a threat to
Speaker 1: Susan Lee's leadership after a series of outspoken social media posts.
Speaker 1: Andrew Hasty has grown increasingly outspoken on a number of
Speaker 1: policy issues in recent weeks, campaigning against net zero, on
Speaker 1: migration and domestic manufacturing. Seven Am is a daily show
Speaker 1: from Solstice Media. It's made by Atticus Bastow, Chris Dengate,
Speaker 1: Daniel James, Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans, Zaltfecho and me Ruby
Speaker 1: Jones at the music is by nd Beckley and Josh
Speaker 1: Hogan of Envelope Audio. Thanks for listening, Seeing sake