Documents obtained exclusively by the ABC reveal a discrepancy in communications between the government and Optus during last year's major outage. The Albanese government was told several hours before the public that some mobile phone calls to triple zero weren't getting through.
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00:00 There was a vacuum of information you may remember.
00:04 The outage started at around about 4am and media coverage started quite soon into the
00:10 morning and there was a lack of information from Optus, only a few basic statements coming
00:16 out from them.
00:17 And so into the void stepped Communications Minister Michelle Rowland to try and fill
00:23 in some of the blanks about what was known and what was not known.
00:26 And actually quite early in the morning she was on Radio National speaking to Patricia
00:31 Carvellis and PK actually put to her, "Well, are triple zero calls working?
00:38 Because we've had a listener write to us and say they tried to call an ambulance and couldn't
00:43 get through."
00:44 And the Minister said, "Well, yes, I'm being told they are working and that's very concerning.
00:50 I'll get back to you."
00:52 And what the documents show is that a little later that day, the Minister had a briefing
00:57 with Telstra and Telstra operates the triple zero emergency operation system.
01:04 So when you first call triple zero, it's a Telstra operator that will first answer your
01:08 call before directing it.
01:10 And at this meeting, Telstra says, "We're getting a lot of phone calls.
01:14 So we're getting a lot of phone calls through from non-Optus networks, but there are some
01:20 calls from Optus mobiles that seem not to be getting through."
01:24 And that's obviously a big but because there's meant to be this emergency camp on system
01:29 it's called where even during an outage, calls from a mobile phone are meant to be picked
01:34 up by another network so they can still get through to triple zero because obviously the
01:39 situation could be life threatening.
01:41 And what happened after that was Michelle Rowland did a press conference and she was
01:46 quite firm in saying that the emergency camp on service was working and that if people
01:51 used a mobile phone to call triple zero, it would work.
01:55 And so there are now questions about whether that was the right thing to do or whether
02:00 she should have expressed some of the doubt and concerns that were being raised with her
02:04 by Telstra, but also behind the scenes with the regulator, ACMA and her department.
02:09 Michael, given telcos are required by law to provide access to triple zero, even in
02:15 an outage, whose responsibility is it to let the public know if that is not happening?
02:20 Well, it's firmly with Optus and they have this obligation to provide this service and
02:27 they are under deep scrutiny now over this at the moment.
02:31 There's a Senate inquiry, but there's also this review that's been commissioned by the
02:35 government by Richard Bean, who is a former senior figure inside ACMA to say, well, what
02:42 happened with triple zero and also was the communication not only by the telco, but by
02:48 the government good enough in terms of informing the public about what was going on?
02:54 And so what's interesting about this obligation is there's no time frame set on the telco
03:00 to tell the public.
03:01 So we know from the documents that for several hours, Optus and the government were told,
03:07 well, this isn't working properly, but it took Optus until 1pm to tell the public.
03:13 And there are now big questions about Optus's actions, but also that of the government.
03:19 Let's hear from the opposition.
03:22 The minister's first and foremost responsibility is to be truthful and frank with the Australian
03:28 people.
03:29 And triple zero calls can be literally a matter of life and death.
03:36 And this is something where absolute accuracy is required in informing the public.
03:43 Yes.
03:44 So there's the opposition saying there's more questions to be answered here, not only by
03:49 the minister, but also by Optus about things like whether they tested this advice properly
03:55 before they put it out to the public that mobile calls to triple zero were working.
04:00 And these reviews and inquiries are underway, and there's going to be a lot more scrutiny
04:04 to come in the next weeks and months.
04:06 And what we've done with this freedom of information story today is put much more detail out in
04:13 the public.
04:14 And let's see what else comes forward.
04:15 [BLANK_AUDIO]