Telecommunications giant Optus is facing renewed backlash after revelations that it sent critical emails about a deadly national outage to the wrong government address, leaving officials unaware of the crisis for more than a day.
The September 18 outage, which lasted over 13 hours and prevented hundreds of emergency calls from going through, has been linked to four deaths — including that of an eight-week-old baby who could not receive timely medical assistance.
During a parliamentary hearing on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary for Communications James Chisholm confirmed that the Department of Communications did not see Optus’ initial notifications because they were sent to an outdated email address. “That communication was sent to the wrong address, which we have told industry a number of times is not to be used as a source for notification,” Chisholm told senators.
The first email from Optus was sent at 2:45 p.m. on the day of the incident, followed by a second message just seven minutes later stating the issue had been resolved and only 10 emergency calls were affected. In reality, over 600 calls to Australia’s Triple Zero (000) emergency service failed during the outage. Authorities only became aware of the full extent of the disruption the following afternoon — more than 36 hours after it began — after being informed by the industry regulator.
The Department of Communications said the contact email address had been officially changed one week before the outage and that telecommunications companies were notified of the switch two weeks in advance. Lawmakers questioned why automatic replies were not in place to alert senders that the old address was inactive, but Chisholm said the greater issue was Optus’ failure to comply with laws requiring telcos to reroute emergency calls during service interruptions.
Optus attributed the outage to a deviation from standard procedure during a routine firewall upgrade. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has launched an investigation into whether Optus — wholly owned by Singapore-based Singtel — breached its legal obligations.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who is currently on an official visit to Australia, offered his condolences, calling the deaths “tragic” and expressing “full understanding of the anger, frustration, and outrage” surrounding the incident. He added that Singapore expects Singtel and Optus to “comply with the laws and cooperate fully with the investigation.”
Optus, already under intense scrutiny following a massive 2022 cyberattack and a nationwide outage in 2023, is once again facing calls for accountability. Former CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin resigned after the 2023 disruption, and current chief executive Stephen Rue is now under mounting pressure to step down. Some lawmakers have even suggested that the company’s operating licence be reviewed or revoked.
