Transcript - Press conference - Optus meeting - 16 October 2025

Melissa McIntosh MP
Shadow Minister for Communications
Shadow Minister for Women
Federal Member for Lindsay

16 October 2025

Transcript

Press conference – Sydney, NSW

Topics: Optus meeting; Stephen Rue; Triple Zero network; Safeguarding Triple Zero amendments.   

E&EO …

Melissa McIntosh

I've just come out of a meeting with the CEO of Optus, Stephen Rue, and I have been waiting for this meeting for about a month now. I'm glad that he granted that with me. But what happened with the Optus outage you still – it's a mystery. It should not be a mystery. Four people sadly died during that outage and the best that the CEO could tell me today was that it was a process issue and they'll be undergoing an investigation.

For Optus’ sake, I hope their investigation wraps up quickly because we really want to have a Senate inquiry into this. I don't think that ACMA, the regulator, should be the investigator. I've said this many times, they're caught up in the failed process and I question the transparency of Optus holding its own investigation.

So I hope the Senate inquiry, if we can bring that on, get some answers for Australians and also for those families. A process error means that one individual, it seems to me, did something wrong. The fact that one individual in a company can cause such devastation is really questionable. Why has that been allowed to happen?

I did ask the CEO questions around the call centre and the fact that people had to call that call centre to alert Optus to the Triple Zero outage. There seems to be failures there as well.

And I also questioned how much the government knew. It was revealed last week in Senate Estimates that there was an email between Optus to ACMA to the Department of Communications and to the Minister's office. Yet, as far as I can see, there wouldn't have just been the emails that were revealed in Senate Estimates. If Optus was doing the right thing, they would have alerted the government again and again. Yet the Minister said she did not find out about this until the Friday when that first email went out on a Thursday.

So, we are left with lots more questions. And this is such a serious issue. People died, they couldn't pick up their phone and call Triple Zero in their greatest time of need. I have questions around the relationship between Optus and the government and where the failures had been on both.

And I put forward amendments in Parliament to strengthen the system, double the fines on telcos that do the wrong thing and ensure that we have a public register of Triple Zero outages. And I informed the CEO today that that is my plan to keep pushing on that because someone has to be held responsible and right now not enough is being done to protect our Australian citizens.

Questions.

Journalist

Minister, what did you get out of today's meeting?

McIntosh

As I said, I feel like I have a lot more questions than I do answers.

Stephen Rue pointed a lot to process failure and that there was human error involved. And I questioned how can such a big organisation like Optus be reliant on individuals and their capacity and capability in the workplace? And the CEO spoke a lot about waiting until the investigation has been done.

But Australians do deserve answers, and I don't think they're getting enough out of Optus, nor enough out of the government. There's too many questions around when the government did actually know about this outage and how can you have an email go to a wrong address or go to the Minister's office but she didn't know about it? So, I think a lot of work needs to be done to reassure Australians as we approach disaster season with bushfires, that the whole Triple Zero ecosystem is going to stand up.

And I asked the CEO that question, is he confident that his network is not going to go fail again during this season? And I walked away from that meeting with not a whole lot of confidence that this couldn't happen again.

Journalist

What does Optus and the government need to do to restore trust in the Triple Zero system ahead of bushfire season?

McIntosh

I think they need to be more transparent with the Australian people about what's going on. It is quite alarming that human error can cause such devastation in our most trusted, most important telecommunications service. In this day and age where technology rules the world, why did technology fail? Or if technology didn't fail, how are humans so responsible in such a devastating outage?

So, I think transparency is key and just ensuring that they are prioritising this. Speed it up if you have to. Do everything you can. I know that the government wants me to be stopped talking about this and stop putting the pressure on, but when lives are at risk, there is nothing more important to be raising in the public sphere.

Journalist

Have you had any further conversations with the government about amendments to the Triple Zero Custodian laws?

McIntosh

I have written to the Minister asking if she would accept two of my amendments, which I think are most important, the first being doubling the fine to telcos that do the wrong thing from $10 million to $20 million per breach. And the reason why I did that is because fines are obviously not making an impact because companies are still doing the wrong thing. So, increase those fines and have a public register of Triple Zero outages so Australians can see when telcos are doing the wrong thing.

And I point out it's not just Optus that has had failures with the Triple Zero network. The NBN had a failure that resulted in in Triple Zero going out. Telstra has been caught up in the past. So, it needs to be a focus on the whole Triple Zero ecosystem and the public needs to know. The public needs to have certainty in this critical service.

Journalist

Hello, Tim Burrowes from Mumbrella. You mentioned the ACMA. Does that organisation retain your confidence?

McIntosh

I question that ACMA should be responsible for the investigation when they're part of the failed process and whether it's really going to be transparent. I also question the bureaucracy. I always question regulation, whether we need more, whether regulation is doing the right thing. I asked the question of Optus today and he declined to answer that. But you were right. Do they have my confidence or they should prove that they deserve my confidence right now. If they couldn't be alerted to an email that came from Optus, then I just don't think they should be part of the investigation. They have questions to answer too. And whether the regulation is really going to work, whether the Custodian, as Secretary in the Department overseeing ACMA is going to work. These are reasonable questions for Australians to seek answers.

Journalist

And does that affect your perceptions of the organisation, is a wider regulator of the media?

McIntosh

Yeah, of course. I think ACMA has such a broad job to do across the media industry and when something as serious as Triple Zero fails, has their focus been enough on this particular industry and ensuring that the Triple Zero network is robust enough? There are even questions around whether Optus needed to alert ACMA at a certain point in time, whether it's 10 outages, you know, 100, 600. And there doesn't seem to be an answer around the escalation process. So, I would like to have the confidence back in ACMA, but right now I have serious questions around its involvement and its ability to do the job currently.

Journalist

And in the communications around the first 48 hours, what would you have had the Minister do differently?

McIntosh

Well, at least she didn't leave the country in the first 48 hours. It wasn't long after. But I think getting out in the public first, I fronted the media before the Minister. And I know it's not a competition, but just giving the public confidence that you are across this and this is your biggest priority. There's no more greater priority than protecting Australian citizens and that you will get everything you can pull every single lever to get to the bottom of this. Telling the public that you didn't know about the outage until Friday, when your office and your Department were alerted on the Thursday, causes confusion. It causes distrust.

So, I think the Minister could have done a whole lot better for the public in those first 48 hours than she did do. And then she shouldn't have gotten on that plane.