Optus CEO Admits ‘Culture of Carelessness’ After Triple Zero Outage Linked to Four Deaths

Six months after a network failure left thousands unable to reach emergency services—and was later linked to four deaths—Optus chief executive Stephen Rue has admitted the company operated with a “culture of carelessness.”

Appearing before a Senate committee on Feb. 26, Rue conceded serious internal failings and outlined a reform plan aimed at restoring public trust after the September 2025 Triple Zero outage.

The disruption, triggered by a firewall upgrade, cut access to the 000 emergency number across parts of South Australia, Western Australia, and the Northern Territory. Roughly 75 percent of emergency calls were affected during the blackout.

“Before I came to Optus, a series of incidents had shaken public trust in the company. It was obvious that reform was needed,” Rue told the inquiry.

His comments came after questioning from committee chair Senator Sarah Henderson over claims the company had grown complacent.

Independent reviewer Kerry Schott told the hearing that parts of Optus— particularly within its network division— displayed a pattern of carelessness. Some technical staff, she said, appeared detached from the essential nature of their work, approaching it as routine process rather than a critical public service.

Rue said cultural change would take time, describing the issues as deeply embedded within the organisation.

System Overhaul Underway

Since the outage, Optus has moved to strengthen oversight and accountability.

Rue said the company has added new onshore call centre roles, tightened escalation procedures and improved real-time monitoring of Triple Zero performance.

An automated welfare check system has also been introduced to activate during emergency outages.

He said sweeping leadership changes has been made across network security, technology, legal, compliance and risk, with new executives recruited from companies including Telstra and Aussie Broadband. The board, he added, was focused on ensuring the right leadership is in place to rebuild confidence.

Rue cautioned that no telecommunications network can be completely immune from disruption.

“We have more to do as we strengthen our culture, and this is a key part of our long term transformation programme,” he said.

“All of this work doesn’t mean outages won’t happen again.”

However, he said the company’s response must improve.

“There must be an effective backup system so emergency calls still get through during network disruptions,” he said.

Review Pushes Broader Reform

The outage led to an independent review led by Schott. In December 2025, itmade several recommendations to strengthen the Triple Zero framework.

Among them was fixing the “camping on” system, which allows failed calls to transfer to another network. The review found it did not operate effectively during the outage and recommended clearer advice to callers that transfers could take up to a minute.

It also called for the creation of a dedicated Triple Zero custodian to oversee the system’s performance and urged stronger coordination agreements between telecommunications providers during outages.

In the wake of the disruption, the Opposition accused the Albanese government of complacency. Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh said repeated warnings about emergency network vulnerabilities had been ignored, arguing Australians were losing faith in the reliability of essential services.

“During the Optus outage, calls to Triple Zero were unable to be made and lives were lost. It is a failure that has ripped away the confidence Australians had in the emergency system,” McIntosh said.