Dozens of welfare checks conducted after Optus outage disrupts Triple Zero calls

Victoria Police conducted dozens of welfare checks on Friday after an Optus outage disrupted Triple Zero emergency calls in several states.

The outage, which occurred on Thursday, affected customers in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory, causing intermittent call dropouts from around 1:30pm.

Welfare checks carried out

Victoria's Triple Zero chief operations officer, Paul Santamaria, said Optus provided details of around 40 calls that experienced difficulty connecting to the emergency call operator.

“Victoria Police Communications Liaison Officers located in TZV communications centres conducted welfare checks with the affected calls,” Mr Santamaria said.

In South Australia, police undertook two welfare checks as a result of the outage, both of which were completed “without incident”.

Outage resolved

An Optus spokesperson said the issue, which affected some customers’ voice calling services for about one hour and 15 minutes, had been resolved by 3pm on Thursday.

“Optus identified the issue within minutes through its network monitoring systems and immediately mobilised technical teams to restore services while activating established escalation processes and engaging relevant stakeholders,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson confirmed that 41 calls had been referred to Victoria Police for welfare checks.

Health minister slams outage

Victoria’s health minister, Ingrid Stitt, described the outage as “incredibly disappointing and unacceptable”.

“It’s the third time that we’ve had an outage from either Optus or Telstra in the last 12 months,” Ms Stitt said.

“So we will be urgently taking up those issues with both the telcos, but also the Commonwealth.”

Ms Stitt said it was “clearly unacceptable” to have continued outages that impacted on emergency services.

“People rely on Triple Zero in an emergency and we are absolutely focused on making sure that those responsible for those systems step up to the plate,” she said.

Investigation underway

A spokesperson for the Communications Minister said the government was aware of the outage and that telcos had a legal obligation to ensure people could call Triple Zero in their time of need.

The Triple Zero Custodian and the Australian Communications and Media Authority will investigate to ensure those obligations were met.