00:00Stephen Roo has made it very clear that this is not about investment and this is not about
00:06money.
00:07What he's saying is we had a standard Thursday morning Eastern time, Australian time, very
00:12early Thursday morning standard upgrade of our firewall system that was across the network.
00:17And he said in the past what we've done is that we've set aside some calls as that firewall
00:24upgrade is done, then we've moved to upgrade the firewall and then we put the calls back
00:29into position so that everyone can use an Optus mobile in Australia.
00:35What he says happened this time is that when the person doing that upgrade was meant to
00:43put those calls aside, they didn't.
00:47And so when the firewall was upgraded, those calls were left not being able to be processed.
00:54So you put the calls aside, you make the upgrade, those calls were not put aside so those phone
00:58calls weren't able to go through.
01:00And he's reiterated over and over again that this is to do with a, I guess, a mismanagement
01:07of a process that was in place.
01:09So this happened in 2023.
01:12The disaster happened back then, it's been repeated.
01:14What he's saying is the processes were fixed back then and for some reason, which is still
01:19to be determined, the processes weren't followed this time around.
01:23So the processes that the Optus knows that worked to protect those calls from the network
01:29firewall upgrade, that process that's in place wasn't followed this time.
01:33So Kerry Schott is going to lead the independent review into what happens.
01:37That specifically is what she's going to be investigating and why did they choose her?
01:41Well, because she's been in the business of cleaning up messes over the past 10 years.
01:46So she started in investment banking, she had 14 years in investment banking, so she's
01:49dealing with the sharpest minds in the country in terms of strategy and development of good
01:54policy.
01:55She's then moved to head Sydney Water and she was part of the NBN upgrades, but crucially
02:02as well, she was tasked by the New South Wales government to clean up the mess that happened
02:07in May when many New South Wales trains had to stop due to a technical fault on the tracks.
02:14There was an inquiry developed from that and she led that inquiry.
02:18And I guess what's interesting is that the report into that inquiry, she really didn't
02:24hold back.
02:25She was scathing of New South Wales transport and the essentially, excuse my French, but
02:29the screw up that she said didn't need to happen.
02:31So if you're looking at who would be best to lead an inquiry like this, they have someone
02:36with plenty of years of experience both in business and in government who is used to coming
02:40into a bit of a mess and cleaning it up.
02:42Okay, so you've been a business correspondent for a number of years now.
02:45You've seen lots of CEOs explaining themselves in times of trouble.
02:48What did you make of how Steven Rue handled himself?
02:51Look, I think he, Ros, I think he handled himself well.
02:54The problem he has is a lack of information.
02:57So the Optus is Australia's second largest provider of telecommunications.
03:03Telecommunications are vital as we have found out.
03:05Telstra leads it and TPG is behind Optus.
03:08So the Australian community want to know, if I have a mobile device that's related to
03:13Optus, am I going to be able to make a triple zero call?
03:15He can't say that right now because he doesn't know exactly what happened.
03:19An independent investigation will come through and I can bet you, based on the frustration
03:24we saw there on the TV, he's very keen to make sure he finds the answers personally very
03:29soon.
Comments