Australian and Singaporean PMs Address Deadly Optus Outage

Leaders Meet in Canberra

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today met with Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in Canberra, where discussions included the recent Optus telecommunications outage that has been linked to four deaths. The meeting, held on Wednesday, October 8, 2025, also covered broader cooperation between the two nations on defense, economic ties, and technology.

Optus Outage and Its Grave Impact

The telecommunications disruption in question occurred on September 18, 2025, and primarily affected the ability of Optus customers to make Triple Zero (000) emergency calls for approximately 13 hours. This critical failure impacted regions including the Northern Territory, South Australia, Western Australia, and New South Wales.

The outage has been tragically linked to at least three deaths, with police investigating a potential fourth fatality. Victims identified include an eight-week-old boy and a 68-year-old woman in South Australia, and a 74-year-old man and a 49-year-old man in Western Australia. Approximately 600 emergency calls failed to connect during the incident.

The cause of the September 2025 outage has been attributed to a deviation from standard procedures during a network firewall upgrade. Singtel, Optus's parent company, has indicated that the failure appeared to be due to 'human error'.

Prime Ministers' Statements

During their joint press conference, Prime Minister Albanese confirmed he raised the 'deadly Optus emergency outage' with his Singaporean counterpart. He conveyed his condolences to those affected and their families, stating, 'We expect our companies to act responsibly.'

Prime Minister Wong, in turn, expressed his condolences for the impact of the outage. He affirmed that he expects Optus and its Singaporean parent company, Singtel, to 'behave responsibly,' 'comply fully with Australian laws,' and 'cooperate fully with the ongoing inquiry' into the incident.

Broader Context and Previous Incidents

This recent incident follows a major nationwide Optus outage on November 8, 2023, which affected over 10 million people and 400,000 businesses. That outage, lasting 12-13 hours, was caused by a routine software upgrade that led to routing information changes and subsequent router disconnections, also impacting emergency services. Optus was fined A$12 million in 2024 for failing to provide access to emergency calls during the 2023 outage.

A separate, smaller emergency call outage also occurred on September 29, 2025, in Dapto, New South Wales, affecting 4,500 customers due to a faulty mobile tower.