'I hope they get to the bottom of it': PM Wong extends condolences to families of Optus outage victims

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong has extended his condolences to the families of those who died in the Optus outage.

The Australian telco is wholly owned by Singtel.

In an interview with Australian broadcaster ABC on Thursday (Oct 2) and released on Monday (Oct 6), PM Wong noted that he fully understands the anger and frustration caused by the incident.

"I would like to extend my condolences to everyone who has been impacted by the outage, especially the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives." 

A 68-year-old woman and two men, aged 74 and 49, died and more than 600 customers were affected across Australia after Optus' emergency call services suffered an outage for about 13 hours on Sept 18. 

This was Optus' second major outage since 2023.

When asked if any action would be taken to prevent a similar incident from happening again, PM Wong said: "While we may be a shareholder through Temasek, we have always operated on a very clear cardinal principle that we do not get involved in commercial operations. We do not direct commercial matters.

"We want these companies to operate commercially, and when they do and when they expand overseas, we fully expect them and their subsidiaries to comply with domestic laws where they operate and to be responsible corporate citizens." 

During the 34-minute interview, PM Wong said that Singtel CEO Yuen Kuan Moon had recently visited Australia to address the Optus outage.

PM Wong assured that Singtel will cooperate fully with the Australian authorities and the regulator, and will work closely with Optus as well as any independent parties appointed to conduct a full investigation into the incident.

"I hope they get to the bottom of it as soon as possible, identify the root causes, rectify the issue and restore confidence and trust as soon as possible," he added.

[[nid:723095]]

xingying.koh@asiaone.com