Optus CEO tries to make a quick escape from media at Seaforth home, government warns telco of consequences
The Optus boss was pictured leaving his Sydney home in a hurry, as the telco faces scrutiny over its network failure, with the Communications Minister issuing a warning. Tell us what you think. Take our polls.
Optus CEO Stephen Rue was spotted attempting a quick exit from his Seaforth home Monday morning, trying to evade this masthead’s photographer outside, as the telco faces its most catastrophic crisis in years.
Mr Rue, was captured in a blue suit trying to make a mad dash from his home.
It comes as Australia’s Communications Minister has said Optus “failed the Australian people” and warned the telco will face “significant consequences” after a catastrophic outage impacted triple-0 calls and left several dead.
Speaking to reporters in Brisbane on Monday, Ms Wells said the telco notified her about the outage on Thursday via email.
She said initial reports indicated about 100 calls were affected and did not hear anything from the telco until late Friday afternoon with updated figures.
“We were told the outage affected 100 calls,’ she said.
“Then shortly after 4pm (on Friday) we were told the outage had affected 600 calls.
“Then we found out from our department that there had been three deaths and we were told there would be a press conference from the CEO of Optus shortly.”
She said the public had a right to “feel livid” about the outage and their focus was “getting to the bottom of what went wrong”, and holding Optus to account.
Ms Wells said there would be “significant consequences” and Optus would be held to account.
“I will say it again for the people whose confidence must be shaken by what has come to light since late Friday afternoon, this is not good enough and it seems that Optus was told about this issue and did not act, which is not good enough,” she said.
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) chair Nerida O’Loughlin said the emails sent by the telco were “perfunctory” but some “were inaccurate”.
“As part of our investigation, we need to look at just what information they need to provide to all of us when they can get it to us,” she said. “It was just too late.”
Ms O’Loughlin said the watchdog was not notified until hours after the incident had been resolved.
“In this case we didn’t know that something had gone wrong until the matter had been resolved more than 10 hours later,” she told reporters.
The incident is being investigated by the ACMA.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also said he would be “surprised” if Stephen Rue was not thinking about stepping down following last week’s network outage.
“Optus has obligations, as do other communications companies, and clearly they haven’t fulfilled the obligations that they have,” he said on ABC.
“What we want is to ensure that something like this shouldn’t happen.”
When asked directly whether Rue should be considering his role, Mr Albanese responded that he would be surprised if that wasn’t occurring.
Optus boss considered ‘no chance’ of keeping his job
It comes as rumours swirl on whether or not he’ll keep his top spot at Optus.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, they predicted it was only a matter of time before Mr Rue’s exit was confirmed just 10 months into the job.
He was installed in November 2024, a year after previous CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin departed in the wake of a 2023 outage controversy.
“Impossible that he stays,” a former ASX-listed company chair said of Mr Rue.
“The board will need to leave him in situ until they get through this initial period.
“But this is not just a corporate disaster and an unbelievable failure, it’s a tragedy.
“People might pick on Woolies or Coles and make a big deal of them having their prices too high, but this is in a completely different order of magnitude. This is people dying.”
An ex-CEO with experience in ASX listed companies added: “How a telco could let this happen is unfathomable. This is a second major f--k up by Optus in this space. Anyone close to it, with any responsibility or accountability, will have to go.”
Asked if chief customer officer for enterprise and business, former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, might be caught in any Optus executive clean-out, they replied: “I don’t honestly know what she does there.”.
“I also don’t see Optus looking to her as a potential CEO. Gladys has too much baggage.”
Another corporate figure told this masthead: “This is not data going missing. This is about lives.”
The Daily Telegraph was told by one executive who held roles across varied sectors: “The previous CEO (Ms Bayer Rosmarin) was an extrovert. Stephen is very sharp, great with figures, and an introvert. One thing for sure, they won’t have anyone rushing to be the interim CEO.”
The company’s CFO Michael Venter served as interim CEO between Ms Bayer Rosmarin’s departure and Mr Rue’s onboarding.
The Optus reputational nosedive commenced with a cyberattack in 2022 which led to customers’ data being hacked.
Just last month the privacy watchdog, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, announced it was launching legal action against Optus over the data breach.
The lawsuit alleges that from October 2019 to September 2022, Optus seriously interfered with the privacy of about 9.5 million Australians by failing to take reasonable steps to protect their personal information.
Australian Information Commissioner Elizabeth Tydd said in announcing the action: “Organisations hold personal information … based upon trust. The … community should have confidence that organisations will act accordingly.”
Optus was reported saying it would respond to the claims “in due course” but would make no further comment with the matter before the courts.
The November 2023 outage which led to Ms Bayer Rosmarin’s exit caused widespread disruption including to hospitals, banks, hospitality operators and calls to emergency services.
In the fallout, Optus was fined more than $12 million last November by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) “for breaches of emergency call rules”.
ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said in a media statement at the time: “Triple-0 availability is the most fundamental service telcos must provide to the public. When an emergency call fails to connect there can be devastating consequences for public health and safety.
“Our findings indicate that Optus failed in the management of its network in a number of areas and that the outage should have been preventable.”
The hits continued for Optus when the ACCC, Australia’s competition and consumer watchdog, launched Federal Court action in October last year alleging the company sold overpriced or needless services to vulnerable customers.
It was announced in June this year that Optus admitted to “engaging in unconscionable conduct” and had agreed with the ACCC on a $100 million penalty, subject to court approval.
The Federal Court sat on the matter in Adelaide this month but has adjourned to a later date.
Optus is owned by Singaporean corporate giant Singtel, with a market cap of more than $84 billion.
The company has been historically media-shy but in May last year its Group CEO Yuen Kuan Moon appeared on CNBC where he was asked if the company was still fully committed to Optus.
“The Optus management team is fully focused on customers and delivering value,” he said. “First of all they will have to regain the trust of their customers … secondly we have been working hard on investing into the networks to build resiliency.”
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Originally published as Optus CEO tries to make a quick escape from media at Seaforth home, government warns telco of consequences
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