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Watch replay: Optus CEO grilled by senators
Both Optus chief executive officer Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and the managing director of the company’s networks division, Lambo Kanagaratnam, fronted a Senate inquiry into the telco’s outage last week.
You can watch a replay of it below:
Hanson-Young ‘flabbergasted’ roaming not considered
By David Swan
As the hearing draws to a close, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young says she is “flabbergasted” that Optus hadn’t considered letting its customers roam onto the Telstra or TPG networks during the national outage.
“Is it because you don’t want your customers being able to roam on a competitor’s network? Is this about protecting your own profits ahead of the interests of the customer?” she asks. “I don’t understand why this wouldn’t already be on your list of things to investigate.”
Senate inquiry chair Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Responds Optus chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin: “Firstly, we don’t see profits and customers as opposed in any way. We only make a profit if we have happy customers, and more customers choose us and more customers choose to stay with us. So for us to be profitable, we want to do the right thing for customers.
“And secondly … given that Optus has ... about 30 per cent market share, let’s say hypothetically that there was a fault on Telstra network, where they have 50 per cent market share, and suddenly all of those subscribers were to be on our network. We would have to have already invested in the capacity to be able to cater for that many customers simultaneously.
“So there are a lot of considerations if we go down this path about investment capacity, and how that all works to make sure that you don’t inadvertently, if one goes down, bring down another network.”
Hanson-Young suggests Bayer Rosmarin “get on with talking to your competitors and making sure the Australian people are actually looked after and can access a service that is essential.”
‘I will take that on board,’ Optus chief says of staff survey feedback
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Nationals Senator Ross Caddell said he had received several emails from Optus staff about poor staff engagement surveys, and then asked Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin whether it was time for new leadership.
“Thank you, senator, I will take that on board,” Bayer Rosmarin responded.
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said she would take on board feedback about poor staff engagement surveys.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Earlier, the chief executive and managing director Lambo Kanagaratnam told senators there was strong feedback from staff on engagement surveys.
Caddell read one of the emails he said he had received from Optus staff: “I just note that engagement surveys we did [over the] last couple of years had nothing about attitude or outsourcing and keeping intellectual property in house. They [the surveys] are pretty much about Optus values. There’s some things about staff development, nothing about workload, how skilled the people are.”
The Nationals senator told the telco chief executive: “Given you haven’t responded to the customers well, given you haven’t reflected your staff’s attitude, isn’t it time for new leadership at Optus?”
‘There are always opportunities for us to do better’: Optus boss
By David Swan
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has asked Optus chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin whether she has overhauled the company’s PR team following the outage.
“That is one of the biggest problems that members of public have raised with us, and what all of us at this table have put to you today, that the communication with Australians in the midst of this was appalling,” the senator said.
‘We will be taking all of that feedback on board’: Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“What have you done to fix that?” she asked.
“There are always opportunities for us to do better,” Bayer Rosmarin said.
“As I said in my opening, I wholeheartedly believe that the team did the best that they could with the information they had at the time and the channels available. Having said that, there have been suggestions to us that we do press conferences versus one-on-one interviews, that our messages are a bit different [in] tone, et cetera.
“We will be taking all of that feedback on board to try and make sure that we do better in the future, whilst at the same time trying to make sure there is no future where that’s needed.”
Watch: Optus boss’ lengthy pause after resignation question
By Ben Grubb
As mentioned earlier, there was a lengthy pause when Kelly Bayer Rosmarin was asked several times to respond to a report in The Australian Financial Review that she was considering resigning as the chief executive of Optus following the outage and last year’s cybersecurity breach.
You can replay that tense moment here:
Optus has paid out thousands in compensation after outage
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
Optus has paid out $36,000 in compensation for last week’s major outage, according to chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.
She said 8500 customers had sought compensation from the telco giant, totalling $430,000. Optus is in the process of assessing the veracity of those compensation claims, Bayer Rosmarin said.
She added that the telco would be unable to determine the full impact of the outage on small businesses across the country.
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The chief executive could not answer whether the $36,000 in compensation was paid out as cash or in-kind services, and told the Senate she would take the question on notice.
When independent Senator David Pocock asked how many small businesses had been affected, Bayer Rosmarin said she had the numbers on her phone. As she took out her phone, senators joked whether her phone was working.
“I’m confident that it’s working,” Bayer Rosmarin responded. When a senator joked she was taking too long to pull up the numbers, the chief executive said: “I think that’s just me. We do have the fastest 5G.”
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin looks through her phone.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Optus chief dodges question on whether she will resign
By David Swan
Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin has dodged questions about whether she intends to resign from her role, following a media report on Friday that she may step down as soon as next week.
“This morning there’s been a media report that you intend to resign as CEO. Is it your intention to resign?” Liberal senator Sarah Henderson asked.
“Senator, I’m sure you can appreciate that my entire focus has been on restoring the outage issue... It has not been a time to be thinking about myself,” Bayer Rosmarin said.
Optus chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“Could you address that question? Are you intending to resign?” Henderson asked.
“I thought I answered the question,” Bayer Rosmarin responded. “My focus is on the team, with customers, the community. My focus is not on myself.”
Henderson persisted: “So that report is not correct?”
“I haven’t seen any reports today,” Bayer Rosmarin said after a lengthy pause. “I’ve been preparing for being here.”
Senator queries compensation for consequential losses
By David Swan and Sumeyya Ilanbey
One Nation senator Malcolm Roberts has asked about compensation for Optus customers who may have been unable to settle a house purchase, for example, amid criticisms that the 200GB of free data for affected customers doesn’t go far enough.
“On the issue of consequential losses, senator, we felt that this was an issue that’s much more broad and that should government choose to look into this, we’d love to be part of that conversation,” Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said.
“But there is no precedent for telcos or other essential providers covering consequential losses.
“And we are very conscious that this would have far-reaching implications not just for Optus, not just for all telcos including the NBN, [but] also for other essential services, utilities, government services. ... This needs to be a much broader conversation than us unilaterally determining how to go about that.”
Hanson-Young interjected: “Sharing the blame around.”
Optus also revealed it had millions of cyberattacks every year.
“Cyberattacks are an ongoing threat and challenge, and we have to continue to defend against them,” Optus managing director of networks Lambo Kanagaratnam said.
Read the Optus submission to the inquiry
By Ben Grubb
In her initial statement, Optus chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin referenced a 21-page submission she had provided to the Senate inquiry that addresses its response to the outage.
We have now obtained it and you can read it in full below:
Optus says it’s reviewing whether it has ‘right level of outsourcing’
By David Swan
Optus is looking at whether it has outsourced too many components of its network infrastructure to third-party companies, according to chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, amid revelations that it was Cisco routers hitting a failsafe mechanism that triggered the outage.
“I think it’s very important to say that we do outsource a number of components of our network management to global leading companies. And it is something that I do think we should look at, as whether we have the right level of outsourcing and insourcing,” she told the Senate committee.
Optus CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin is reviewing Optus’ outsourcing contracts.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“And it is something that has been on the minds of the team that we’ve already been thinking about. So that is something we will look at.
“Further, I can tell you that our networks team is highly experienced. There are a number of engineers who’ve been network engineers for many, many years. They’re a very hard-working team. They are absolutely devastated about what happened. And they go above and beyond to try and keep the network operating all the time. So we do have a lot of experienced people.
“We take our responsibility to keep the network up and running incredibly seriously. It’s in everybody’s interests. Our customers, our own shareholders, the communities, and we do everything we can to avoid a situation like this. And we’re very apologetic that it happened, but I don’t think it should cause people to doubt just how much effort attention resourcing and financial commitment we have to resilience.”
Hundreds of triple zero calls went unanswered amid Optus outage
By David Swan
More than 200 triple zero emergency calls were unable to go through on the day of the outage, Optus chief executive Bayer Rosmarin has revealed.
“There were 228 triple-zero calls that were unable to go through, and we have done welfare checks on all of those 228 calls. And thankfully everybody is okay,” the executive said.
Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin says hundreds of triple zero calls went unanswered and Optus conducted welfare checks when its network was restored.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“We started doing the welfare checks after our connectivity resumed.
“We absolutely believe that the triple zero system should have worked and it’s critical for all Australians the system can be relied upon. We don’t manage the triple zero system. It’s a very complex system that involves all the carriers. It involves the device manufacturers... We’re still investigating that and we’re really happy that the ACMA [the communications regulator] has called an investigation into why this did not work.”
She does not directly answer a question from Sarah Hanson-Young as to whether there should be a fine or penalty for failing to provide critical triple zero services for some customers.
“Chair, as I’ve tried to explain, we don’t run the triple zero system. We participate in the triple zero system.”
Sarah Hanson-Young responds, “I think you should just... I think this is going to wear thin,” she said. “I think you’re just going to have to cough up, accept responsibility, apologise and cop a penalty, surely.”
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2023-11-17 00:15:35Z
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