It remains unclear whether the unsuccessful triple-zero calls directly influenced the emergencies that resulted in fatalities.

‘We take full accountability’

Welfare checks were conducted into Thursday evening and Friday, with delays in timing attributed to “the complexity of extracting records from the network,” he noted.

Optus CEO Stephen Rue has confirmed an independent investigation would be launched into the outage. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch

The deaths were not confirmed until Friday, he said, while repeatedly defending the decision not to alert the public until a snap press conference that evening as Optus ascertained the facts.

“This information was not surfaced with the relevant escalation at that time.”

‘Beggars belief’

“They must ensure they’re informing our emergency services with… all pertinent information as soon as they have it, before considering a public statement,” he remarked.

South Australian Peter Malinauskas stated that Optus would be “held accountable” and needs to justify why it initially claimed the 10-hour interruption lasted only two hours. Source: AAP / Hilary Wardaugh

“It is somewhat extraordinary we had a situation (on Friday) after everything that had unfolded, that we were still struggling to get information from Optus to allow police to do their work.”

An exhaustive, independent investigation is necessary and “the state government stands ready to do that, but we will also consider what actions the commonwealth government plans for the investigation,” he mentioned.

‘Completely unacceptable’: Wells

‘Camp-on’ features enable mobile devices to connect to an alternative network to make triple-zero calls if their own network fails.