Australia’s Optus CEO Apologises After Emergency-Line Outage, Refuses to Resign

The CEO of Australia’s telecom firm Optus, Stephen Rue, formally apologised to Parliament for a critical outage of the “000” emergency line that has been linked to four deaths. 

The outage occurred on 18 September and affected thousands of users in multiple states. It happened during a routine firewall upgrade where traffic rerouting failed. 

Amid mounting pressure for his resignation, Rue rejected calls to stand down, arguing that leadership continuity is essential for Optus’s recovery and transformation. 

Optus also announced that its CFO and CIO will step down in early 2026, while investigations and a sweeping independent review into the outage’s root causes are under way. 

The incident has amplified regulatory scrutiny of the company, which has already faced a major 2022 data breach and significant service disruptions in 2023.