WA Liberal senator Dean Smith says inquiry into triple-0 failure will hold Optus to account

WA Liberal senator Dean Smith says Monday’s hearing on Optus’ triple-0 failure is a “critical opportunity” for Australians to learn what went wrong with an emergency system they trusted — and that tragically failed.

Optus’ hours-long failure to realise a routine systems upgrade had disrupted the emergency service in WA, South Australia and parts of NSW resulted in three deaths.

Senator Smith, who called for the inquiry, will be part of the committee that grills Optus chiefs this week.

“This inquiry is a critical opportunity to learn more about what happened in the Optus triple-0 outage and other outages, as well as how we ensure Australia’s communications networks are fit for purpose,” he said.

“It’s vital WA has a strong voice on this inquiry given our state was uniquely affected, wit