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.”
Unrelated, Optus said 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.
