ATO - ATO's $900m contract with Optus

Question

1. Has the ATO conducted a formal reassessment of operational risk, service continuity risk, and dependency on Optus since the September 2025 Triple Zero outage that caused at least four deaths? 2. Have the following been incorporated into the renewal assessment: a. September 2025 Triple Zero outage and any relevant finding arising from it? b. $100 million unconscionable conduct penalty? c. $12 million emergency call penalties? d. Other significant network outages? 3. Or is the renewal proceeding based on historical performance data that predates these failures? 4. Is the ATO reassessing whether this provider is fit to deliver critical tax services at national scale, or is renewal assessment proceeding primarily under existing contract settings? Contract Renewal Timeline and Integrity 5. The contract expires in September 2026. What is the timeline for the renewal decision? 6. Will Optus's recent performance failures be formally weighted in the renewal evaluation? 7. What specific resilience, uptime, or performance thresholds must Optus meet to qualify for renewal? 8. Is the ATO considering renewal of the $900m contract before being satisfied that the provider can meet the required reliability and resilience standards at national scale? Service Performance Metrics and Hidden Failures 9. Do ATO performance metrics include calls that fail or are blocked before reaching the contact centre?'' 10. If a call fails due to network or routing issues at the carrier level, where is that failure tracked and attributed?'' 11. If failures occur before calls reach your system, are they excluded from reporting? How does the ATO accurately assess taxpayer experience if network-layer failures aren't measured? Dependency Mapping and Independent Visibility 12. What proportion of ATO services rely on Optus infrastructure? 13. Does the ATO have independent visibility of Optus network performance, or does it rely on information provided by Optus? 14. If not, is the ATO relying on vendor assurances in assessing resilience and service continuity? Resilience Testing 15. Has the ATO tested failover scenarios, simulated major outages, and stress-tested service delivery under disruption conditions? 16. Has the ATO tested these systems under failure conditions, or is it relying on vendor assurances? 17. Can the ATO confirm that all failed or dropped calls including those that never reach the contact centre due to network failures are captured in reporting? If not, how does the ATO assess the impact on taxpayers seeking access to ATO services?

Answer

See attached response.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• SQ26-000310 ATO - ATO-s $900m contract with Optus.pdf (opens in a new tab)