Australia has activated its emergency arrangement with Microsoft after a global outage disrupted Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says the agreement requires Microsoft to prioritise Australia’s recovery. Burke says the outage affected businesses, schools, health services, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO.
Government activates emergency deal
Burke says the emergency arrangement is now in force to ensure Microsoft directs resources to restore Australian services as a priority. He did not provide a timeline for full restoration. It is not yet known how long the arrangement will remain active.
Microsoft probes cause
Microsoft says it is investigating server failures and configuration changes linked to the disruption. The company says there is no sign of a cyberattack. Microsoft has not detailed which regions or service clusters were most affected, and has not confirmed when all services will be fully restored.
Service status and user reports
Microsoft says there has been some limited recovery across parts of its platform. Users continue to report problems accessing Outlook, Teams and other Microsoft 365 tools despite those signs of improvement. The scale and consistency of those problems vary, according to users.
Impact across sectors
Burke says the incident affected a wide range of organisations, including businesses and schools. He says health services were also disrupted. Australia’s federal law enforcement and security agencies, the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, were among those affected, Burke says.
The government has not detailed the operational impact within those agencies or services. It is not yet known whether data, appointments or messages were lost during the outage.
What remains unclear
Microsoft has not attributed the outage to a single root cause. The company says it is continuing to investigate the role of server failures and configuration changes. It has not provided a full incident timeline.
The government has not said whether further regulatory or contractual steps will be taken if service levels do not recover. It is not known whether any backup or contingency measures outside the Microsoft ecosystem have been activated.
Burke says the priority is to restore access for affected Australian users. Microsoft says it will provide updates as its investigation progresses.
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