Communications Minister Confirms Telstra Triple Zero Issue

Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed that some Telstra customers could not reach Triple Zero last night due to a residual network issue. The outage had been declared resolved at 4pm the previous day, but a secondary problem later affected emergency calls.

Wells said the difficulties did not result in any adverse outcomes. "Telstra needs to account for how and why that has occurred because Australians are right to expect that as a baseline service from their telco," Wells said.

Rishworth and Liberal senator Andrew Bragg discussed the outage on Channel Nine. Bragg described repeated telecommunications problems as the "new normal" and criticized the government's approach to competition. Rishworth said the responsibility to maintain reliable service rests with Telstra as a private company.

She rejected the suggestion that oversight should be reduced. "To somehow suggest that it's not their obligation and their responsibility to fix is, quite frankly, letting them off the hook," Rishworth said.