Police investigate regional death senator says was due to Telstra outage
Police are investigating the death of a woman in South Australia following Wednesday’s Telstra outage, after a federal senator stood by her claim that an elderly woman died as a direct result of the network failure.
The investigation comes as the federal government works to check on every person who was unable to get through to Triple Zero during the tech failure.
A SAPOL comment underneath the Facebook post of the senator disputed reports of a death during the Telstra outage. Facebook
South Australian Senator Kerrynne Liddle said her office had been told a resident of the state had died after being unable to contact Triple Zero.
“My office has received a report of a tragic death following an apparent failure to connect to Triple Zero during a life-or-death emergency amid Telstra’s nationwide outage today,” Liddle said in a Wednesday night post on Facebook.
“This death of an elderly South Australian represents a devastating failure for their family. Our thoughts are with them.
“No Australian should ever be unable to connect to Triple Zero when their life depends on it.”
Police have since confirmed they are investigating a death that occurred in regional South Australia on Wednesday, following a series of interactions with Liddle’s office.
The investigation began after SA Police (SAPOL) contacted the senator’s staff to gather information regarding the post.
Police said after a staff member initially refused to provide details, officers visited Liddle’s office on Thursday to speak directly with both the senator and the staff member.
The the federal government is working to check on every person who was unable to get through to Triple Zero during the tech failure. Sam Mooy
“As a result, contact was subsequently made with the family of an individual who died at a regional hospital on Wednesday,” a police spokesperson said.
“Police were not notified of the death.”
SAPOL had previously replied to Liddle’s Facebook post, claiming it was “not aware of any death in South Australia today as a result of the Telstra nationwide outage”.
The family had been “advised to contact SAPOL when they’re ready to talk about their experience”, a spokesperson for Liddle’s office previously told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
In a statement released on Thursday, Liddle said she was informed that an elderly South Australian had died during the outage and that the grieving family had contacted SA Police.
“After contact from Telstra, media and relevant authorities, my office advised the family to reach out to SAPOL directly,” Liddle said.
The senator added she was “disappointed” the SA Police Minister Michael Brown had questioned her integrity.
“Amid much public interest I prioritised the privacy of the family during this time. I stand with them,” Liddle said.
“Reporting suggests Australians were still unable to get through to Triple Zero overnight due to ongoing issues with the Telstra network. That is completely unacceptable.
“Anyone impacted by this outage should tell their story to Telstra, Minister Anika Wells and to relevant authorities.
“Our thoughts remain with the family.”
Brown had labelled Liddle’s Facebook post “deeply irresponsible”.
“If people are going to make claims publicly, they need to be able to back them up,” he said.
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor earlier backed Liddle’s statement, saying she was passing on “distressing reports” made to her office.
On Thursday night, Wells said the “overwhelming majority” of welfare checks on people who couldn’t get through to Triple Zero during the outage had taken place.
“The government is waiting on reports from an outstanding 13 welfare checks from states and territories,” she said, in a statement.
Communications minister Anika Wells at Parliament House last week. The Australian Financial Review
New issue ’90 per cent resolved’
A new “secondary issue” was publicised at 9.30pm on Wednesday, several hours after the telco said its original nationwide outage, caused by an issue with timekeeping nodes in Telstra data centres, had been fixed.
This new issue continued to affect Triple Zero calls, but on Thursday morning, Telstra said, matters were mostly resolved.
“Overnight, our team have made good progress reducing the occurrence of the subsequent Triple Zero calling error by approx. 90 per cent and will continuing (sic) work to eliminate this issue entirely,” the company said in an update at about 6.30am AEST on Thursday.
“Our welfare checks process remains in place, and we continue to advise customers who experience the issue to wait for the call to be connected via an alternative network or recall using a different phone.”
At 10am, the telco issued another statement which potentially indicated issues on the network remained.
The new issue was identified at about 9.30pm overnight and has been ’90 per cent’ fixed. The Age
“If you experience any issues calling Triple Zero, please immediately retry your call,” the update read.
“We have seen good success of calls connecting on retry.”
Telstra in a previous statement advised anybody who received an error message while making an emergency call, to wait 90 seconds and then try again.
Multiple reports have emerged of people claiming they were unable to reach emergency services through Triple Zero.
A woman named Lynne spoke to the ABC to say her 95-year-old mother had collapsed at her home in the NSW Hunter region, and was unable to contact Triple Zero through her wearable alarm.
Lynne luckily found her mother unharmed if distressed, but said it could have been a very different situation.
“She was pressing her... alarm to get help and without Telstra or without it piggybacking to another provider to carry that emergency through, it could have been life-and-death for her,” Lynne said.
Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman Cynthia Gebert flagged the possibility of compensation for businesses affected by Wednesday’s outage.
Many EFTPOS payment services linked to Telstra went offline during the incident, while other owners and managers were unable to contact people for necessary jobs.
“We’ve only seen a small number (of complaints) at this point, so only about 30 received yesterday,” Gebert told Today on Thursday.
“But obviously, there’ll be more that have come in overnight.”
Gebert said the complaints received would be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“I would imagine there’d be a wide range of possible outcomes as a result of that,” she said.
“Some may involve compensation, but we do need to look at the individual circumstances.”
Gebert praised Telstra for its regular updates on the outage, but said they needed to “get to the bottom” of what happened and ensure it couldn’t happen again.
Commuter chaos as train shutdown continues
V/Line trains in regional Victoria started up again on Thursday after more than 24 hours in full shutdown.
“V/Line will gradually resume services from midday after extensive testing of train radio communications following the Telstra outage,” the operator said in a statement.
“The Australian Rail Track Corporation has this morning advised V/Line and other national rail operators using the National Train Communications System (NTCS) that following testing it is safe to begin operating trains.”
Passenger services were gradually phased back in ahead of the afternoon peak hour.
V/Line trains are up and running again at Southern Cross Railway Station in Melbourne. Ollie Haig
A photo from Southern Cross station showed commuters gladly welcoming the trains pulling up alongside the platforms.
V/Line chief executive William Tieppo earlier said it was possible V/Line could seek compensation from Telstra, noting the added expense of bus replacements, with 140 buses deployed on Wednesday and 100 on Thursday.
“A disruption of this scale has been unprecedented for us,” he said.
In NSW, trains resumed services on the previously closed Hunter and Southern Highlands lines.
The ARTC said in a statement rail services were “progressively returning” across affected networks.
“Given the size and complexity of Australia’s national rail network, recovery will take time and services will resume in a controlled and phased manner as communications are confirmed and all operational safety checks are completed,” a spokesperson said.
“Passenger services will remain paused until the network is fully operational.”
The ARTC also emphasised the fault had been with the Telstra outage, rather than any equipment failure or misjudgement on the ground.
Calls for a new Triple Zero system
Tech expert Trevor Long said the government needed to acknowledge the current telecommunications system was out of date.
“We need the government to go: ‘We have to start again and create a new system for 2026’,” he told Today on Thursday moning.
“We have Wi-Fi at home. We have Wi-Fi in public places. We should be able to contact Triple Zero using WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, FaceTime.
“We should be able to use any network Starlink satellites.
“We should be able to use anything to call Triple Zero, and that’s what the government should be focusing on. We need a modern Triple Zero that outlasts the mobile networks.”
And the networks, he said, should take what happened to Telstra as a warning.
“You look at these systems and you go, is there a backup for everything? And I think obviously here there wasn’t a backup for that situation,” he said.
He said computers encountering an error should be automatically “segregated” from the rest of the network, leaving the majority of connections unaffected.
“That will be what, frankly, every mobile network will now be going, ‘Hey, have we got this sorted?’” he said.
“Because it could happen to anyone.”
Hundreds of emergency calls failed
A fault in the timekeeping nodes at several Telstra data centres in Sydney and Melbourne at about 4.30am on Wednesday sparked a nationwide outage of the Telstra network, with many customers reporting sporadic coverage.
Many were left with their phones on SOS mode - but even then, the telco said more than 300 emergency calls did not go through during the outage period.
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland said on Wednesday afternoon the telco had contacted 333 people for welfare checks after detecting failed calls.
And 79 people who could not be reached were referred to police.
Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland speaks after a major network outage on Wednesday morning. Alexander Darling
Triple Zero Victoria said in a statement on Thursday that it continued to receive and respond to calls.
“We have been notified by Telstra of twenty-four calls that experienced difficulty connecting to the Telstra national Triple Zero (000) emergency service,” a spokesperson said.
“Victorian Police Communications Liaison Officers located in our communications centres are currently conducting welfare checks with these twenty-four calls as a matter of urgency.
“As Telstra has also communicated, we ask the community to not test call 000.
“No adverse events have been identified at this time.”
Telstra was fined more than $3 million over a previous outage in 2024, and could potentially face multi-million dollar penalties again.
Scam warning for customers
Telstra has warned that the occasion of an outage is one ripe for scammers.
Would-be fraudsters are likely to get in touch with Telstra clients claiming to represent the telco.
“We’ve seen reports of fraudsters calling customers, claiming to be from Telstra and trying to take advantage of today’s outage,” Telstra said on Wednesday.
“Please be extra vigilant. If you get a call from someone claiming to be from Telstra asking for your details in light of today’s outage, hang up and call us directly.”
On Today on Thursday, Long said emails were also a potential vehicle for scammers.
“Don’t trust any email that says, you know, ‘it’s Telstra, click this link right now’,” he said.
“That’s going to be the worst thing you could do as a Telstra customer.
“So take caution for any communication you get from Telstra. Before you click any links, pick up the phone, ring them.”
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