Senator defends ‘testing’ Triple Zero during Telstra outage

Sarah Henderson insists she was acting within her remit as Shadow Communications Minister when she test-called Triple Zero during Wednesday’s Telstra outage.

The senator revealed she made test calls before a Sky News interview on Wednesday after services went down nationwide; calling Triple Zero in a non-emergency situation is a criminal offence and is punishable by up to three years in jail.

Henderson has not apologised for her actions, and instead claimed she had special privileges due to her role within the opposition.

“I was simply, as the shadow Minister for Communications, making those initial calls to work out whether the camping on system was actually operating,” she told 2GB on Thursday.

“I accept the criticism, but what I will say is that I am in a unique position holding this government to account.”

She said the outage, which caused chaos around the country including in her state of Victoria, should never have happened.

“Telstra’s network is critical infrastructure; this should simply not be happening,” she said.

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Henderson initially admitted to making the calls to the emergency network in the early stages of Wednesday’s outage in an interview with Sky News.

“In relation to triple-zero, I actually tested it myself,” she said.

“Now, Telstra is making very clear, please do not test triple-zero. The triple-zero network, I understand, is sound, is working.

“I had a couple of failed calls this morning because, obviously, I needed to know if triple-zero was working and that appears to be rectified.”

Calling triple-zero without reporting an emergency and for any other reason is a crime, according to the criminal code.

Anyone who does so could face imprisonment for up to three years and/or a $75,600 fine.

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth criticised Henderson’s actions, believing it was irresponsible.

“That was not okay from a government shadow minister,” she said on Today.

Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland urged users not to dial triple-zero unless there is a genuine emergency as he acknowledged a small number of emergency calls had failed.

“We have seen a small number of reports that we are investigating and, as part of our standard process, we conduct welfare checks when any call to triple-zero fails and we’ve been doing this,” he told reporters.

“We do ask customers not to test and try out triple-zero unless you need triple-zero.”

Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed about 30 welfare checks have been made after triple-zero calls failed as she urged people not to make test calls.

Later on Wednesday, Telstra revealed a “secondary issue” may have blocked some Triple Zero calls, and that welfare checks were still underway.

Infrastructure Minister Kristy McBain issued a similar sentiment and called Henderson’s actions “outrageous”.

“The last thing we need is anyone making test calls to triple zero,” she said.

“We teach our kids not to prank call triple zero, and I think it is absolutely outrageous that the shadow communications minister has been making test calls to triple zero at a time where we need to make sure that we are doing as many welfare checks as possible and making sure that that network is open to people in emergency situations.”

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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor brushed off his frontbencher’s remarks after he was asked whether her actions were irresponsible and criticised the government instead.

“There’s questions that need to be answered from the government, and they haven’t been answered, and this is why people are trying to understand the situation,” he told reporters.

“I would encourage Australians not to use triple-zero if they don’t need to. Of course, that’s a sensible thing to do.”

Telstra assured users there is no evidence of malicious activity and is tracing the issue back to a number of servers inside data centres in Sydney and Melbourne.

The company is working to restore services and said 90 per cent of services have come back online.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will conduct an investigation once services are fully restored.