{"id":788086,"date":"2026-07-09T00:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788086\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T00:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T00:43:10","slug":"telstra-mobile-network-outage-liberal-senator-sarah-henderson-defends-testing-triple-zero-during-telstra-outage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/788086\/","title":{"rendered":"Telstra mobile network outage: Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson defends \u2018testing\u2019 Triple Zero during Telstra outage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarah Henderson insists she was acting within her remit as Shadow Communications Minister when she test-called Triple Zero during Wednesday\u2019s Telstra outage<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sarah Henderson claimed her \u201cunique position\u201d allowed her to make a test call to Triple Zero during Wednesday\u2019s outage.\u00a0Alex Ellinghausen<\/p>\n

Henderson has not apologised for her actions, and instead claimed she had special privileges due to her role within the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was simply, as the shadow Minister for Communications, making those initial calls to work out whether the camping on system was actually operating,\u201d\u00a0she told 2GB on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI accept the criticism, but what I will say is that I am in a unique position holding this government to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the outage, which caused chaos around the country including in her state of Victoria, should never have happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelstra\u2019s network is critical infrastructure; this should simply not be happening,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Henderson initially admitted to making the calls to the emergency network in the early stages of Wednesday\u2019s outage in an interview with Sky News.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn relation to triple-zero, I actually tested it myself,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cNow, Telstra is making very clear, please do not test triple-zero. The triple-zero network, I understand, is sound, is working. <\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Liberal shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson has admitted to calling triple-zero to test if the Telstra outage had impacted emergency calls.\u00a0Sky News<\/p>\n

Calling triple-zero without reporting an emergency and for any other reason is a crime, according to the criminal code. <\/p>\n

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

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth\u00a0criticised Henderson\u2019s actions, believing it was irresponsible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was not okay from a government shadow minister,\u201d she said on Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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\u2019ve been doing this,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do ask customers not to test and try out triple-zero unless you need triple-zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Telstra chief financial officer Michael Ackland speaks after a major network outage this morning.\u00a0Alexander Darling<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Later on Wednesday, Telstra revealed a \u201csecondary issue\u201d may have blocked some Triple Zero calls, and that welfare checks were still underway.<\/p>\n

Infrastructure Minister Kristy McBain issued a similar sentiment and called Henderson\u2019s actions \u201coutrageous\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing we need is anyone making test calls to triple zero,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor brushed off his frontbencher\u2019s remarks after he was asked whether her actions were irresponsible and criticised the government instead. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s questions that need to be answered from the government, and they haven\u2019t been answered, and this is why people are trying to understand the situation,\u201d he told reporters. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would encourage Australians not to use triple-zero if they don\u2019t need to. Of course, that\u2019s a sensible thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The company is working to restore services and said 90 per cent of services have come back online.<\/p>\n

The Australian Communications and Media Authority will conduct an investigation once services are fully restored. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sarah Henderson insists she was acting within her remit as Shadow Communications Minister when she test-called Triple Zero…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-788086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}