Angus Taylor has defended his shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson for making unnecessary triple-zero calls during Telstra's nationwide outage, calling it part of her job to test the system. The opposition leader's comments come as South Australian police investigate the death of an elderly person, which Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle claimed was a direct result of the service disruption.
Taylor dismissed concerns over Liddle's assertion, even as police initially stated they were unaware of any such death linked to the outage. The incident has reignited debate over telecommunications reliability and emergency service access in Australia, particularly for vulnerable populations.
Telstra, the country's largest telecom provider, experienced a major outage on Wednesday that disrupted triple-zero services nationwide. The full extent of the disruption and its impact on emergency calls remains under investigation by authorities.
The opposition leader framed Henderson's actions as a legitimate scrutiny of critical infrastructure, while critics argue unnecessary calls could overwhelm emergency services. No official confirmation of a causal link between the outage and the reported death has been made by police or Telstra.
Consumer advocates have called for a independent review of Telstra's network resilience and emergency call handling protocols, stressing that lives depend on unimpeded access to triple-zero services.