A massive Telstra outage that impacted millions of Australians has been blamed on an “unreliable network” caused by the offshoring of hundreds of jobs to India.
The nationwide outage, which started in the early hours of Wednesday, led to hundreds of Triple-Zero calls failing, and disrupted mobile calls, data services, some EFTPOS systems, and public transport networks until services were restored at 4pm.
The outage occurred as chief executive Vicki Brady, who is paid $6.7 million a year to run the telecommunications giant, was on an overseas holiday, forcing chief financial officer Michael Ackland to address the media in her absence.
Ms Brady, who regularly posts about diversity, equity and inclusion on social media, is anti-Australia Day, and lives in a $7.6 million mansion on Sydney’s north shore, has moved forward her return to Australia to Friday.
Internal Telstra sources told The Sydney Morning Herald the outage was caused by a software bug triggered by a botched firmware upgrade, but Communication Workers Union national secretary Shane Murphy said the “utterly shameful” outage was a direct result of recent job cuts.
More than 400 jobs were moved to Indian technology Infosys in February, and Ms Brady told staff by email at the time they could reapply with the India-based company or take a redundancy.
“This is what happens when you prioritise the bottom line over critical services, you get an unreliable network that lets Australians down time and time again,” Mr Murphy told news.com.au.
“It is disgraceful to see one of the nation’s largest carriers make shocking cuts to its workforce – the individuals who keep us connected – and witness the detrimental impact on the quality of services.
“Telstra exists to connect Australians to the essential services they rely on – not to line the pockets of its executives.”
But Mr Ackland disputed Mr Murphy’s claims, and said: “I don’t see any link with this and any workforce changes or workforce issues that have occurred over the last number of years with Telstra.”
Victoria’s regional rail network was brought to a halt by the outage, which also caused train delays in NSW, prevented electric vehicle charger payments, and may have resulted in a death.
South Australian Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle said her office had received a report that an elderly person had died as a result of being unable to connect to Triple-Zero, but South Australia Police said they were not aware of any deaths linked to the outage.
The outage comes after Indian IT engineers were blamed for a 13-hour Triple-Zero outage on rival network Optus that left at least three people dead across Australia in September.
In 2024 a major Telstra network failure prevented some customers from reaching Triple-Zero, and resulted in a $3 million penalty from the Australian Communications and Media Authority.
Header image: Left, Ms Brady wearing a kangaroo hide after attending an indigenous event in Perth (LinkedIn). Right, a map of the outage.
