Telstra has confirmed it will appear before a Senate inquiry to address a nationwide outage that blocked more than 600 Triple Zero (000) calls and caused significant disruptions to businesses and transport systems across Australia.

The inquiry, comprising senators from across the political spectrum, was initially established after last year's Optus network failure. It has now expanded to investigate the Telstra outage, with company executives required to give evidence on Friday.

A Telstra spokesman told ABC that the company would participate in the inquiry. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, chair of the Environment and Communications References Committee, said she expected Telstra's leadership to provide answers. She remarked, "Australians are sick and tired of the bad mobile phone service and this week's disruption exposed how vulnerable we all are when things go wrong."

Frontbencher Jason Clare stated the outage "should never have happened" and announced an investigation into whether Telstra complied with its legal and regulatory obligations, including recent government measures to strengthen the Triple Zero system.

Senator Hanson-Young highlighted government actions since September, noting, "We legislated the Triple Zero Custodian, we increased the fines to $30 million." She also emphasized the need for tougher regulations to protect customers from future outages.

Professor Gregory added context by noting that the relevant legislation was written in 1997, before the widespread use of the internet and smartphones.

The public and officials alike are calling for transparency and accountability in response to this significant failure, with potential civil penalties for Telstra reaching up to $30 million under new powers.

Sources