News and politics live updates: Telstra CFO Michael Ackland ‘deeply sorry’, reveals scale of Triple-0 outage

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“We know how much our customers rely on us,” Tesltra CFO Michael Ackland said.

“We are deeply sorry for the impact this has had today.

“I want to thank you also for your patience… we don’t take that patience for granted.”

Mr Ackland there was “absolutely no doubt” the telco had created a level of anxiety for customers in their hour of need.

“We let cusomters down today in their hour of need. We take this incredibly seriously and I think they can trust us that we’re investing and that we’re learning.”

He also revealed tha Telstra CEO Vicki Brady had cut short her overseas family holiday and would be back in Australia before the end of the week.

“This was not the result of a cyber attack,” Mr Ackland said.

The telco believes a ‘software defect’ was to blame for the outage.

He added that cusomters should be wary of anyone calling from Telstra and asking for personal details.

“I also want to ask customers to be extra vigilant about calls they might receive from people saying they are from Telstra,” he said.

“If they’re asking you for details, hang up and call us back.”

Telstra CFO Michael Ackland has addressed reporters after the major Telstra outage in which Triple-0 calls were affected.

He has revealed that 333 calls to Triple-0 failed and required welfare checks from Telstra.

Of the calls made, 333 were identified as needing welfare checks.

All of those welfare checks began via SMS, to which 138 customers replied and said they did not need emergency assistance.

They called the remaining 189, and 110 of those told Telstra over the phone that they didn’t need assistance.

Mr Ackland said 79 could not be contacted and police officers across the country were making physical welfare checks.

Six customers informed Teslstra that they did need assistance, which was arranged.

Shadow Communications Minister Sarah Henderson has defended calling Triple Zero after facing criticism over the move.

Ms Henderson was questioned by Patricia Karvelas on the ABC about whether she would apologise for making the calls, noting that hoax and nuisance calls to emergency services are a criminal offence.

Ms Henderson rejected the suggestion her actions were inappropriate, arguing her calls were made in her role overseeing the communications portfolio.

“Let me just say that’s an outrageous claim,” she said.

“The law relates to those who make hoax calls or vexatious calls.”

Ms Henderson said many Australians had lost confidence in the nation’s telecommunications systems and the Albanese government’s management of the Triple Zero network.

“As the Shadow Minister for Communications, responsible for this portfolio, I made those calls and discovered that I could not connect to Triple Zero,” she said.

“I was concerned about the wellbeing of Australians.”

She said she then raised the issue with a senior Telstra representative.

A union has salmmed Telstra’s national outage, saying the teclo’s decision to axe hundreds of jobs has rendered an “unreliable network”.

Communication Workers Union national secretary Shane Murphy said the chaos can in part be blamed on Telstra’s move to sack hundred of workers over the past year.

“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,” he said.

“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 announced 650 jobs were on the line or at risk of being outsourced to Indian firm Infosys in February. Eight months prior another 550 workers were laid-off.

Mr Murphy said the telco company needed to do better to provide a reliable service for Australians.

“Telstra needs to own up to its mistakes and do better. This cannot happen again; the consequences are far too great,” he said.

“Telstra exists to connect Australians to the essential services they rely on – not to line the pockets of its executives.”

Australia is more than 112,000 homes behind its target of 1.2 million by mid-2029, new building data shows.

The nation’s builders have completed 307,635 homes since the commencement of the national housing accord in the third quarter of 2024, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday.

While the number of homes under construction has been trending steadily higher, the industry remains far below the required rate to meet the target.

Assuming a steady pace of dwelling completions, Australia should have already built 420,000 homes by now.

To catch up by the end date of June 30, 2029, Australia needs to build more than 274,000 homes each year, or about 69,000 each quarter. A 0.4 per cent fall in dwellings completed in the March quarter to 43,816 won’t help.

The quarter was impacted by the Middle East conflict and a return to rising interest rates, Master Builders Australia chief economist Shane Garrett said.

“Home building activity has been hurt by escalations in building costs and continued shortages of skilled tradies,” he said.

“The ABS figures show building activity remains below the level needed and, at the same time, builders are telling us that uncertainty created by the federal budget is affecting confidence and slowing investment decisions.”

- with AAP

Within hours of Telstra’s major outage, speculation was running ahead of evidence about the true source of the national chaos.

Deputy One Nation leader Barnaby Joyce suggested Chinese hackers may have been behind the disruption, linking the outage to Beijing’s known cyber capabilities and broader strategic assertiveness in the region.

“I don’t want to be paranoid, or a conspiracy theorist,” Mr Joyce said. “But we know there’s the capacity for China to affect that sort of software or network.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was more careful, saying he had “no idea” whether there was any connection between the outage and China’s sea-based missile launch in the South Pacific this week. But he also said he understands why Australians were “drawing that connection”.

The problem is zero evidence has been presented linking China, or any other hacker group to Telstra’s outage.

​Read the full story. ​

Anika Wells has dismissed suggestions of foreign interference in the nationwide Telstra outage, saying there is no evidence to support the claims.

Asked about comments from Barnaby Joyce raising the prospect of foreign involvement, Ms Wells said it was irresponsible to speculate while investigations were ongoing.

“When it comes to matters of national security, you shouldn’t make stuff up,” she said, adding there was currently no evidence to suggest foreign interference was behind the outage, deeming the claim “irresponsible”.

Communications Minister Anika Wells says investigations are underway after some Telstra customers were unable to connect to Triple Zero during the nationwide outage, with authorities reviewing the failed calls and examining who knew what, and when, as the disruption unfolded.

Ms Wells said she shared the frustration felt by Australians but did not confirm how many emergency calls failed to connect or whether there had been any fatalities linked to the outage.

More than three dozen welfare checks were still being carried out, while she stressed this was not a Triple Zero system failure, but rather a Telstra network outage.

She said the immediate priority was restoring services for all customers, including small businesses, adding it would ultimately be up to Telstra to rebuild trust with Australians following the disruption.