Shadow Minister for Regional Health, Shadow Minister for Regional Communications - Member for Mallee - Transcript - Sky News - Laura Jayes- Friday 10 July 2026

‍

‍DR ANNE WEBSTER MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL HEALTH

SHADOW MINISTER FOR REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

FEDERAL MEMBER FOR MALLEE

‍

TOPICS: Telstra outage, CEO response, Triple Zero,  transport and business impacts, SA Police investigation, cost of system resilience

‍

Jayes  

But in the meantime, the Shadow Regional Health and Communications Minister, Anne Webster, joins me. And what do you want to hear from Vicki Brady today?

Webster  

Look, I think Vicki has some explanation to provide Australians about why this happened, how this happened, how they are mitigating their systems to ensure this never happens again. The whole emergency services process, the emergency calls, triple zero is a complicated web. Let's face that, it's federal, it's state, it's telcos, it's the ability for other telcos to camp on, you know, it's... it is complex. There is no two ways about it, but she needs to explain what has happened in this so-called software timing issue, and how it will be rectified, so it doesn't occur again. Australians want to be able to rely on communications. We had businesses close, they couldn't use EFTPOS, so they closed. Obviously, we've had trains stop in the Hunter and Southern Highlands, and in Victoria, with people stranded. This is ... it always comes back to people's lives and how these failures impact everyday people.

Jayes  

I agree, Anne. I mean, it does. It comes back to people's lives, and the triple zero issue. It seems that Kerrynne Liddle, after being criticised, has been somewhat vindicated as well.

Webster  

Well, you know, the South Australian Police have come out and said, you know, they're investigating. That is good news. What I'm curious about is how many other situations are being replicated that we don't know about yet, so how many potentially other deaths have occurred through this outage as well? It's pretty disastrous. We are so reliant now on technology and on communications that you know we can't afford to have it fall over,

Jayes  

But Anne, let's can we be realistic for a moment. I agree with everything that you've said, but I mean, do we need to be realistic about how foolproof these systems are from time to time? I think what we can all generally accept that there's going to be issues, nationwide outages is not something that we would want to accept, but can you, for want of a better term, ‘gold plate’ the system, and do we need to accept that there's probably a taxpayer cost to that?

Webster  

Look, I think inevitably, well, it seems to be in absolutely every sector, taxpayers pay, as we're finding out under Labor, we're paying an awful lot for failed systems, and I hope we can get on and talk about Accenture as one case later, but the issue is....

Jayes  

We might have to talk about Accenture another time. I'm sorry to cut you off there. Vicki. Here's Vicki Brady, she's come back from leave to give this media comment...

‍