Source : Perth Now news
A Liberal senator has doubled down on her decision to make test calls to triple zero to see if they would go through during the Telstra outage.
Sarah Henderson, the opposition’s communication’s spokeswoman, made two calls to the triple zero network after the service was disrupted by the widespread outage.
Making false calls to triple zero is a criminal offence with a maximum penalty of three years in prison, and Senator Henderson’s test calls have been criticised by Labor as irresponsible.
But the senator has insisted she was within her right to make the test calls.
“I was simply, as the shadow minister for communications, making those initial calls to work out whether the … system was actually operating,” she told Sydney radio station 2GB on Thursday.
“I accept the criticism, but what I will say is that I am in a unique position holding this government to account.”
Industry Minister Tim Ayres said making the calls at a time when the emergency phone network was being impacted was reckless.
“I was absolutely shocked by that revelation. I just say to Australians, don’t do what she did,” he told ABC Radio.
“It’s utterly irresponsible. I just don’t know why anybody would do that, but I’d certainly say nobody should follow her example.”
Telstra completed almost 400 welfare checks on people who had called triple zero but failed to be connected during the outage as of Wednesday evening.
Of those, six people required emergency assistance while 79 were referred to police for physical welfare checks.
The telco is investigating a second outage which prevented people from making calls, including to triple zero.
Opposition regional communications spokeswoman Anne Webster defended the conduct of Senator Henderson, saying the test calls were necessary.
“She’s the shadow minister, she needs to know whether it works or doesn’t work … I would have thought that it was reasonable,” she told ABC Radio.
“People want to know. I mean we’re a curious set of beings, aren’t we?”
Opposition defence spokesman James Paterson described the criticism levelled at Senator Henderson as an attempt at point scoring.
“This is an absolutely desperate attempt from the government to try and distract from their own failures,” he told Sky News.
“I understand why she did what she did. It’s certainly not an offence, and if the government was serious, they would have to put up or shut up here.”
