Sky News with Trudy McIntosh

PRESENTER TRUDY MCINTOSH: And to our major breaking story, and that is the ongoing fallout from Telstra's major outage. We will be hearing from the company's CFO at one o' clock to provide the latest information, but I'm joined now by the Emergency Management and Acting Transport Minister Kristy McBain. Kristy, thanks so much for your time today.

I know there's been back-to-back meetings, briefings, to try and get to the top of where we're at here. Can you give us what's the latest you've heard from Telstra on the status, in particular, of triple zero calls? MINISTER FOR EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND ACTING MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT, KRISTY MCBAIN: Well, it's great to be with you this afternoon.

Telstra, obviously, are providing an update at 1pm, but my understanding is that all triple zero calls are now being connected. But that update will be coming at 1pm, I'm sure, with a range of other information. Minister, have Telstra been forthcoming enough, in your view, with government as to where things are at?

I know Communications Minister Wells this morning said she was frustrated at the delay yesterday in terms of when her office was first told that Telstra was even having an issue. Minister Wells has obviously made some comments this morning. We would have liked to have known as soon as an outage occurred.

I understand that government and the public were made aware around the same time, which is when media inquiries began to roll in. I think it's frustrating, though. I mean, it's school holidays in every jurisdiction and we want people out and about with families, spending money in local businesses, taking part in local events.

And that was hard for business owners yesterday. So, I think Telstra will need to continue to provide updates and particularly to those businesses who may have lost customers yesterday. Have you been able to ascertain from Telstra yet, have they finished those crucial welfare checks that they were doing?

Are we confident that no one has died as a result of the outage? The update that we have is that there has been no adverse outcomes, but it is really important, I think, for people to continue to only use triple zero in the case of an emergency. Our emergency services workers do a tremendous job.

We shouldn't be making that job harder by testing or prank calling triple zero at a time where we know that there are some system issues. Those welfare checks have been completed and, as I said, my understanding is that there are no adverse outcomes. I know you've also been trying to get to the bottom of the ongoing train disruptions we've seen in Victoria, in particular, with The VLines.

What's the latest there? Have we got confirmation of when that's being resolved and do we know crucially why it failed? There are a range of the V/Line regional services in Victoria that have been impacted.

We're trying to get those lines back up and rolling as quickly as possible, but Transport Victoria have said that there will be buses in some of those areas that will continue. But they are putting information on their website as quickly as possible. The Hunter Line and the Southern Highlands Line in NSW are back up and running.

There will be some buses still supplementing services to make sure that we can get through the backlog of people there. In regards to freight rail, the ARTC have advised that they will start rolling stock as soon as trains and people become available. But it is another reason why this government has invested $2.8 billion in ARTC to make sure that we can upgrade infrastructure, make those tracks better, and ultimately give ARTC the ability to look at what other upgrades might be needed, including communications.

Did it alarm you yesterday to see that this outage can trigger such a flow on effect for crucial transport? Look, I think Telstra is going to have some questions to answer, not only from their customers, but from a range of people who have been impacted by this outage, which we understand was simply a time synchronisation issue. But it is really important that we now look at making our transport more resilient.

That's one of the reasons we've invested $2.8 billion into ARTC, so that they can have a look at not only the rolling upgrades on rails, but making sure that they've got the adequate communications technology that they need for that network. Unfortunately, the former government wasn't investing enough money into such a critical freight network like ARTC. And we've seen today, we've seen yesterday the impact of that.

Well, and yet even with your investment, this still went down. Is this effectively can never be 100% roll gold locked in, that there will inevitably be some issues like this in the future. It can't ever be completely secured?

Well, the $2.8 billion I referred to is the first major investment in ARTC in a number of years. We know that we've got to keep our transport and logistics operators moving. It's one of the reasons it has been such a big investment and it will also allow ARTC, as I said, to now have a look at some communications infrastructure that they've got in place and make sure that it's fit for the future.

Do you have confidence in the Telstra management's handling of this and should the CEO come back from holidays? Well, ultimately, that's a matter for Telstra. We understand people take leave and that's their right in workplace laws.

I think that the CFO has now been up on two separate occasions yesterday. He'll be out again at 1pm, you know, making some further statements. And I think it's important that Telstra continues to be transparent with the community about what they're doing and how they rectify this and as I said, more importantly, explain to those customers what's happened here.

Will you be pushing Telstra to have to face fines here or at least some sort of compensation for businesses and others who've been severely impacted? ACMA is currently doing an investigation and we'll leave that for them. We've seen in the past where we've had outages that the fines have been applied and it is up to that independent regulator to now do their work.

So, we'll save judgement for the investigation that they've got underway. But I'm as frustrated as anyone else. At a time where we do have a range of technologies that are meant to make life easier for people, we've seen a time synchronisation issue have a serious impact on businesses and local communities.

So, there's got to be some answers here. Triple Zero is such a crucial service in this country. We saw the major issues with Optus, separate issues there.

Yes. But now here we are sitting more than six months on from that and big issues with Telstra. Has the government failed to learn the lessons from Optus and ensure that our major telcos don't have these sort of unacceptable issues?

Number one, these telcos are privately owned companies and they need to answer to the Australian people about why their system has gone out. Number two, there's been some serious changes already made in legislation. We've legislated the Triple Zero custodian, we've increased penalties on telcos, we've mandated real time reporting of any incidents and we'll continue to see what else we can do to strengthen this.

I know that my colleague, Minister Wells, has got legislation before the Parliament to mandate a code of conduct. And if the coalition is serious, instead of issuing dissenting reports on that, perhaps they want to join forces and actually make sure that that code of conduct becomes mandated. Does the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, need to front up today?

I know she's copped a lot of flak in the last few months in the wake of Optus. She came back from holiday yesterday. She's going to be targeted.

You can already see it from the Opposition Leader, Angus Taylor. Does she need to continue to keep the heat on Telstra by fronting up today? Oh, look.

Angus Taylor, as the Leader of the Opposition, rolled out today and said that Labor sent two spin doctors out to address this issue. That was two Ministers of the government responsible in this patch. In the meantime, he commended one of his shadow Ministers for prank calling Triple Zero.

And I think that says everything you need to know about the modern Liberal Party. They're not prepared to actually back a government who's trying to enforce stronger standards on our telcos. And he's backing someone who's making prank calls to Triple Zero.

I mean, let's get serious here. This is a major issue. You've had both the Communications Minister and the Emergency Management Minister fronting up to media, answering questions.

But ultimately, we have a private company here who has had a serious issue. It is that company that needs to answer to the Australian people about why this has happened. And I'm glad that the acting CEO is going to be up again at 1pm to provide further updates because this has had a major knock-on effect, not only to customers and businesses, but to people who are going about their everyday lives.

You referred to Sarah Henderson there. She claims she didn't breach the law with those two test phone calls to Triple Zero. She says that's because the law speaks about you shouldn't call for a hoax or a vexatious call.

She says she was doing her job as the Shadow Communications Minister. Is that your understanding of the law? If you were doing a job as a Shadow Communications Minister, perhaps you'd ring the Communications Minister for a briefing.

Perhaps you'd get in touch with the Department of Communications for a briefing. Perhaps you would make contact with a Triple Zero custodian. I think the last thing you would do is prank call Triple Zero to see if it was working or not.

As we've already said as part of this interview, there are a range of people who have been out there doing welfare checks, including emergency services personnel, door knocking on people who had their calls dropped as part of this process. The last thing we want to see is emergency services personnel having to do welfare cheques and door knocks on a Senator from Victoria who was making prank calls to Triple Zero to see if it worked.

Kristy McBain, Emergency Management and acting Transport Minister. We appreciate your time to give us this update today. Thank you.