Telstra CEO Vicki Brady rejects bonus calls as Australia outage and South Australia death probe continue

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady has deflected questions over whether senior managers should have their bonuses cut after returning from leave to confront the fallout from this week’s nationwide network outage.

Ms Brady said Telstra had found no evidence that earlier job cuts contributed to the failure, which disrupted mobile services for millions of Australians, affected public transport networks and prevented some small businesses from processing payments.

She also said the telco had found no evidence linking the outage to the death of an elderly woman in South Australia.

Ms Brady said Telstra’s mobile network, including triple-0 connectivity, had been fully restored and repeatedly apologised for the disruption, which began about 4.30am on Wednesday and continued into Thursday.

“There is no indication that any restructuring of jobs has impacted on this particular issue, she said. “As I said, we will complete the investigation and any of those lessons out of that. We will be very transparent and are committed to implementing changes that might be needed.”

Ms Brady added that the company allocates significant amounts of money into network security and resilience and suggested the fault was down to faulty data centre equipment, rather than human error, or a lack of investment.

The telco boss also deflected questions about whether senior management should face pay cuts for an outage that damaged thousands of small businesses.

“We again have very clear processes and governance when it comes to bonuses and remuneration,” she said. “That process will happen, and it will be overseen by our board.”

Telstra denies link to South Australian death

Chief financial officer Michael Ackland also said Telstra had found no call records indicating that a South Australian household’s triple-0 call failed to connect because of the outage.

“We’ve conducted a detailed review of our network records using the information provided to us, as well as a number of services associated with the same [caller’s] address,” said Mr Ackland.

“To date, we can see no record of calls from those numbers accessing Telstra’s mobile network to call triple-0, and more broadly, no record of any calls from those numbers to the triple zero class.”

South Australian police has said the cause or circumstances surrounding the death are not known but will now be subject to investigation.

Telstra shares traded up 0.4 per cent to $5 near Friday lunchtime.