Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson called 000 to determine if the Telstra outage had affected it. Photo: Instagram.
Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson has suddenly found herself in the ridiculous position of having to explain why she called Triple Zero during this week’s Telstra outage even though she was in no need of emergency assistance.
It’s ridiculous because she shouldn’t have to defend the action.
She holds the Opposition’s communications portfolio; there was a massive network failure; she needed to speak with authority on the matter.
That should be the beginning and end of any explanation the shadow minister has to do.
Feigned outrage otherwise – from Labor and elsewhere – is nothing more than politicking and attempts to distract attention from the actual crisis.
It is a Commonwealth offence to make prank and nonsense 000 phone calls and that’s a good law.
Senator Henderson’s test calls were none of the above.
They were a legitimate effort to determine if the network was working as it should amid reports of a system failure.
She hasn’t said exactly how many times she tried to call the network, but says she failed to connect to Triple Zero twice.
“I was simply, as the shadow minister for communications, making those initial calls to work out whether the system was actually operating,” Senator Henderson said on Thursday (9 July).
“I was doing my job, and there is a provision in the criminal code that if you make hoax or vexatious calls, that can be in breach.
“I accept the criticism, but what I will say is that I am in a unique position, holding this government to account.”
That really should be the end of the matter. Imagine if she had fronted up calling for the government to pull out all stops to get the emergency network back up if it wasn’t actually down.
Emergency Management Minister Kristy McBain, however, vented the government’s frustration that Henderson, who hails from Victoria, would dare be so proactive.
“The last thing we need is anyone making test calls to Triple Zero,” the minister said.
“We teach our kids not to prank call Triple Zero, and I think it is absolutely outrageous that the shadow communications minister has been making test calls to Triple Zero.”
The minister went so far as to say that Senator Henderson’s defence of her actions, and her support from Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, tells us “everything you need to know about the modern Liberal Party”.
McBain thinks Henderson should have contacted the Federal Government for a briefing on the Telstra outage instead of test-calling Triple Zero.
“Perhaps you’d get in touch with the Department of Communications for a briefing; perhaps you would make contact with the Triple Zero Custodian,” Ms McBain said.
“I think the last thing you would do is prank call Triple Zero.
“The last thing we want to see is emergency service personnel having to do welfare checks and doorknocks on a Senator for Victoria.”
That’s all very dramatic talk, but Henderson was not prank-calling Triple Zero or anyone else, and the minister’s attempt to frame it as such is mischievous.
And we can just imagine what type of briefing would have been afforded the shadow minister – and how (un)timely it would have been – in the midst of a crisis the government didn’t want to take any blame over.
What Labor’s outcry succeeded in doing was to allow the Coalition to ask where the government was at the height of the crisis.
Specifically, if Communications Minister Anika Wells was going to interrupt her leave (which she did).
“If the minister hadn’t been absent for seven hours, Sarah wouldn’t have had to do these things (test-call 000),” the Opposition Leader said.
“These actions were not illegal, and they were made necessary by complete and utter failure from this minister, and that should be the focus of the press, and it should be the focus of the nation…
“I would encourage Australians not to use Triple Zero, of course, if they don’t need to. Of course, that’s a sensible thing to do.
“But we need answers to these questions in the absence of answers.”
Original Article published by Chris Johnson on Region Canberra.
