Angus Taylor and the Coalition have squandered a prime opportunity to pressure the government over the second major telco breakdown in 12 months, as their own communications failures dominated headlines. Millions of phone connections went out for hours on Wednesday, halting trains, freezing Eftpos transactions, and causing hundreds of triple-zero calls to fail, prompting urgent welfare checks. While Telstra bears the bulk of the blame, the opposition could have questioned whether the sector is adequately regulated and whether lessons from last year's Optus outage have been implemented. Instead, Taylor's press conference on Thursday was spent defending a series of self-inflicted wounds.
Gaffes Undermine Opposition's Message
Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson admitted to calling triple-zero to 'test' the system, an act the government seized on as potentially unlawful. She spent a torturous 12-minute ABC interview defending her conduct, saying she was 'doing my job' but 'accept the criticism'. Acting communications minister Kristy McBain accused her of 'prank calling triple zero'. Meanwhile, Taylor himself invoked the possibility of Chinese interference in the outage, a theory with no evidence that experts have dismissed. By Thursday afternoon, no evidence of malicious foreign activity had been found.
Communications minister Anika Wells rushed back from leave to hold a press conference at 1:45pm, while Taylor criticised her for 'seven hours [saying] nothing', ignoring that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had already given an update and McBain had issued a statement. The Coalition's attacks appeared poorly coordinated, with Taylor's own timeline contradicted by the facts.
Internal Frustration Grows
There is growing frustration among some in the Coalition that under Taylor, the opposition is spending too much time cleaning up its own errors. 'They are conceding avoidable own goals when they should be booting the ball into the open net of Labor's mistakes,' one source noted. Last month, when the government confirmed a deal with the Greens to ram through contentious tax changes—a move the Coalition called a 'broken promise'—Taylor instead made headlines by tripping over whether he backed multiculturalism in Australia.
The opposition has fertile ground to heap pressure on the government, but its own communications failures are proving a distraction. As the adage goes, 'never waste a crisis'—but Taylor's mantra increasingly seems to be 'never fail to waste a crisis'.
SA Police Confirm Death Amid Claims
Further complicating matters, South Australian police minister Michael Brown initially challenged a claim by senator Kerrynne Liddle that a person had died after being unable to reach emergency services. Brown said claims must be backed up. Liddle responded she was 'disappointed' Brown questioned her integrity. Late Thursday, SA police confirmed contact with the deceased's family and that a person died in a regional hospital on Wednesday; the death will be investigated by the coroner. This confirmation came after Taylor spent his press conference defending himself and his colleagues.
