What’s making headlines
Hello and welcome to our national news live coverage for Thursday, July 9. Here’s what’s making headlines today.
Telstra outage: Just hours after the telco said it resolved an outage that crippled its mobile services for much of yesterday, Telstra was urgently investigating a second network fault last night that was stopping some calls from connecting, including to Triple Zero.
Transport: As a result of the Telstra outage, Victoria’s V/Line services will continue to be affected this morning, and in NSW, regional trains on parts of the Southern Highlands line and Hunter line are being replaced by buses for a second day.
Middle East at war: The US military has launched fresh strikes on Iran. It comes just hours after US President Donald Trump said the ceasefire was over following Iranian attacks on American military sites in the Gulf.
Politics: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi are set to strike a breakthrough deal to unleash a surge of Australian uranium exports to India. Modi, one of the world’s most powerful leaders, arrived in Melbourne last night for meetings with Albanese today.
State of Origin: NSW defeated Queensland 30-12 on Wednesday night’s decider at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.
Software glitch confirmed as the cause of ‘unfortunate incident’
Telstra has confirmed reports from this masthead that a software glitch that sent network timing back almost two decades was responsible for yesterday’s widespread outage.
“There was a glitch in the software that reset the GPS timer,” chief financial officer Michael Ackland said this afternoon.
“It was a software glitch that caused the time to click back.”
Ackland’s comments confirmed earlier reports in this masthead about the cause of the outage.
Telstra defends taking hours to tell government about outage
Telstra executive Michael Ackland has defended taking hours to tell the government that its network had gone down on Wednesday morning.
Customers began complaining around 3am, Telstra picked it up around 4.30am and Communications Minister Anika Wells was told 2½ hours later – around 7am. She said yesterday that she should have been told earlier.
“We will always communicate with customers first when we see that there is an issue and there are certain thresholds as to … when our obligations are to communicate with everyone,” Ackland said.
“As soon as the incident reached that threshold, we communicated within minutes to the minister.”
More than 600 failed calls: The Telstra outage in numbers
Continuing on from Telstra boss Michael Ackland’s update on the outage, where he said everyone could now “feel confident in calling Triple Zero” despite two successive network failures.
Ackland said there were 639 welfare checks in total, or failed calls, from the start of the outage until now:
- 230 callers advised by SMS response that no assistance was required
- 170 of 402 required follow-up voice calls were passed to the police
- Seven callers needed assistance and were referred to the relevant emergency services
Subsequent Telstra issue required different approach, CFO says
The “subsequent issue” failing to connect calls to Triple Zero identified by Telstra late on Wednesday was caused by the same software defect that sparked the widespread outage earlier in the day, the telco’s chief financial officer Michael Ackland said this afternoon.
“The nature of this only became apparent as we resolved the original issue,” Ackland said.
“Some people received an error message, and then their phone would go and try to connect an alternative mobile network, as it should. The issue was a consequence of the same software defect that I talked to you about yesterday,” he told reporters this afternoon.
But the issue needed to be addressed differently.
“Overnight, our teams made good progress, significantly reducing the occurrence of failed calls to Triple Zero, and we’ve now implemented a solution that has addressed the impact of this issue,” Ackland said.
“Mobile networks are complex, and we will continue to work through further changes to ensure we have the most robust solution. But customers can feel confident in calling Triple Zero.”
Watch live: Telstra boss provides update on mass outage
Telstra’s chief financial officer Michael Ackland is speaking at Telstra’s Melbourne headquarters about the nationwide network outage.
Watch below:
More details on 22-year-old far-right influencer who gatecrashed Indian PM’s hotel
We have more details on the far-right influencer who gatecrashed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Melbourne hotel last night.
Neo-Nazi associate Hugo Lennon, a wealthy property development heir turned far-right influencer, posted footage of the stunt, which police said happened after midnight – about 12:30am on Thursday.
In the video, police officers quickly swarm Lennon and drag him away from the first-floor balcony overlooking the hotel lobby as he bellows “f— Modi!” and “f— India!” to people below.
Victorian police did not answer questions regarding how Lennon knew where the Indian prime minister was staying but confirmed a 22-year-old man “attended a hotel and shouted political statements”.
“He was moved on by police without incident,” a Victoria Police spokesperson said.
Victoria Police stressed officers would be out in force in Melbourne’s CBD during the dignitary visit.
Taylor backs Henderson over Triple Zero calls
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has defended the actions of communications spokeswoman Sarah Henderson, declaring she needed to call Triple Zero yesterday to check if the system was working.
Henderson has been accused of clogging up the Triple Zero system and potentially preventing someone in need from getting through to emergency services during the Telstra network outage.
The Liberal senator has refused to apologise for her actions, which she has described as necessary to hold the government to account.
Taylor said on Thursday that Henderson was forced to call Triple Zero because on Wednesday, Communications Minister Anika Wells did not speak to the public for about seven hours after Telstra’s outage kicked off.
“The shadow minister had to do what she had to do because of the failure of the minister,” he said.
“We are not in power, we don’t have access to the resources of Labor, but they have completely failed Australians and Sarah was doing her job.”
Regional rail services returning to normal after Telstra outage
Australia’s interstate rail manager says passenger and freight trains halted by the Telstra outage are progressively returning to normal.
The National Train Communications System has resumed functioning reliably after the telco’s 4G network was restored. The network uses 4G to connect drivers and train crews with control centres via in-cab radio.
Passenger services, including Victoria’s V/Line and some regional NSW trains, as well as interstate passenger trains, are being given priority as part of the staged return of service.
“Individual operators require time to position trains and crews before normal timetables can resume,” the Australian Rail Track Corporation said in a statement this morning.
Indian PM meets with Australia’s top CEOs
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met with a clutch of Australia’s leading business chief executives as his country explores ways to leverage relations with Australia.
Attendees at the high-level chief executive forum included BHP head Geraldine Slattery, the boss of ANZ Nuno Matos and head of GrainCorp Robert Spurway. Topics discussed included business investment and the digital economy.
Modi is on a three-day visit to Melbourne, his third visit to Australia in 12 years since he became India’s prime minister in 2014.
Also at the CEO forum, which was hosted by Business Council of Australia chief Bran Black, was AustralianSuper CEO Paul Schroder and Sydney Airport boss Scott Charlton.
Members of Albanese’s team were also there, including Education Minister Jason Clare and Resources Minister Madeline King.
Albanese embraces Modi as Indian PM calls Australia a ‘trusted partner’
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has described Australia as a “trusted partner”.
Speaking at the Australia-India Economic Roadmap Business Reception event in Melbourne’s Sofitel Hotel, Modi said the relationship between the two nations presented “historic opportunities” in areas including critical minerals, green hydrogen, solar and nuclear sectors.
He said the Australian and Indian education sectors had “natural synergies” and provided opportunities for “talent partnerships” and mobility of people.
Infrastructure projects like airports, railways and roads also presented ways for Australia and India to do business, Modi said.
Albanese and Modi concluded their remarks by taking a selfie.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
