Telstra shareholders to quiz executives over July outage

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 12 Oct, 18:02 · Archive

Telstra shareholders will question executives at the company's annual meeting in Sydney on Tuesday about a July outage that disrupted mobile services for millions of Australians.

Telstra shareholders will get their chance to question executives about a nationwide outage that damaged the firm's reputation as Australia's top mobile operator at its annual meeting in Sydney on Tuesday. The July incident is expected to dominate discussion.

The outage disrupted public transport networks, EFTPOS systems and hundreds of triple zero emergency calls. An external review by Technology Audit Partners found the disruption resulted primarily from Telstra not treating network timing as a critical capability requiring the highest levels of oversight. The outage began in the early hours after a planned change to a timing chassis in Melbourne triggered rolling network failures due to an incorrect internal date being set. Ownership for network timing issues was insufficiently defined and there was insufficient technical expertise available to deal with the problem when it arose.

The outage triggered a Senate inquiry and an ongoing investigation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Telstra's board reduced chief executive Vicki Brady's pay package by $607,000 for 2025/26, bringing her total compensation to $6.8 million, and docked the short-term incentive pay of nine other senior executives by a total of $1.3 million. However, the board complimented Ms Brady on her overall performance for the year, and the Australian Shareholders Association intends to vote in favour of her pay packet.

How it is being reported

• Telstra execs face shareholder grilling over outageThe July outage that knocked out mobile service for millions of Australians is expected to be a key issue under discussion at Telstra's annual meeting.The West Australian · 12 Oct, 17:32
• Telstra execs face shareholder grilling over outageThe July outage that knocked out mobile service for millions of Australians is expected to be a key issue under discussion at Telstra's annual meeting.Perth Now · 12 Oct, 17:32

In this story: Telstra · Vicki Brady · Melbourne · Sydney · Australian Communications and Media Authority · Technology Audit Partners · Australian Shareholders Association

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