Queensland Police Conduct Welfare Checks on 21 Triple-Zero Callers After Telstra Outage

Queensland police have conducted welfare checks on 21 people whose Triple-Zero emergency calls failed to connect during Wednesday's nationwide Telstra outage, with officers dispatched to seven homes after those callers could not be reached by phone. The incident has prompted ongoing investigations into the full impact of the network failure on emergency services across the country.

What Happened to Triple-Zero Calls During the Telstra Outage

The Telstra network failure, which began in the early hours of Wednesday morning, cut mobile phone and data access for millions of Australians, disrupted payment terminals and brought some passenger train services to a standstill. Telstra attributed the disruption to a critical software defect in its data centres, and said its network had been fully restored by 4pm on Wednesday.

As part of the fallout, the telco identified that more than 300 Triple-Zero calls had been affected across the country — a figure its chief financial officer Michael Ackland acknowledged was more significant than initially understood. In total, Telstra completed 333 welfare checks on customers whose emergency calls were unsuccessful or dropped out after connecting. Those checks were carried out through SMS, phone calls and, where necessary, physical visits by police.

Ackland offered a direct apology for the failures. "We let customers down today in their hour of need. There's nothing that makes that untrue for many of those customers who are in traumatic situations, and we apologise for that deeply," he said.

Telstra also disclosed a secondary issue that emerged later in the day, warning that some devices might still be experiencing difficulties connecting to emergency services. The company advised customers who encountered an error message when calling Triple-Zero to wait up to 90 seconds for their phone to connect to an alternative network, or to use a different handset entirely.

Queensland's 21 Failed Calls: What Police Found

In Queensland, Superintendent Brook Dwyer confirmed that police had identified 21 people who had attempted to call Triple-Zero since Wednesday morning but were unable to get through. She said "every single person" had since been contacted.

Of those 21 cases, police determined that seven were accidental calls and one person no longer required any assistance. Five callers had needed Queensland Ambulance Service, but in each of those cases someone else had already contacted emergency services on their behalf.

In one case, emergency services were initially unable to locate a caller. Officers later tracked the person's phone and confirmed they were holidaying in Victoria and were safe.

"We actually had seven matters where we couldn't get in touch with the persons so we sent police cars to all of those people," Superintendent Dwyer said.

She also relayed Telstra's advice that anyone who failed to connect to Triple-Zero should try calling again, noting that second attempts had successfully connected during the outage.

National Picture: Hundreds of Checks, a Disputed Death Claim

Welfare checks following failed Triple-Zero calls were not limited to Queensland. Across the country, Telstra said approximately 79 people could not be contacted through SMS or phone, prompting police to attend their homes in person. In New South Wales, police were asked to carry out 13 in-person welfare checks, with four still to be completed at the time of reporting, though no adverse outcomes had been identified. Western Australian police also confirmed they had conducted at least one welfare check.

A number of the affected calls were successfully redirected through the Optus and TPG networks during the outage period.

The outage also sparked a disputed claim from a South Australian senator, who posted on social media that her office had received a report of a tragic death involving an elderly person who was allegedly unable to reach Triple-Zero during a life-or-death emergency. South Australian Police flatly rejected the claim, stating they were not aware of any death in that state as a result of the Telstra outage. Police also responded directly to the senator's social media post to reiterate that position.

Government Response and What Comes Next

Communications Minister Anika Wells moved to contextualise the incident, drawing a distinction between Wednesday's event and a previous major telecommunications outage that was linked to multiple deaths. "This is not a Triple-Zero outage," she said. "This is a Telstra retail outage that has affected their customers right across the country."

Investigations into the precise cause of the software defect and its full impact on emergency services were continuing. Ackland said Telstra was confident its teams had isolated the fault but acknowledged that the process that allowed it to occur needed to be examined and fixed.

"The fact that it occurred means that there is something in our process that we need to fix and to change — we are working through that," he said.

For a full account of how the broader outage unfolded and its wider effects on mobile services, see our earlier coverage of the Telstra outage and Triple-Zero warning that emerged as the network failure spread across Australia.