Andrew McKellar interview on ABC's The Business about Telstra
Transcript: 13 July 2026
Kirsten Aiken:
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry CEO Andrew McKellar says Telstra should act promptly. Welcome. Last week, Telstra said it was considering whether to offer compensation, but did Telstra really have any other choice but to offer recompense to affected businesses?
Andrew McKellar:
Well, look, I don't think they do have any choice. Telstra can afford to be generous and they should be fair in these circumstances. It should go beyond being simply a token offer that goes to any of these affected businesses.
Kirsten Aiken:
With the benefit of time, is it becoming clearer just how costly Telstra's outage was?
Andrew McKellar:
Oh, for some businesses it's going to be quite material. It's really not a case of one size fits all. Each case is going to be different, but certainly for many small businesses, particularly if they're operating online, they're reliant on those digital communications and payments systems, then there can be a significant impact in those cases. For others, it will be more an instance of inconvenience.
Kirsten Aiken:
And so what would be an acceptable timeframe for Telstra to resolve these issues?
Andrew McKellar:
Well, look, I think within the next billing cycle, I think certainly that as soon as they can quantify claims, then they really should be looking at how they offer some form of compensation and make that as timely as possible. Businesses shouldn't be waiting around. They've lost sales, that's lost revenue. They've got expenses and costs that they've got to meet. So whether that's paying their staff or meeting their energy costs or other bills, they've got to continue to pay those. So really we're urging Telstra to ensure that they're not leaving those customers dangling in those circumstances.
Kirsten Aiken:
A number of investigations into the outage are now underway, but is it becoming clearer that this is something Telstra could have avoided? Could Telstra have prevented this from taking place last week?
Andrew McKellar:
That seems to be the suggestion. And I think here it's not just Telstra. We've seen outages occurring with other telcos as well. And it doesn't seem to be the first time that it's relating to a software malfunction or a software coding error. So those circumstances are out there. I think really this is a fundamental point. We've got to learn from this experience. I think it's incumbent on each of the telcos and on the regulator, on the Communications and Media Authority. They've got to, I think, work very closely and stringently with the telcos to ensure that they are putting in place the systems to provide redundancy to minimise the risk that these sort of outages are occurring time and time again.
Kirsten Aiken:
Telstra's leadership will face a Senate grilling later this week. What do you expect that is going to be like? Do you have any questions for those senators?
Andrew McKellar:
We certainly wish them all well. I'm not sure that it'll be the most enjoyable process, but when something like this does happen, we've got to learn from it. And I think really that's why we'd say take action, be fair to your customers, do it quickly. And I think there should be an effort to really quantify what they think the impact of this should be to get clear, I think, commitments from the Telstra leadership about the timeframe that they're looking at to resolve these issues. And then of course, the measures that they're putting in place to ensure that we don't get a repeat of this for the future. Is there additional investment that needs to be undertaken? Are there additional systems that need to be put in place to ensure that we do have the redundancy in the systems to cover for this sort of contingency if it occurs again.
Kirsten Aiken:
Andrew McKellar, thank you.
Andrew McKellar:
Thanks very much, Kirsten.