Exclusive: Liddle calls out Labor ‘pile on’ over Telstra outage post
In her only interview over a controversial post linking the Telstra outage to a woman’s death, Senator Kerrynne Liddle is not holding back. Mike Smithson discusses the government singling her out for criticism “rather than turning the screws on Telstra”.
Telstra’s catastrophic system failure early last Wednesday morning has sent a series of shudders through that company and plunged an SA family into the despair of a lost loved one while dealing with unwanted attention.
A woman died in hospital amid initial claims her partner was unable to connect to triple zero during the national outage.
That assertion from SA Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle now has been ruled out as a factor in her death, but claims, counterclaims and accusations were still flying long after the telco reconnected with its customers.
Liddle was immediately drawn into a web of criticism from the state Labor government that she had not acted appropriately or responsibly.
That followed the federal senator’s Facebook post on the outage day where Liddle revealed that she had received a report of a tragic death following an “apparent failure to connect to Triple Zero.”
Liddle says she did not inform police of the information herself out of respect for the family but she had urged them to do so.
Liddle and her staff were under siege from media for almost two days wanting a ‘please explain’ after a political fuse over the incident was ignited by the Acting Premier and then the Police Minister just hours apart.
Until Friday the senator, who’s on annual leave, had only put out a few written lines of a media statement defending herself, but she then took it further.
She was left with little choice but to apologise after Police Commissioner Grant Stevens unravelled a mess of conflicting claims but ruled out the death being linked to the outage.
Since then, I am the only journalist who has spoken directly to Kerrynne Liddle.
My phone rang on Friday afternoon with her familiar voice on the other end after she followed up a text message I had left the day before on an old phone number.
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To say the federal Liberal senator was unimpressed with the pile on from two state ministers, at that point, and then a third over the weekend, is an understatement.
She did not speak directly to other media when the outage occurred, saying this was largely based on not being armed with enough information to fill the confusing information hole initially created by Telstra.
She explained that her original post was to act as a conduit to inform the wider community, which may have been confused by the triple-zero call failure denials.
Then it became a bigger mess navigating the enormous sensitivities of grief for the family.
Her apology to the family is based around losing a loved one and any confusion to the broader community.
In good faith she understood the tragic death followed their apparent failure to connect during a life and death emergency.
After all, Telstra claims had differed from her information.
SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has now confirmed Telstra’s version, although more grey areas have emerged, yet again, with the telco conceding it experienced other “intermittent faults.”
Liddle claims she did not have any other details apart from information from the family and simply relayed the information which might have assisted the telco struggling under the weight of nationwide criticism.
The case is now closed with Stevens saying no emergency calls were missed and telling how a neighbour’s phone was used to call an ambulance for the woman who died.
SA Ambulance Service dispatched a vehicle and this took 11 minutes to arrive by which time the patient was unresponsive and critically ill.
So, was Senator Liddle deserving of the ongoing treatment she then copped?
There is a difference between justified criticism and using a situation for political spin or advantage.
On Thursday morning, I asked Acting Premier Kyam Maher if Senator Liddle should have been more cautious before posting about any linkages to the death.
He forcefully claimed her actions were “deeply irresponsible.”
A few hours later Police Minister Michael Brown called a media conference to take the matter further.
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He accused Liddle of causing unnecessary public alarm by not providing information about the incident to authorities.
But what information did she have at the time, and was it her information to share?
Brown found it extraordinary that “the senator’s first thought was to post on Facebook and not call police.”
Police officers then visited her city office, unannounced, looking for further evidence into the claims she had made online.
"The senator finds it an “extraordinary coincidence” that media outlets knew police were about to descend without warning, or without a call being made to her first."
She has strong thoughts about the motivation for singling her out for criticism rather than turning the screws on Telstra for its part in the fiasco.
I later asked Michael Brown on ABC radio whether the media had actively sought his critical comments on Liddle, or had his minders called a conference and invited journalists to attend?
It may have been a bit of both, but the minister said he was not sure.
The pile on continued over the weekend with Health Minister Blair Boyer also picking up a ministerial baseball bat calling for her resignation and urging the federal Liberal leader Angus Taylor to “take serious action” against Liddle over what had happened.
Does that mean banishing her forever?
Taylor says the senator has given her reply and that was closure on the issue.
I’ve been around politics long enough to know when a government or opposition smells blood and wants to sink the boot in before the opportunity or news cycle moves on.
Senator Liddle says she finds it appalling the national telecommunications system can fail at any time.
As for Michael Brown’s personal attack on her and the out-of-the blue police visit, she says authorities have her number and could have picked up the phone.
Perhaps, they should have given her a courtesy call.
“I’m too old for political games,” she said. “This had a lack of focus on the grieving family.”
The full truth of this tragedy lies somewhere in the mass of frantic confusion and the Police Commissioner’s investigation officially closes the book.
But in her so-called public apology, Senator Liddle says SAPOL originally acknowledged it was a complicated matter and the final information provided by the Police Commissioner differed from statements made earlier in the day.
With the benefit of hindsight, lessons have been learned from this tragedy and when and how information should be disseminated.
Mike Smithson is weekend newsreader and political analyst for 7NEWS.
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