News and politics live updates: Anika Wells blasts China speculation over nationwide Telstra outage

A union has salmmed Telstra’s national outage, saying the teclo’s decision to axe hundreds of jobs has rendered an “unreliable network”.

Communication Workers Union national secretary Shane Murphy said the chaos can in part be blamed on Telstra’s move to sack hundred of workers over the past year.

“This is what happens when you prioritise the bottom line over critical services; you get an unreliable network that lets Australians down time and time again,” he said.

“It is disgraceful to see one of the nation’s largest carriers make shocking cuts to its workforce – the individuals who keep us connected – and witness the detrimental impact on the quality of services.”

Telstra announced 650 jobs were on the line or at risk of being outsourced to Indian firm Infosys in February. Eight months prior another 550 workers were laid-off.

Mr Murphy said the telco company needed to do better to provide a reliable service for Australians.

“Telstra needs to own up to its mistakes and do better. This cannot happen again; the consequences are far too great,” he said.

“Telstra exists to connect Australians to the essential services they rely on – not to line the pockets of its executives.”

Australia is more than 112,000 homes behind its target of 1.2 million by mid-2029, new building data shows.

The nation’s builders have completed 307,635 homes since the commencement of the national housing accord in the third quarter of 2024, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday.

While the number of homes under construction has been trending steadily higher, the industry remains far below the required rate to meet the target.

Assuming a steady pace of dwelling completions, Australia should have already built 420,000 homes by now.

To catch up by the end date of June 30, 2029, Australia needs to build more than 274,000 homes each year, or about 69,000 each quarter. A 0.4 per cent fall in dwellings completed in the March quarter to 43,816 won’t help.

The quarter was impacted by the Middle East conflict and a return to rising interest rates, Master Builders Australia chief economist Shane Garrett said.

“Home building activity has been hurt by escalations in building costs and continued shortages of skilled tradies,” he said.

“The ABS figures show building activity remains below the level needed and, at the same time, builders are telling us that uncertainty created by the federal budget is affecting confidence and slowing investment decisions.”

- with AAP

Within hours of Telstra’s major outage, speculation was running ahead of evidence about the true source of the national chaos.

Deputy One Nation leader Barnaby Joyce suggested Chinese hackers may have been behind the disruption, linking the outage to Beijing’s known cyber capabilities and broader strategic assertiveness in the region.

“I don’t want to be paranoid, or a conspiracy theorist,” Mr Joyce said. “But we know there’s the capacity for China to affect that sort of software or network.”

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor was more careful, saying he had “no idea” whether there was any connection between the outage and China’s sea-based missile launch in the South Pacific this week. But he also said he understands why Australians were “drawing that connection”.

The problem is zero evidence has been presented linking China, or any other hacker group to Telstra’s outage.

​Read the full story. ​

Anika Wells has dismissed suggestions of foreign interference in the nationwide Telstra outage, saying there is no evidence to support the claims.

Asked about comments from Barnaby Joyce raising the prospect of foreign involvement, Ms Wells said it was irresponsible to speculate while investigations were ongoing.

“When it comes to matters of national security, you shouldn’t make stuff up,” she said, adding there was currently no evidence to suggest foreign interference was behind the outage, deeming the claim “irresponsible”.

Communications Minister Anika Wells says investigations are underway after some Telstra customers were unable to connect to Triple Zero during the nationwide outage, with authorities reviewing the failed calls and examining who knew what, and when, as the disruption unfolded.

Ms Wells said she shared the frustration felt by Australians but did not confirm how many emergency calls failed to connect or whether there had been any fatalities linked to the outage.

More than three dozen welfare checks were still being carried out, while she stressed this was not a Triple Zero system failure, but rather a Telstra network outage.

She said the immediate priority was restoring services for all customers, including small businesses, adding it would ultimately be up to Telstra to rebuild trust with Australians following the disruption.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s chief economist, Sarah Hunter, has suggested another rate rise was still needed for inflation to be brought back within target - meaning higher unemployment during an oil crisis.

“All else equal, a persistently higher outlook for inflation suggests that interest rates should be raised,” she told the Australian Conference of Economists in Canberra on Wednesday.

“This trade-off cannot be avoided. A central bank can only decide how to balance the impact on inflation and activity, while ensuring that temporary shocks do not become persistent inflation.”

Dr Hunter argued taming inflation would mean higher unemployment.

“We can have inflation closer to target, or the economy operating closer to capacity (the labour market at full employment), but we can’t have both,” she said.

“In short, supply or relative price shocks can create a trade-off for monetary policymakers if they are likely to have a persistent impact on inflation and the broader economy.

“Ultimately, while supply shocks create difficult trade-offs, they do not lessen the importance of maintaining low and stable inflation.”

The Australian stockmarket is on track for its worst day in five weeks thanks to miners and banks and as hostilities between the US and Iran reignite.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index slumped over 1 per cent to about 8,714.2 around midday, while the broader All Ordinaries had dropped 94.4 points, or 1.05 per cent, to 8,910.3.

BHP is down more than 3 per cent, Rio Tinto has slumped around 2 per cent and Fortescue is almost 1 per cent lower.

Hundreds of workers at mining giant BHP are set to take strike action at Port Hedland next week, according to ABC.

The unions, which represent almost 400 workers at the Port Hedland operations, said BHP has been given the required five days’ notice to strike, the ABC said.

Interest rates are on the way up in New Zealand for the first time in more than three years, as the nation’s economy continues to recover from a deep downturn.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has raised the official cash rate to 2.5 per cent from 2.25 per cent, where it has been held since November 2025.

Anticipated by most economists and money markets, the unanimous decision on Wednesday is the central bank’s first rate rise since May 2023.

Although the Middle East conflict is expected to hit growth, New Zealand’s gross domestic product has been strengthening in 2026 after contracting 1.1 per cent in the 12 months to June 2025.

​Read the full story here. ​

Opposition leader Angus Taylor has suggested both Communications Minister Annika Wells and Telstra boss Vicki Brady should return from leave.

When asked about Ms Wells, he said the Telstra outage “certainly warrants the government fronting up” and that she should “absolutely” return to work.

“There’s many questions Australians are asking,” Mr Taylor said.

“We we saw a provocative and unwelcome missile launch from the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) yesterday and I can understand why Australians are drawing that connection.

“Now I don’t know whether there’s any connection.”

He added that there was “no doubt about that” when asked if Ms Brady should return.

LATIKA M BOURKE: Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy says he personally thanked Mark Rutte for raising China’s missile test in the South Pacific ahead of the NATO leaders’ summit underway in Ankara.

When asked about the missile test by The Nightly, Mr Rutte said that the Indo-Pacific should be reassured that NATO was “on it” and that no one should be naive about China.

Mr Conroy met the NATO Secretary-General overnight, along with the President of South Korea, and the defence ministers of Japan and New Zealand on the sidelines of the summit.

“There was uniformity in there that that was a destabilising move that was not conducive to peace and stability in the region, and you look at the public comments by Mark Rutte, and I thanked him for his public comments, which have been noticed in our region,” Mr Conroy said, in an exclusive interview with The Nightly after the session.

Mr Conroy is separately meeting counterparts from Poland, Latvia, Japan, Germany and Canada.

​Read Latika M Bourke’s exclusive here.​