Anika Wells ridicules Angus Taylor and Barnaby Joyce for linking Telstra outages with China

Telstra's major network outage affecting millions of Australians this week sparked a political firestorm. Opposition figures Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor suggested China might have been behind the blackout—without evidence. Communications Minister Anika Wells dismissed the claim, accusing them of 'going off half-cocked.' But the government wasn't spared criticism either. Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson made unnecessary calls to the Triple-zero emergency line to test the system during the outage, an act carrying criminal penalties. Minister Kristy McBain called out Henderson for the stunt. According to The Guardian, the real casualty of the outage was restraint—with politicians rushing to assign blame rather than fix infrastructure.

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