- Published:
- Thursday 9 July 2026 at 5:25 pm
It is completely unacceptable that so many Victorians were stuck without an essential service for so long.
V/Line trains stopped because the Telstra outage knocked out both the train radio system and interfered with the backup system.
Trains are now returning to service here and across Australia, and Triple Zero is continuing its welfare checks.
But this can’t be the end of it.
Telstra should compensate Victorians and help make sure it never happens again.
To start with, V/Line will reimburse regional rail passengers who incurred extra costs.
I expect Telstra to match it, dollar for dollar.
In addition, my Government will fund two days’ free travel on V/Line – more detail on all this to come.
But Victoria expects more than just compensation from Telstra.
What we really want is change.
Australians have endured too many major outages – and it’s always country people who bear the brunt.
The telcos must lift their game.
It's time they caught up with how critical their networks have become to our essential services.