The Australian government and the nation's communications regulator were incorrectly told that a person had not died following a fatal incident in September linked to a Samsung phone’s failure to call Triple Zero on the TPG network, a Senate committee heard on Tuesday.

The incident took place in the suburb of Wentworth Falls in Sydney’s Blue Mountains region on 24 September, and involved the death of an 85-year-old woman, NSW Police said.

TPG CEO Iñaki Berroeta revealed at the commencement of Tuesday’s committee hearing into Triple Zero that the company had only been informed of the possible fatality on Monday by representatives from Telstra.

Asked why TPG only learned of the death this week, months after it occurred, Berroeta said: “I have no idea, I don’t know.”

NSW Ambulance referred the incident to TPG and industry regulator Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for review on the day it occurred, the agency said in a statement.

TPG had been told the customer involved was unable to contact Triple Zero, but managed to call for help “five minutes later” by contacting the National Relay Service (a 1800 number) and asking for emergency services, Berroeta said.

The woman’s phone was one of dozens of older Samsung models in need of a software update or replacement, but its software had not been updated despite the customer being warned for several months, Berroeta added.

The death is the second such incident after TPG confirmed in November that a customer in Sydney using a Samsung phone on its Lebara-branded service died earlier that month after their device failed to contact Triple Zero.

Govt and regulator ‘not provided the correct details’

Telstra, which operates the backbone of Triple Zero, told the committee it was informed on the day of the incident by NSW Ambulance that the patient had died, which it then informed the government’s communications department about.

Telstra public affairs executive Cecelia Burgman told the committee she spoke with the department twice on the day of the incident and “had expected" the department would have informed Communications Minister Anika Wells about the fatality.

Wells was in New York at the time of the incident, promoting Australia’s under-16s social media ban.

Sam Grunhard, a first assistant secretary at the department, told Tuesday's hearing that while the department was told by Telstra on the day of the incident that a fatality had occurred, the potential impact of Triple Zero issues were unclear.

He said he spoke to Minister Wells’s chief of staff that day, who was “very interested” in the incident.

Grunhard added that TPG told the department two days later, on 26 September, that no death had occurred and the incident was due to issues with some Samsung devices.

He said this information was passed on to Wells’s office and ACMA, and “everyone in the department and the minister’s office were very relieved”.


TPG CEO Iñaki Berroeta told Tuesday's hearing the telco only learned of the confirmed fatality on Monday. Image: YouTube / Parliament of Australia

It was not until Grunhard was contacted by Telstra’s Burgman on Monday night of this week that he learned of “a difference of understanding”, he said, as Telstra believed a death had indeed occurred on 24 September.

The department had been operating on the understanding that the incident had not resulted in a fatality, said Grunhard, who denied claims from senators in the committee that the government may have decided not to make the incident public.

A government spokesperson told Information Age, “Investigations are underway into what happened and why the [Communications] Department and ACMA were not provided the correct details.”

Telcos accused of ‘a cover up’

Telstra CEO Vicki Brady told Tuesday’s hearing that the telco had spoken with TPG and the department about the 24 September incident on the day it occurred, but she could not confirm whether it was explicitly mentioned that the person involved had died.

Brady added during questioning that the incident was not raised at later meetings with Minister Wells and her office, including a 7 October meeting with other telco bosses following the 18 September Triple Zero outage involving Optus, which has been linked to four deaths.

Greens MP and committee chair Sarah Hanson-Young told the hearing she was “absolutely flabbergasted” the telecommunications industry had not immediately verified whether a death related to Triple Zero issues had occurred, nor properly informed authorities or the public.

“It’s a cover-up — you’re all looking after yourselves,” she said during Telstra’s testimony.

Hanson-Young argued stronger public messaging about issues with certain Samsung phones was needed, and said telcos should do more to have such devices replaced or their software updated.

“If there had been public attention and knowledge of this particular incident on September 24 that it was the handset that wasn’t working, and it led to somebody’s death, then perhaps people would have taken those text messages, emails and phone calls from TPG more seriously,” she said.

Berroeta told the hearing there were still thousands of mobile phones on the TPG network which required software updates to make emergency calls, but the company did not blame users for not initiating software updates themselves, even after repeated warnings from the telco.

The federal opposition has continued to call for an independent investigation into Australia's broader Triple Zero ecosystem following recent device failures and network issues.