TELSTRA took too long to come clean about the full extent of the telephone exchange outage in the south-west, the first day of a public inquiry into the disaster was told yesterday.
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As a result, customers mistakenly believed the problem would be fixed within days, not weeks, and this cost them dearly, the inquiry heard.
Tourism operators were particularly hard hit, with the meeting being told that the crisis had contributed to a 50 per cent drop in summer bookings and foreshadowed economic fallout for retailers.
“We are facing one of the lowest seasons we’ve ever had,” Shipwreck Coast Marketing chief executive officer Carole Reid said.
“Because people have not been able to confirm their bookings, they have now booked elsewhere.”
Telstra has contributed $200,000 to the tourism body for a local campaign to target spending in the community.
A three-member panel chaired by federal telecommunication representatives assembled at Warrnambool’s Lighthouse Theatre, promising to relay the full extent of the event to Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.
The federal departmental inquiry will now seek written submissions from the public before January 25, detailing the impact of the telecommunication meltdown.
The Monday morning time-slot for the forum meant many businesses were unwilling or unable to attend.
The raw emotion of earlier meetings was missing, with fewer than 100 people seated, a far cry from the 400 who converged on the same hall just over a fortnight ago.
Those at the forum, including mayors from Warrnambool, Moyne, Glenelg and Southern Grampians municipalities, targeted the telco for its response in the immediate days after the exchange fire.
Warrnambool mayor Mike Neoh called for an independent body to be established to handle such incidents.
Warrnambool City Council CEO Bruce Anson told the panel the community had incorrectly been told the outage would only last several days, leading to a worsening of the crisis. “Everyone thought it was only going to last three days — people delayed taking action,” Mr Anson said.
Questions were also raised over why the company failed to inform the rest of Australia that up to 60,000 landlines and 15,000 broadband customers had been cut off from the nation.
The panel heard that businesses and government agencies — some just hours away in Geelong and Melbourne — were still unaware of the outage.
The issue has shone a light on corporate responsibility for Australia’s largest telecommunications provider, with some in the audience questioning whether it put shareholders ahead of tens of thousands of affected residents.
Warrnambool businessman Trevor Hawker accused the company of deliberately withholding news of the outage from the rest of Australia.
“The rest of Australia is not aware of what has taken place — why hasn’t Telstra made that information available right across Australia,” Mr Hawker asked.
“Because that could well have a very detrimental effect on their customer base — I believe there is an ulterior motive behind why Telstra haven’t been proactive in advising the rest of Australia and Victoria that Warrnambool is in a diabolical situation.
“Businesses don’t just relate to their community. They work right across Australia.”
Senior Telstra representatives present were asked by the panel to speak throughout the meeting as questions came from the audience about compensation.
A query from Cr Neoh prompted Telstra regional manager Bill Mundy to clarify that only Telstra customers would be eligible for compensation from the provider.
“If you have a third party provider you need to contact them,” Mr Mundy said.
Aussie Broadband national sales manager Aaron O’Keeffe told the meeting the provider would offer its customers compensation packages.
Glenelg Shire mayor Karen Stephens highlighted the impact the outage had on emergency services in some of the shire’s remote towns.
