Leader of The Nationals David Littleproud is calling for changes to Telstra’s Universal Service Obligation (USO), following repeated failings of Telstra to help vulnerable customers.

An Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigation has found Telstra failed to comply with its priority assistance obligations.

As a condition of its carrier licence, Telstra is required to provide priority assistance to customers who have a life-threatening medical condition.

However, Telstra repeatedly failed to help vulnerable customers sign up for priority assistance, with 740 instances of Telstra being unable to locate records of assistance paperwork sent out. 

There were even cases where some people passed away without a working landline.

Mr Littleproud described the findings as “outrageous”.

He said Telstra’s priority assistance obligation was required to send out a technician within 24 hours (urban and rural areas) or 48 hours (remote areas) to fix landline issues or outages.

“This is a matter of life and death,” Mr Littleproud said.

“No vulnerable person should risk suffering a medical episode and be unable to call for help.

“It is unbelievable the investigation included incidents where people tried to call 000 but the service wasn’t working and mobile service wasn’t available either – no Australian should ever experience such helplessness or fear.

“The ACMA investigation is further proof government intervention is needed to ensure Australians in regional and remote areas have adequate - and safe – landline and mobile phone coverage.

“We need an updated USO to protect lives, including harsher penalties and better information and support for customers.

“The actions of Telstra are un-Australian and unacceptable. The sooner we make changes to the USO, the safer Australians in regional and rural communities will be.”