Jul 14, 2026 – 4.00pmFormer Telstra chairman John Mullen has delivered a stinging attack on what he calls the self-serving moral outrage of some politicians following last week’s nationwide outage, defending chief executive Vicki Brady as an exceptional leader who is entitled to take a holiday.Brady and chief financial officer Michael Ackland are expected to appear before a Senate hearing in Canberra on Friday over the outage, which crippled the company’s network and blocked more than 600 people from calling emergency services.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles