Telstra CEO's pay rises despite nationwide network outage

Telstra's board decided on Monday to cut chief executive Vicki Brady's bonus by $607,000 following a nationwide network outage in July that affected nearly half of all calls and data sessions on its network. Despite the cut, financial results released Thursday showed Brady received a total of $6.8m for the year ending in June — a $700,000 rise from the $6.1m she was paid the previous year.

The company attributed the outage to a missing software update on a key time-keeping system. Telstra has faced sharp political criticism over how it handled the incident. Brady told investors more than 30,000 customers had requested compensation, with nearly $1m already paid out, though the company said it was still assessing claims and that regulatory and financial consequences remained uncertain.

Brady acknowledged Telstra had "let our customers down in July" and said the company had taken full accountability, having reached an initial understanding of the outage's root cause, taken corrective steps, and continuing an investigation with an external expert.

Other executives also penalised

Telstra also cut the bonus of its former global networks group executive by 20% and trimmed bonuses for other senior executives by 10%, reducing their combined pay by $1.3m. Senior executives were paid a combined $20.7m for the year.

Profits rose to $2.4bn from $2.3bn the previous year, with shareholders paid a dividend of 21 cents per share. The company has cut costs partly through job losses, with employee numbers falling by 1,219 to 29,334 by June. Mobile phone income rose by $300m after Telstra raised most postpaid and prepaid plan prices in May, though the company still sold a million more mobile plans over the year. Telstra's share price fell from $5 to $4.875 in early trading, cutting $1.4bn from its market value to $54.3bn.