Liberal senator Kerrynne Liddle has reaffirmed her claim that an elderly South Australian woman died during Wednesday's nationwide Telstra outage, while hitting back at the state's Police Minister for questioning her credibility. The dispute matters because it feeds into wider concerns about whether the telecommunications failure disrupted access to emergency services, including the Triple Zero line.

In a statement on Thursday, Liddle said her office had advised the woman's grieving family to contact South Australia Police (SAPOL) directly after receiving information about the case, and that the family had done so. She said she was "disappointed" that SA Police Minister Michael Brown had chosen to front the media and question her "integrity", adding that she had prioritised the family's privacy amid intense public interest and "stood with them".