Former Vodafone executive Bill Morrow says he did not report a serious privacy breach of a journalist’s phone to the police because he was not aware of it during his time with the company.

Morrow, who is now the chief executive of the National Broadband Network company, fronted a Senate inquiry on Monday into the NBN, but faced heavy questioning from Labor senator Stephen Conroy about his time at Vodafone.

On Saturday it was revealed that Fairfax journalist Natalie O’Brien had her call and text messages accessed by an employee of the company after she reported on a serious data breach by the company. The company has admitted her phone records were accessed but denied wrongdoing.

Morrow became chief executive of Vodafone in 2012, the year after the privacy breach.

Conroy asked Morrow during the Senate hearing whether he told the communications minister when he was interviewed for his current role that Vodafone had hacked a journalist’s phone.

Morrow said: “Of course not. I didn’t tell the minister anything about that. I was not aware of any journalist being hacked at the time.”

He continued: “I will tell you straight up front, I don’t recall any of the specific details behind that case. I was brought here in 2012 to fix Vodafone’s problems. In 2011 there was an incident that was reported on in the newspaper.”

“It was a few months after I arrived that I had read about today about some incidents over emails that transpired with Vodafone group headquarters back in London.”

“I don’t recall the specific details but I can assure you that there were many problems within the company, fraud was one of them, it was appropriately dealt with, the company had brought on third parties to make sure that it was a transparent investigation. Action was taken against individuals that were fraudulent or who had conducted inappropriate behaviour and everything was above board.”

It can be an offence under the Telecommunications Act for a carrier to use or disclose information they have collected for the purposes of their operations.

Conroy said it “appears that Vodafone did not report a serious breach of the Telecommunications Act to the police” and asked Morrow whether he thought this was true.

Morrow responded: “I reported nothing to the police because I was not aware of any of the details that are currently being reported in the news”.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance has called on the Australian privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim to investigate the circumstances of the breach.