LABOR CALLS ON GOVERNMENT TO EXPLAIN RAMPANT REGIONAL POWER SHORTAGES

Media Release

16 January 2019

Nearly one thousand homes on the Mid-North Coast experienced unexplained power interruptions on Wednesday morning, as the state continues to swelter through a heatwave.

No explanation has been provided on the Essential Energy website or on Energy Minister Don Harwin’s website.

In South West Rocks 899 homes experienced a power interruption. Other areas in NSW affected this week include Mcleod’s Shoot (106) near Byron Bay,Batemans Bay (303 homes), Wagga (152 homes), Parkes (126 homes) and Gunnedah (52 homes), and 158 homes near the Cathedral Rocks National Park near Ebor.

These areas are serviced by Essential Energy, the remaining NSW Government-owned electricity distribution company.

The Federal Regulator, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has indicated there are no supply and demand issues. Despite this, there was no power supply at hundreds of homes across rural and regional NSW.

Labor is calling on the Government to explain the outages.

The Liberal and Nationals priorities are all wrong. Regional NSW is being forgotten.

The Liberal Nationals are splurging $2.2 billion dollars on rebuilding two perfectly adequate stadiums instead of investing in our hospitals and schools. They have also failed to make sure the energy company the State Government owns delivers reliable energy to homes across the regions.

Quotes attributable to the Labor Leader in the Legislative Council  and Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change Adam Searle: 

“The Berejiklian Government must tell the people living in rural and regional NSW why their power was turned off last night.

 “Nearly one thousand homes experience power interruption in South West Rocks. Was this due to a failure in electricity supply, or were there failures in the network assets. If it was a network asset failure, why did this occur?

 “The Minister for Energy is missing on this issue. The Premier must level with the people in rural and regional NSW why her government continues to let them down.”

“Residents in rural and regional NSW continue to be treated as second class citizens by the National Party, which is more interested in keeping their North Shore, Sydney-focussed Liberal Party paymasters happy by wasting billions on stadiums and botched road projects in Sydney.”