Undertakings for improved communications and information sharing from essential service providers will be sought by Gippsland East Nationals MP, Tim Bull, in the wake of last week’s power outages.

Mr Bull said there will be times, no matter what preparations are put in place, Mother Nature impacts on our communities, but we need some baseline standards adopted by companies like AusNet and Telstra to communicate better to our communities and have them better prepared.

“AusNet unfortunately provided bits and pieces of information that were in direct conflict and, in some cases, simply wrong. Their communications staff are often remotely based and have no local knowledge.

“It is clear they have no capacity to deal with these situations anywhere near as well as they should be doing, and there are numerous examples to support this view.

“My initial contact outlined that, fully understanding the complexities and in many cases timeframes could not be provided as assessments were still being done, to provide me with information I could share with the community that had been confirmed. However, there was conflicting and incorrect information provided regularly.

“One example is my office was provided with written (email) information saying Metung would be back online by 6pm on 15/2 (Thursday). I relayed this widely as I’d had two families with loved ones over 90 that would leave them in Metung if the power was coming back on, but would drive from Melbourne to pick them up if it was to be longer term. We also had people on CPAP machines needing power.

“However, at around 2pm Thursday (four hours before the power was to come back on) the AusNet outage tracker website changed to say power in Metung would not be restored until 19/2 (Monday). I enquired and was told it would be by 6pm Friday – that’s three timelines for the same town. On questioning, no one knew where the Monday timeframe came from on the website,” Mr Bull said.

In addition, the power was out at Cann River, Genoa and Mallacoota, but these towns never at any stage appeared on the website outage tracker. Lake Tyers Beach is another that was never listed.
“Apparently Tyers had restricted supply and that is why it was never listed, but businesses could not open, and they needed information and timelines as to when full power would be restored. There should have been provision for this information to be made available rather than be sitting on the phone on hold for three hours, before giving up.

“Throughout the outage, Paynesville and Eagle Point were listed as offline for several days on the outage tracker, but power was never lost there at any stage. The reason this was an issue, is people were looking at this website and cancelling their holiday bookings online because they thought there was no power.

Although there are complexities and in some cases timeframes are not known, AusNet simply cannot:
• Give out information that is not accurate
• List towns as being offline when power was never lost there
• Leave towns off lists altogether when the power is out in these communities as they feel forgotten and disenfranchised.

“Nor can it say it is too hard to give accurate information so we will say less, the community demands information that is accurate,” said Mr Bull.

“Then we have Telstra, which I met with post fires and sought significant improvements in relation to back-up power, but it seems to have got worse in the four years since.

“We need back-up generators, but we seem to have only back-up batteries for as little as two hours. Telstra needs to provide a network that can function for extended periods when the power goes out.

“For a company that recorded a $2.1 billion profit last year, it should be doing better in rural communities. They also struggled to provide information to the level required as to when services would be restored.”

Mr Bull said he was pleased AusNet had agreed to meet this week to discuss improvements, and he would seek a meeting with Telstra to do the same.

“One of my suggestions will be that when such instances occur, a person in each area with a good local geographical knowledge, be put in place to liaise with local government, state and federal MP’s, business and tourism association reps, chambers of commerce, etc with accurate information.

“I acknowledge in the early days there are few guarantees that can be made and timelines given while assessments are done, but the community needs to be kept informed much better than it was with as much accurate detail as possible, so plans can be made for individuals and businesses.”

Caption: Images of the storm damage in the Main Street of Bairnsdale.

Monday, 19 February 2024