Mrs HICKEY - 1998-02-17
On 5 January, 500 households in the Tiwi and Wanguri areas lost power for hours, causing enormous disruption to residents and major problems for business. I seek leave to table a leaked, confidential draft Power and Water Authority report on this incident.
Leave granted.
Mrs HICKEY: This report refers to major staffing problems, repairs and maintenance shortfalls and the lack of critical equipment, to name only a few of the complaints. My question to the minister is very straightforward. Is it not a fact that this report highlights the way that he and successive Country Liberal Party ministers have failed to deliver a reliable power supply to Territorians?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, firstly, let me say that I too have read the report and am well aware of the reasons for the outage that occurred on Monday 5 January. It was really quite a simple matter that caused the outage. It certainly did not occur because of anything that the government or the Power and Water Authority people had not done. It was simply a matter of water going through a gasket on a piece of equipment that was 20 years old. That equipment had been serviced to the manufacturer's standards. Over the past 5 or 6 years, we have had consistent expenditure on the repair and maintenance area of the Power and Water Authority. I can quote the figures: 1992-93 - $20m; 1993-94 - $18m; 1994-95 - $17m; 1995-96 - $21m; 1996-97 - $21m; and, in last year's budget, the figure was some $21m. To imply that this government has suddenly stopped maintenance in relation to power and water services is nonsense. As I said at the time, when the honourable member issued several press releases, I am quite happy to provide the Legislative Assembly with a report on those outages. I have that report here and I will take the opportunity during the course of the week to make a full statement on PAWA and power disruptions.
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Leave granted.
Mrs HICKEY: This report refers to major staffing problems, repairs and maintenance shortfalls and the lack of critical equipment, to name only a few of the complaints. My question to the minister is very straightforward. Is it not a fact that this report highlights the way that he and successive Country Liberal Party ministers have failed to deliver a reliable power supply to Territorians?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, firstly, let me say that I too have read the report and am well aware of the reasons for the outage that occurred on Monday 5 January. It was really quite a simple matter that caused the outage. It certainly did not occur because of anything that the government or the Power and Water Authority people had not done. It was simply a matter of water going through a gasket on a piece of equipment that was 20 years old. That equipment had been serviced to the manufacturer's standards. Over the past 5 or 6 years, we have had consistent expenditure on the repair and maintenance area of the Power and Water Authority. I can quote the figures: 1992-93 - $20m; 1993-94 - $18m; 1994-95 - $17m; 1995-96 - $21m; 1996-97 - $21m; and, in last year's budget, the figure was some $21m. To imply that this government has suddenly stopped maintenance in relation to power and water services is nonsense. As I said at the time, when the honourable member issued several press releases, I am quite happy to provide the Legislative Assembly with a report on those outages. I have that report here and I will take the opportunity during the course of the week to make a full statement on PAWA and power disruptions.
Page 1
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016