Tuesday, 17 February 2026

 Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (14:35): (1500) My question is to the Minister for Energy and Resources, and I ask the question on behalf of Caroline Reilly, who lives with her 80-year-old husband in Yarrawonga and is most concerned with the constant power outages over this summer period. My question to the minister is: why does half of Yarrawonga township lose power on excessive heat days and the other half of Yarrawonga remains unaffected? At one stage, having seven consecutive days over 42 degrees with power outages was just unacceptable. We had elderly people and pregnant women needing to relocate to Melbourne and Echuca to ensure they were not going to be affected by the regular power blackouts – some blackouts were 6 to 8 hours and longer; some were only 30 minutes to 2 hours – during 40-degree heat weather. This must be fixed by next summer. The townships of Bundalong and Wilby were also adversely affected.