Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Storm recovery

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (13:32): I rise to acknowledge the tireless work of line workers who have worked around the clock to reconnect energy to constituents in my region. I also want to thank our amazing CFA volunteers, Triple Zero Victoria call takers, police, FRV and SES crews, including the Monash SES units, which served more than 1000 call-outs in the storm. Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio has been very active on the ground and has been meeting regularly with the private energy distributors. I also acknowledge Minister Symes, the Premier and Deputy Premier and our local councils for their support for my communities.

There are still many pockets of my area without power, including Upper Beaconsfield, Knoxfield, Narre Warren North, Lysterfield and Harkaway, and I remain deeply concerned that not for the first time during a major outage AusNet’s outage tracker website failed at the time it was most needed. I note the efforts to get some information up online in its place, albeit of extremely low accessibility and quality. I am also deeply concerned that, also not for the first time, many of my communities experienced complete mobile phone outages during the power outage. In times of crisis more than ever our communities need access to reliable communication, including emergency warnings. Whatever backup procedures our telcos have in place are clearly insufficient. They must do better. I acknowledge the work of ministers Williams and D’Ambrosio in raising these issues with the providers and with the federal government, who has regulatory oversight of our telco providers. I thank the many local residents and business owners who have raised these issues with me. I will continue to raise their concerns here in the Parliament.