Tuesday, 20 February 2024

Electricity infrastructure

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (13:42): I join with others in the chamber in acknowledging the work of so many volunteers and our emergency services people in response to the events of the last week. In the early afternoon on the 13th we saw a dramatic set of events across Victoria, not only the bushfires up in the north but, importantly and tragically, also the loss of electricity across such an enormous sweep of our state. 530,000 households were out, including many more people, because that is households – it is not the number of people, it is much more than that – and a number of businesses were impacted too. The government was load-shedding as fast as it could, turning businesses off across the state.

It is very clear that the government was not fully prepared for this. It is clear that in fact the response is something that I think is very important to scrutinise closely. The government initially dismissed our view about an inquiry and pooh-poohed it yesterday but has now accepted that there has to be a significant inquiry. Now it has of course ordered an inquiry into itself. So it has got its own people to do this; it is not independent at all.

But I say in my electorate in Middle Camberwell we saw the supermarket and the terrible amount of food thrown out and the same for so many people. In Clayton – (Time expired)