Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Adjournment

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (17:38): I move:

That the house do now adjourn.

Energy security

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:38): (716) My adjournment matter this evening is for Minister D’Ambrosio in her capacity as the Minister for Energy and Resources. The action that I am seeking is that the minister meet with me in my electorate to discuss the issues and experiences of my constituents affected by prolonged power outages, particularly those who have dealt with AusNet.

Extreme weather caused severe damage to our power network last week, resulting in over 530,000 homes without power. This storm event heavily affected the south-east, with ongoing power outages in parts of my region. I have mentioned before in the chamber this week and I will mention again constituents of mine in Upper Beaconsfield, Knoxfield, Narre Warren North, Harkaway and Lysterfield, many of whom are still without power, as well as of course in other regions, notably Eastern Victoria Region. This is one of the most significant single outage events in the state’s history, surpassing the October 2021 storm event.

I was recently contacted by Sunena in Knoxfield, who has been without power for a week. She told me of the impact this is causing her daughter, who is doing VCE and has struggled to keep up with her studies; the stress and the anxiety that this has caused her family; and the financial impact of spoiled food and other expenses. Sunena is understandably frustrated with a lack of timely and accurate updates from AusNet regarding the power outages and the time frame for restoring power. Frustration with this is something that many in my region have experienced, where for a week after the outage online information regarding power outages has been hard to access, if it is accessible at all.

In response to the needs of families like Sunena’s in Knoxfield, the government has announced prolonged power outage payments of $1920 per week for families and $2927 a week for small businesses, but I am very disappointed that AusNet has delayed its implementation of the first round of these weekly payments. I note that the minister has rightfully decried this delay in setting up these support payments, and I support her calls for AusNet to immediately process payments for these families. These families have gone through a difficult week; we should not be seeing them going through further hardship.

The storm event and power outage deeply affected hundreds of thousands of Victorians, and I want to commend the swift response of this Allan Labor government in establishing a supplementary independent review of the distribution system in response to the storms. I am glad that a panel of independent experts will be leading this review. Again, the action I am seeking is for the minister to meet with me in my electorate to discuss the issues and experiences of my constituents, such as Sunena, who are affected by these prolonged power outages and who have dealt with AusNet.