Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the member for Braddon for bringing this motion on. It is an important motion and an opportunity to discuss and reflect upon the last few weeks and TasNetworks’ response to it.
I acknowledge the impact of these storms. People did it very tough during these storms. People are still doing it tough and people will continue to do it tough for some time. The Greens are very grateful that there was not significant loss of life or serious injury to anyone by this storm. I note that the same storm event did lead to a death in Victoria, which is obviously deeply sad, but we can be thankful that here in lutruwita there was not serious injury or loss of life. People still lost big via these storms, and I acknowledge the loss of property, damage to property, time off work and anxiety that these kinds of events cause, including ongoing anxiety in relation to the administration of trying to sort out the insurance claims, wrangling with insurance companies and the like.
This is a serious weather event and it has had significant impacts on people. We need to recognise that this is a consequence of climate change and that these climate-fuelled storms are going to get more extreme, more frequent and more damaging into the future. We have always had storms and floods, but the science, the advice, the models – everything – is abundantly clear that we can predict more extreme weather events into the future with more frequency and more destruction. That is all sorts of different weather-induced events, whether it is fires, floods, droughts or storm surges and more. That is why, amongst many other things, we need to take action urgently to tackle climate change.
I want to acknowledge and recognise the efforts and the commitment of our emergency services personnel and the framework that sits around them as well, institutions like ABC local radio keeping people informed, local government, the emergency shelters that were provided and the road contractors that the minister mentioned. These are all critical elements of our emergency response framework and we need to pay tribute to those people. Others in this House, including the Premier and the minister, have made this recognition and on behalf of the Greens I want to echo the recognition of their commitment, their sacrifice and their dedication. It is dangerous, often very uncomfortable work. They find people in desperate situations and many of those people are volunteers. On behalf of the Greens, I offer my unconditional thanks to those people.
On that, Deputy Speaker, I would like to move a very small and I think very uncontroversial amendment.
DEPUTY SPEAKER – Mr Bayley, we have to complete the debate on this amendment first before we move another one, so we will take a vote on the amendment before us now before we –
Mr BAYLEY – Mr Garland’s amendment?
DEPUTY SPEAKER – Mr Garland’s amendment. You cannot have an amendment to it. If you want to take a seat we will call for a vote on the amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Mr BAYLEY – Deputy Speaker, I would like to move an amendment – I believe I can do that now – to the now amended motion. I move –
That the motion be amended by omitting from paragraph (2) ‘work after’ and substituting ‘work during and after’.
I hope the House does not think this is pedantic, but the motion reads that ‘we appreciate the incredible work after the event of …’ a number of emergency service personnel. I wanted to capture the fact that those people did amazing work during the event as well. I do not think I need to talk to that any further. I might take my seat and talk to the substantive motion after the conclusion of debate on this amendment.
Amendment agreed to
Mr BAYLEY (Clark) – Deputy Speaker, I thank the House for making that change because it is important we recognise the work emergency services and support personnel do. It starts before emergency situations, continues during it. We are debating what happens after it.
I acknowledge TasNetworks staff as individuals and as a collective. As has been discussed, they are currently in an industrial dispute with their employer. It is always unfortunate to see such disputes, but they are a natural and logical part of the industrial relations framework. It is entirely appropriate for workers to be advocating for their rights into the future, and that is exactly what TasNetworks staff are doing. They are advocating for pay parity with equivalent workers on the mainland. They are some of the lowest paid. Some of them are getting paid 30 per cent less than equal workers in other states, with that going as low as 50 per cent below in some cases. Industrial action was suspended during this storm event, which was a very welcome decision by the unions and those workers, but we respect their right to advocate for better pay and conditions.
We urge all parties to come to a resolution in good faith. That includes not only equity when it comes to pay with their counterparts in mainland states, but work health and safety, the conditions workers deserve to keep safe. These are people working in extreme conditions. They are working in a very dangerous industry in terms of high-voltage electricity and so forth. We must recognise that they deserve to be kept safe and that TasNetworks, to be a good employer, must guarantee its employees are kept safe.
The impact on Tasmanians has been profound. While there are a couple of small silver linings to this storm event in that farmers have received some welcome rain and the Hydro dams have been topped up significantly, there is a significant cost to the Tasmanian people. The media have had plenty of stories of people’s experiences in this space, whether it be lost food, lost business, damaged property and so forth, cancelled shipping services: I was on Flinders Island when this happened and I know the ferry was delayed by weeks over there and that creates significant issues. The Spirit of Tasmania was delayed as well. The RACT has had over 600 calls regarding property damage. That was a report some time ago. I am sure there has been more. We heard about dollars spent on generator fuel, about lost phone coverage and the concerns of people with health conditions, and, of course, power outages. At its height, 47,000 people were without power, and, as we have heard today, there are still people without power, do not have capacity or having to spend more money on generator fuel, eating out and the like.
We need to be thinking about not only a review of TasNetworks and its preparedness and adequacy to respond to these kinds of incidents. We also need to be making sure we future-proof power networks. Ms Badger, the member for Lyons, spoke earlier in our private members time about the need to future-proof electrical infrastructure and the fact it is happening for heritage reasons in many places, whether it be Ross or Oatlands, where power infrastructure has been buried underground. The Dolphin Sands community has been calling for that because of their repeated risk and impact by bushfires. We need to make sure our power grid is future-proofed to limit impacts when we have these severe storm events.
Similarly, things like community power grids, where we have a distributed network so that if part of a network does go down, the impacts are more limited. Things like community power grids, where we have a distributed network so that if part of a network goes down, the impacts are more limited. Community batteries, individual house solar and connected community networks is a way for the future. We have heard how mobile phone towers have lost power during this and other events. They clearly need to have backup power sources so those services are not lost to the community. We are ever reliant on our mobile phone services and we need to make sure they are resilient into the future. We need to make sure new easements for power infrastructure are not causing land clearing, not contributing to climate change through the loss of native forests or impacting on important infrastructure. We need to make sure we have a grid that is future‑ready for a situation where we are getting more and more of these severe storm events.
To the motion, the minister mentioned the internal review and the standard response when it comes to TasNetworks in terms of these kind of events. I see no reason why there should not be an independent review as well, conducted in parallel with anything internal by TasNetworks. We need to see that TasNetworks is held to account and scrutinised closely about its response to the emergency, and its response to the response – that is, how it is going to learn from this.
The kind of things the member for Braddon has captured in his motion and proposition about an inquiry are entirely legitimate.
The adequacy of TasNetworks staffing levels to respond to severe weather events: these are not necessarily things we can expect TasNetworks to volunteer itself, whether it has substandard levels of workforce.
TasNetworks recruitment and retention strategy for staff, particularly those involved in reconnection after outages: again, as a House, we have to recognise that TasNetworks has an interest to demonstrate it is adequately funded and is adequately responding. Fresh, independent eyes on the views and actions of TasNetworks is appropriate.
The adequacy of TasNetworks communication with affected customers after the event is something that is going to be critical. We have repeatedly heard stories in the media this week about a lack of communication and uncertainty in the community about power outages and timelines for reinstatement. Communications in this day and age is critical.
The adequacy of TasNetworks’ procedures to identify and prioritise restoration needs of its customers: again, we can expect TasNetworks to give itself the thumbs‑up when it comes to its capacity and procedures to identify and prioritise restoration needs. It may find some small inadequacies itself, but I do not think it is going to give itself a bad rap when it comes to its response. We need an independent set of eyes to make sure we take ourselves out of the shoes of the network provider and have that independent review.
Regulatory and other barriers to TasNetworks’ investment in staff development training and disaster relief: when it comes to staff development, the fact that TasNetworks is in an industrial dispute demonstrates that we need a level of independent scrutiny of staff management, development and training.
The amendment we just passed, making sure this call on government in relation to this review is time-bound and transparent, is also legitimate.
I thank the member again for bringing this forward. This has been an unprecedented event, but one we can expect to happen more often. The response has been credible but there will clearly be learnings we need to take from it. An independent review would allow us to make those learnings.
