Mr BAYLEY – It’s a good line of questioning. I’m interested in when TasNetworks made the decision to embark on this single contractor model. When did you actually decide that this is something you wanted to do?
Mr GILL – Okay, the business would have gone through a lot of assessment itself, brought it to the board – I’d have to quickly look at which particular board meeting – but it was only relatively recently that the board then accepted that we should go further and pursue this delivery partner model, which of course would include all the Buy Tasmanian policy compliances.
Mr BAYLEY – Can I ask you to take than on notice, then, if you’re prepared to?
Mr GILL – Yes, we can just find out which board – sure, certainly.
Mr BAYLEY – That when the board made the decision – because I’m really interested in your –
CHAIR – You need to provide that in writing if it’s to be taken on notice, Mr Bayley.
Mr McGOLDRICK – I think I can clarify the matter. It was at the October board meeting.
Mr BAYLEY – October – what dates was that?
Mr GILL – We were in the third week of October.
Mr BAYLEY – Thank you, the reason is I guess I –
Mr GILL – It would’ve been 21 October.
Mr BAYLEY – The reason I ask is because, from my perspective, I don’t think this is operational at all, and the fact that it has gone to the board probably indicates that. The subsequently‑announced governance GBE reform draft plan specifically names up TasNetworks in relation to unprecedented infrastructure investments. It talks about things such as the communication – time lines of information flows from the business to the government, the increasing potential for competition within the private sector, raising competitive neutrality concerns and other issues.
I’m interested in the timing of your decision in the context of the timing of the government’s GBE reform process, because it looks like, at face value, TasNetworks was trying to get ahead of the GBE reform process by deciding on locking in and expediating a process to lock in this single contractor model.
Mr GILL – We’ve been working on transforming this business now for two years, as I said in my opening statement. We’re looking to cut our expenses over five years by $200 million. In order to get lowest possible prices for Tasmania, we have to work really hard on our own internal processes and the focus with which we apply our business. The sort of support that we get from all the great contractors that we have needs to be as efficient and effective as possible.
This was a mechanism to look for more efficiency and effectiveness. This is a continuing pattern. This is certainly not a one‑off. The minister would be – has been well‑appraised of all the hard work we’ve done to get TasNetworks as focused as we can in order to deliver for the Tasmanian community lowest possible prices.
Mr BAYLEY – To the minister, you’ve announced that you’ve intervened and paused this tender and are announcing the review. Can you tell us exactly what operational areas are going to be included in that review? How do you see that review playing out? What sort of information is it going to bring to the public’s attention?
Mr DUIGAN – The review is very near to being complete, as I’m aware. My decision to intervene in this particular process I think was informed by some discussions with private energy, electricity contractors in the state, and representations that they were making. I thought it was worthwhile to just pause – not for a long period of time – and have some questions around how fit for purpose this particular procurement process was, and were there any probity issues around that.
I requested ReCFIT to undertake an independent review of the procurement approach. ReCFIT commissioned independent procurement and project assurance consultant Ben Guidera Consulting and Transvalue Partners to evaluate the process TasNetworks went through before announcing its proposed delivery partner model. The review has looked at the probity of the process and assessed the impacts of the proposed model, both for TasNetworks and for Tasmanian businesses.
I would be very keen to share as much as I can with the committee today. The consultants are engaged with a range of staff in TasNetworks, as well as contractors and industry representatives. The consultants delivered initial findings by the end of November. I have asked for an executive summary of this report to be made public as soon as possible. If it is available from my department during this hearing, I will table it.
I have also asked my secretary, as the accountable authority for Gateway Reviews, to progress an active disclosure of the full report to the committee once it is finalised. I have been provided with a short overview ahead of providing the executive summary. I’m happy to summarise the outcomes as follows:
- The decisions made through the process were sound with good understanding of probity risks.
- The proposed delivery partner model is appropriate. This model will continue to provide opportunity for local subcontractors regardless of the tier‑1 delivery partner selected, and will not impact on the internal works workforce within TasNetworks.
- The external works program is expected to grow by around $15 million per annum, and this ongoing program requires locally‑based jobs.
- The communication and engagement plan could have been better and recommendations have been made on changes to implement in the future.
These are:
- Stakeholder engagement and communication plan using clear and consistent message for internal and external stakeholders;
- Refresh of the EOI material to remove jargon and use straightforward terms;
- Continue to undertake targeted consultations; and
- One of the main drivers centres around work volume, which is small relative to packages on the mainland – splitting this between multiple contractors – goes into other areas.
So those are essentially the highlights of the report.
Mr BAYLEY – Are you able to table the terms of reference for the inquiry for the review?
Mr DUIGAN – I believe they’re part of the executive summary, so broadly, yes.
Mr BAYLEY – With respect to this process I hear you say it’s the start of the process, but I think it was a very rapid process, you would have to agree. The briefing details and the timelines through which you were going to progress this process was pretty quick.
As well as the employee issues and concerns around TasNetworks’ own staff and what happens to them, one of the key concerns in this space with all GBEs is obviously privatisation, whether it’s of services or assets. I want to explore this now, but particularly joint ventures.
The notion of joint ownership that was articulated in the briefing paper raised a lot of concerns because it is a concern. In the government’s own GBE review process it outlined concerns regarding the level of oversight, accountability and control of government business subsidiaries and joint ventures. I’d invite you to explain to us or unpack this. I think the words joint ownership was the language you used. What is a joint ownership model and why are you looking at doing that as a platform for joint ownership and investment?
Mr DUIGAN – I think I would lean into the answer I gave before. The review of this process does mention the fact that some confusing language has been used. I agree it did give some stakeholders the impression that was not intended. Words matter and you need to be careful with what you say. I think that’s been identified in the review of this particular process, but I would perhaps ask Sean or the chair to unpack what’s actually intended to work.
Mr McGOLDRICK – For sure, and I must apologise for using that phrase in what was a PowerPoint briefing that had some detail behind it and a lot of discussion. All that discussion and detail explained that it was joint ownership of the work program. This is not joint ownership of assets. This is not joint ownership of a business or a company. This is joint ownership of a work program.
Unfortunately, the existing contract is not as modern as it could be. One of the things that gives rise to is if there was a small change, a variation in the delivery schedule or the necessary elements of the work program, as can happen from time to time, that resulted in variation requests and a different view of how to schedule things and how to pay for things.
In a more modern contract, the idea is that you have joint ownership of the program, so you commit to a program of work and if there is a small change in either the timing or the nature of what you’re trying to deliver, everybody cooperates and it doesn’t necessarily result in a variation request or extra funds having to flow to the contractor. It’s a more adult approach to working together. It is truly joint ownership of the program. Of course if there is a large variation and a big change or additional work put in, the agreement would have clauses to deal with that, but it is truly joint ownership of the work program to the benefit of Tasmanians in order to drive down costs and make sure that the delivery schedules are kept tight.
It has nothing to do with privatisation. We have no mandate to privatise anything. There was no intention to do that. This is simply about procuring more efficiently and in a modern context work that we give out and have always given out to the market. There is no impact on the work we deliver internally. We have a certain percentage of work that we deliver ourselves and then there is work that we give out to the market, both for smaller and larger contractors. If the procurement goes ahead and we arrive at this new contract, it will be a more efficient way to do things. It will not change the percentage of work that we do externally or internally, or indeed between large contractors and smaller contractors.
Mr BAYLEY – I’m glad to hear that; that will give comfort to a lot of people. You can forgive the concerns around the joint ownership model and that language and I accept you’re saying now that it’s clunky language.
TasNetworks, through 42-24, has established a joint venture, Virtual Tas, to do a range of works that used to be contracted out and could have been contracted out, so it’s fair to say that there are people who are a little twitchy about some of this, and we have constituents coming to us raising questions about Virtual TAS. That business is obviously on a smaller scale than something that would go to a single-tier contractor, but it is nonetheless potentially displacing local operators. Can you tell us about the work Virtual TAS has does and how and why the decision was made to effectively establish a joint venture to do that survey and monitoring work that Virtual Tas does?
Mr McGOLDRICK – First of all, 42-24 is our unregulated arm that sells extra capacity on our telecommunications network and provides data centres and some related IT services. It’s a small profitable business. We set it up separately, as we were required to do for ringfencing reasons. That was set up a number of years ago. It’s an ongoing business.
With respect to Virtual TAS, one of the things that we would like to do for the benefit of us as infrastructure developers and owners – linear infrastructure across all of the island – is we would like to have a lot more accurate data in terms of the geospatial data where our assets are located throughout the island.
We saw the opportunity to create what’s known as a wide area digital twin. Because we have assets all over the island and other infrastructure providers have assets all over the island, there was no whole‑of‑island approach to recovery of data. Certain digital data is kept and captured for small, little parts of the island or small, individual asset owners, but it’s not across the whole island.
As a more efficient way of doing this, we entered the joint venture and incorporated that with one of the leading providers in this area of this technology. We worked cooperatively together to create a wide area digital twin of the island. We’ve drawn a number of captures over the last few years of the whole of the island so that we can make that data available to a wide range of infrastructure owners, both private and public, so that they can then make the best use of that information.
That’s the intention behind the joint venture. It’s very different from individual smaller providers using lidar. We use wide‑area capture, fixed wing across the whole island, through a number of campaigns. It’s quite an undertaking but valuable information.
Mr BAYLEY – You’re saying it’s not a service that the private sector and established providers of monitoring and surveillance could provide?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Not at this scale and not at this quality of data.
Mr BAYLEY – The report that you’ve just tabled, minister, identifies, not surprisingly, that the primary impact of the new model will be on reduced work for incumbents who are not successful. It names up Zinfra, Genus, PowerLinesTas and Service Stream.
In the context of the rhetorical and/or potentially formed up policy around Tasmania first and business for Tasmanians first, how are you going to engage in this conversation going forward to ensure that the decisions that TasNetworks make are in the best interest of driving down prices, as we’ve heard, but are also in the best interest of Tasmania full stop, which includes contractors and others who have been employed over time and who will be done out of work in the context of this model, and, as the report says, may exit the market. There are opportunities to pursue other work, but they may exit the market. That’s a bad outcome, isn’t it?
Mr DUIGAN – Thank you, I appreciate the question. My expectation, as minister, is that our government business enterprises will work for the betterment of Tasmania, be that delivering, in this case, lower power prices, which we all want to see and are invested in, and running the business efficiently, but also, as you outlined in your question, being a good corporate citizen and engaging well and fairly with counterparties in the business community in Tasmania. I would expect the business to take that opportunity very seriously.
What doesn’t change, in fact, as I think the chair has probably mentioned, is the amount of work being allocated to tier‑1 providers, noting that there is currently a panel of three, as I understand it, that will be taken down to one. That doesn’t change. That amount of work will be there. There may be some room for growth. I suspect we would need all of those people which are currently engaged in delivering that work to continue to deliver that work. That would be my expectation.
I won’t speak to great levels of detail, but there may be a level of transfer among those businesses. I don’t know the answer to that. To your point more generally, I would expect our GBEs to be good counterparties in the business community, be honest brokers, and be providing the necessary information to the market so the market can go forward with some certainty.
I think it’s very important that we all understand that the amount of work that TasNetworks would seek to be doing internally and, again, sharing with the smaller electrical contractors in the state, is not going anywhere.
Mr BAYLEY – I’ll come back to that. I think I’ve heard you explain this model as being the most efficient and delivering efficiencies and so forth. What modelling have you done in terms of the impact it will have on TasNetworks’ contribution to power prices?
Mr McGOLDRICK – I want to clarify one thing, which is that this procurement is also subject to the policy with respect to local procurement. As we appoint a tier 1 vendor, as we have already on our panel, there is an expectation that there is an amount of local procurement through that contract so it’s not sourced from the mainland. These are businesses that establish here and with a greater certainty of work into the future, they will have a stronger establishment here. They will be employing local contractors themselves, local labour, so it will be local content. In fact, I think 63 per cent of our entire spend last year was local content and that will continue and I believe will grow because we will be spending more money in future years. I expect local content to continue. It is a necessary part of the evaluation. It is policy and we will continue to insist that there is good local content procured by the tier 1 vendors in delivering this work. Absolutely, this will continue and I see it growing.
Mr BAYLEY – Going to employment, how many apprenticeships were offered by TasNetworks in 2024 and how does this compare to the last five years, let’s say?
Ms ANDERSON – We have 40 apprentices currently on the TasNetworks books and I will get the final number for you. I think last year we employed 11 and it’s been between nine and 11 for the last three or four years, actually probably even preceding that. Generally we have about 40 in the business at any one point in time and the numbers are also very dependent on ensuring they get the proper supervision, mentoring and support from people out in the field, but we’ve had a pretty regular intake of between nine and 11 each year.
Mr BAYLEY – Has it been consistent across the different types of apprenticeships?
Ms ANDERSON – Yes, it changes a little bit depending on really what we’re seeing from a demand perspective in the market. For example, in this last couple of years we’ve focused heavily on live line distribution workers as opposed to a mix of distribution, live line and electricians, but really we look at what the market’s doing, what our long-term workforce plan is, what the demographics are of our employees who might be retiring and what kind of skill sets we’re losing out of the business, which helps us then shape the mix of skills that we bring in from an apprentice perspective.
Mr BAYLEY – I couldn’t see it in the annual report anywhere. Do you publish this data anywhere in terms of succession and workforce planning and how you’re managing the workforce?
Ms ANDERSON – It’s probably not in the annual report. It’s certainly something that we share internally a lot with our teams and team leaders particularly and is something that we’d be happy to share, but it’s probably not in any of the formal public reports.
Mr McGOLDRICK – We also share it peak body to peak body in that we are a member of the Energy Networks Association, but also the Australian Power Institute, where Renee is on the board. The intent of the Australian Power Institute is to make sure that we’re all recruiting the right numbers, the right calibre, the right quality and training people appropriately for apprenticeships and graduate engineers. We work closely across the industry to align our programs.
Mr BAYLEY – With respect to internal staff and the tier 1 contracting model we’ve been discussing at length, you’ve given some assurances here today, which are very welcome, around not including any of your field crews or any internal TasNetworks staff. With respect, how do you give effect to that? Is there a way you or the minister can lock those assurances in, because staff change, circumstances change, ministers change, and that commitment could change. Is there anything that can be done that locks down that commitment of TasNetworks, which is very welcome and I think will be welcomed by many people across the state, so that it is durable beyond the current board and the current executive and, indeed, the current minister?
Mr GILL – When you’re running a corporation and you want to keep prices as low as possible, you need to have as many levers at your disposal to manage it, and locking something down for the rest of time would be, I think, challenging. We’ve just been through part of the transformation process which has seen a significant number of full-time equivalent reductions in our workplace, which means TasNetworks is focusing up on just the important things to do for Tasmanians. That’s a judgment we’ve had to make.
What will happen in relation to the procurement model, is that inside our business, our processes also need to change. We need to be able to provide better forward advice to our contractors as to when projects are needed. Part of the issue in this delivery model is to improve the chain all the way from us deciding to do something through to them actually doing it, so there is a lot of interconnection between the two parties.
Mr BAYLEY – Chair, can I have another one on this line of questioning, if I may?
CHAIR – One more.
Mr BAYLEY – Because, I mean, look, because the chair I think just perhaps undid some of the confidence that may have been built on because of our previous answers. Can you tell us what are the full-time equivalent statistics at the moment, today, 2024, compared to last year and, say, five years ago?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Just to add also to the chair’s answer, we do have a flexible delivery model. We use our internal resources, we use external resources and I’m very confident that’s the correct way to do business, but let me state for the record that our first choice is always to try and do the work internally that we can. We do that for a number of reasons, first of all, our people are known and trusted in the community. They have the skills, they have the local knowledge, they have the training. We absolutely try and deliver our work program internally, but there are certain skills that we don’t have. There are certain parts of work that are not as steady and quite volatile, that we bring in contractors to use, but our first port of call is always our internal staff.
At certain times during storms, you just have no choice, you have to use a wider range of resources and I’m happy to report that our flexible delivery money model allows that, but the first port of call is always our in-house staff and that’s why we have apprentices, that’s why we’re refreshing, that’s why we have a training school. That’s why we train our own people up. So that’s absolutely the first port of call, with respect to the transformation we’ve gone through in the reduction, actually, the analysis that we carried out found that the field force was resourced correctly for the level of work that we were doing and all of the reductions in full-time equivalents where we have reduced net about- we’re always recruiting people and people are leaving its part and all run the business, but net, we’ve reduced by about 77 staff, none of those have been in the field.
All of them have been from the executive team, right the way down through management because that’s where we have focused in terms of getting more efficient.
Mr BAYLEY – To which management?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Right the way down through all the management.
Mr BAYLEY – Thank you.
Mr BAYLEY – On the North West Transmission project, I’m just keen to understand what contracts have been entered into and the value of those contracts.
Mr GILL – Getting contractors for large projects in the transmission game is a pretty challenging matter, because in the rest of the country, everyone wants to build projects at the moment. We’ve been in the process of getting our major construction contract negotiated over some time. We are close to the point of resolving that, but we haven’t finally resolved it. I’ll let Sean elaborate a bit further, but we’d hope to be able to get this sorted by Christmas and then we’ll be able to outline it all.
Mr McGOLDRICK – We’ve had a very thorough and patient procurement event around signing up a head contractor to work with us to deliver this infrastructure for the North West TD Stage 1.
I thank all of the participants in that. We’ve had a lot of process, a lot of probity, a lot of negotiations. I’m hopeful that, as the chairman has said, we will be in a position to announce who that head contractor is and sign a contract in that regard prior to year end.
It’s an important step. We have to secure that. All things will then flow from that. We have some long lead time items that are subject to the regulatory submission, CPA 1, that we talked about earlier. If we get that approval, we will then be able to go into the market to procure some equipment, get some factory slots in different parts of the world, get some key equipment and secure that. That would be the next step.
Then we would do some detailed Geotech, and we’ll have some procurement associated with that so that we can sharpen up the price, and then we go into the construction phase. But the next key procurement event in order would be first of all the head contractor, hopefully by year end, and then long lead time items, which we’ll be securing sometime between now and mid next year.
Mr BAYLEY – How much have you spent on the project to date?
Mr McGOLDRICK – In terms of the spend on the development phase of the project?
Mr WESTENBERG – Overall, the CPA1 application – we’re looking for $151 million, which includes our spend to date, which I’ll validate in a minute, right up until the period of financial investment decision and starting construction.
Mr McGOLDRICK – Including long lead time items.
Mr WESTENBERG – I believe it’s been around $50 million to $60 million. I’ll just check on that. The CPA1 application and the impact of that on customer pricing for the next four years is about 0.4 per cent for that component.
Mr BAYLEY – Can you say that again? what was that?
Mr McGOLDRICK – The impact of the CPA1 costs on the price is 0.4 per cent.
Mr WESTENBERG – Average over four years.
Mr BAYLEY – Just on that, in terms of the actual sticking points is it fair to say that the negotiation with farmers that Ms Finlay was interrogating earlier is the main sticking point still in terms of route selection and land?
Mr McGOLDRICK – It’s an important element to get right, but I wouldn’t say it’s a main sticking point. This is all about landowners and working closely with landowners, and making sure they’re comfortable to host our assets. I think another critical issue will be getting the necessary permits and approvals in terms of the environmental approvals. That’s a big step.
Yes, it’s about strategic benefit payment. Yes, it’s very much about landowners and getting them comfortable, but it’s also about getting environmental approvals. Then of course you’re into the construction phase.
Mr DUIGAN – If I may, the timing element – the contingent nature of Marinus Link and of course the North West Transmission Developments being delivered in a timely way so that they work together – is very important in everybody’s thinking. There are some timelines that need to be considered and factored in as we look to potentially deliver the project along its delivery timeline, should we go through the gateway to final investment.
Mr BAYLEY – Can I just ask about raptors?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Yes.
Mr BAYLEY – I know TasNetworks has done significant work over years, including with community advocates around raptor protection and so forth. Can I ask, I guess the outset, what recorded number of raptor deaths you’ve had in the last year, and can it be broken down in species, what level of detail you have there?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Yes, we have that in detail. I’ll hand to Renee to answer in a second, but just to say, happy to report there has been a 40 per cent reduction in the number of raptor deaths this year. However, I’d caution in that this is a volatile statistic, and it does depend on reporting and a range of different things, which is why we monitor it over multiple years. Happy to give the exact numbers.
Ms ANDERSON – We had 11 threatened bird species impacted by our power line infrastructure last year. This is broken down to eight wedge‑tailed eagles, one white‑bellied sea eagle, and two grey goshawks.
Mr BAYLEY – Across the network, how many flappers were installed over 2024? What commitments have you got going forward in relation to insulation of flappers and the perches on top of poles and other mitigation devices?
Ms ANDERSON – I don’t have the flapper numbers, but I can say that we did mitigate 140 kilometres of line in the last 12 months. So far, that’s around 600 kilometres of the whole distribution network that we have mitigation on. That covers, as you’ve said, flappers, perches, and also our new delta positioning where the wires are positioned further apart so that birds don’t strike their wings on the wires. We’ve actually introduced that into our construction manual as part of a normal way that we will now construct poles going forward.
We do take most of our mitigation planning off our high‑risk bird strike models. We have modelling around the state that tells us where mating pairs are, where there are high numbers of threatened species, and that’s where we focus our efforts. We also have a commitment within a certain timeframe if there is an incident that is on an unmitigated part of the line that we will respond to that within a number of days to ensure that we have mitigation on those parts of the line.
Mr BAYLEY – Going forward, what level of commitment have you got to the same level of rollout – is it sort of similar? What are you doing in terms of working with community advocates and experts?
Ms ANDERSON – We have a commitment of at least $4 million over the next five years to continue our mitigation work. We actually have our own internal target that we would like to see a 25 per cent real and ongoing reduction in bird strikes by 2032.
We have a number of partnerships, and particularly this year we entered into two three‑year term partnerships with Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary. We support their critical care team. If a raptor is injured, it gets taken to Bonorong, and that team provides help, assistance and veterinary care to those raptors. Also a three‑year partnership with the Tasmanian Wildlife Hospital in Forth. They’ve started to build their own specific raptor recovery facility there.
We also engage closely with the university. We participate in a number of community activities in terms of counting the number of raptors that we have, particularly wedge‑tailed eagles, in this state, to really help us try and get, for the state, a better understanding of population numbers. Also the TMAG museum and art gallery, we have a close relationship with them in terms of raptor recovery and also statistics on raptor deaths.
CHAIR – I’m going to go to Mr Bayley for one.
Mr BAYLEY – One?
CHAIR – One.
Mr BAYLEY – One. Okay, thank you. I want to ask about 42-24. It has a great website, it’s offering some interesting products like dark fibre wavelength, you know, FWaaS. I am interested in knowing how that is going. How many people are taking up this kind of product offering, and what’s the annual turnover of 42-24 as a standalone entity and compared to expenditure, is it making a profit for the business more broadly?
Mr McGOLDRICK – I’m happy to report it is making a profit. Before I hand over to Mr Westenberg for the detail on that, just to say 42-24 is subsidiary ring‑fence business, but it is very much part of our corporate family –
Mr BAYLEY – Can you just explain what that you mean by that in terms of ring‑fence, and I think you also described it as earlier as the unregulated arm?
Mr McGOLDRICK – Yes.
Mr BAYLEY – Can you just unpack that for us?
Mr McGOLDRICK – We have telecommunications, and TasNetworks, for its own purposes, keeping the power system safe and reliable, has telecommunication circuits, fibre, wraparound and various different other radio signals and so on that it uses to control the power network. That system itself, we have 30 plus people working on it. We have, you know, hundreds of kilometres of assets. We have 16 hilltop stations, so we’ve quite a telecommunications infrastructure and a telecommunications licence.
Mr BAYLEY – To deal with your network, that manages the network only?
Mr McGOLDRICK – To deal with our network, exactly. Now, that has extra capacity on it. The intention is that we take that extra capacity and offer it to the market and make a profit doing so, but also provide a service to Tasmanians in a niche in the market. That is 42‑24’s job. It has to be unregulated because we are not allowed to charge the customers who pay for electricity for that unregulated service. So, it is unregulated, it has a separate licence, it sells the excess capacity, that’s why it’s called unregulated.
It’s ring‑fenced because the regulator, the Australian Energy Regulator, insists that we keep these things separate and apart.
Mr BAYLEY – So, he doesn’t have to look at it, he doesn’t consider it at all?
Mr McGOLDRICK – No cross‑subsidisation, yes. In terms of profit, if I could just –
Mr WESTENBERG – Certainly, so the revenue target for 42‑24 this year is just under $20 million, and the profit target’s $1.69 million. They’re on track for their revenue target and are currently over‑forecast for their profit target. It is really important to note that, as part of our strategic review earlier this year, we relooked at 42‑24 and really focused in on the core of utilising TasNetwork’s current assets. You’ll find a reduction, probably in past years of revenue, but an increase in profitability, very much aligned with feedback on ensuring that we focus on the core and we leverage the infrastructure that TasNetworks already has.
Mr BAYLEY – Can I ask, in terms of outward facing, what are some of the projects – do the public see any projects that it’s working on? What are the sort of products that it’s offering?
Mr McGOLDRICK – We regularly bid competitively for projects. One of the projects that would be notable in the last while and out in the public domain is we’re improving the fibre connectivity on the West Coast into Tullah. Michael, would you?
Mr WESTENBERG – Yes, that’s part of the Regional Connectivity Program, which is an Australian government initiative.
CHAIR – Sorry, but the time for scrutiny has expired as it’s 1.45 p.m.. Thank you all for your attendance. We’ll take a break and return for the next session at 2.45 p.m. with TasPorts.
