The Nationals’ Member for Euroa, Annabelle Cleeland, has held meetings with representatives from AusNet to discuss ongoing concerns over power reliability in the region.
The meeting was scheduled after more than 2500 households in the wider Benalla area were left without power following unplanned outages across the AusNet network earlier this month.
These recent unplanned outages follow several similar incidents across the Euroa, Violet Town, Longwood, and Nagambie areas in recent years that have left local residents and businesses concerned.
Ms Cleeland said that while improvements have been made, there was still lots of work to be done to ensure residents have reliable power in the region.
“While a series of upgrades have been implemented, there are still too many days where our towns are left without power,” Ms Cleeland said.
“This is incredibly frustrating for everyone that is affected by the outages, and it is imperative that improvements continue to happen.
“It is pleasing to hear that a $22m project to install a second power line in the region is currently awaiting approval with the Australian Energy Regulator and that some changes to the current switches are set for the near future.
“I was also pleased to hear of AusNet’s commitment to significantly improving their community and stakeholder engagement as a means of creating more transparency around outages, including response times, causes, and when people can expect their power to return.
Ms Cleeland said the outages were having a significant impact on the livelihoods of local residents and businesses.
“Unfortunately, too many households and businesses in our region have suffered due to these regular and prolonged power outages,” Ms Cleeland said.
“People have been left unable to contact loved ones, unable to operate electric medical equipment, and unable to keep their homes at an appropriate temperature during extreme weather.
“Meanwhile, businesses have had to close, lost considerable stock as refrigerators are left without power, and been forced into purchasing expensive generators just to operate.
“Improving the power reliability in our region remains one of my highest priorities in this role and I will continue to regularly meet with AusNet to ensure this happens.”
