Christmas blackout compensation doubled, reveals Bill Johnston, despite calling initial sum ‘appropriate’

Energy Minister Bill Johnston has doubled the compensation payment for people affected by the Christmas blackout, two days after labelling the original sum “appropriate”. Mounting pressure on Mr Johnston saw him raise the handout from $80 to $160 for those who had lost power for more than 12 hours. The Western Power outages plagued more than 34,000 households in areas such as Baldivis, Dawesville, Clarkson, South Yunderup and Kelmscott. The electricity cuts began on Christmas Eve and continued through Perth’s sweltering heatwave which had daily temperatures above 40C. It left people without air conditioning or power for fridges. On Thursday afternoon there were still more than 300 homes off the grid. The massive power interruption was caused by individual feeder failures which was followed by challenges reconnecting to the grid. Mr Johnston apologised for the inconvenience caused and promised an independent review of the situation on Tuesday - the same day he said the $80 payment was an appropriate level of compensation. When pressed on the issue at the time, he said the McGowan Government would look into whether the one-off figure was enough. Some residents affected told The West Australian they were forced to bin hundreds of dollars worth of Christmas leftovers after losing power. Opposition energy spokesman David Honey said the original $80 payment would not even cover the cost of the lost food for some families. Mr Johnston on Thursday announced the revised figure and said people could apply for the compensation if they lost power for more than half a day. “An independent review into what happened during the long weekend power outages will commence in the coming months,” Mr Johnston said. “Thank you to all the Western Power crews and network operations staff who worked during very hot conditions over Christmas to get people’s power back online.” However the review pledge raised the eyebrows of former energy regulator Albert Koenig who warned the integrity of the probe would be jeopardised if Mr Johnston failed to appoint a watchdog from the eastern states. The retired EnergySafety director said electrical experts in WA worked too closely with Western Power and would be held “captive” by the energy powerhouse. Mr Koenig said if the McGowan Government was serious about the investigation, it needed to select someone from interstate who would not be worried about future dealings with the company. The electrical engineer, who has rarely commented publicly since advising ministers on electrical safety from 1995-2009, also slammed Western Power and Mr Johnston for not admitting the outage was preventable. Mr Koenig said the Christmas power failure was “totally avoidable” and would not have happened if adequate maintenance work had been carried out in the lead up to the heatwave. Western Power has said it had appropriate staffing levels to manage the outage and blamed weather conditions for the delay in restring power.

Christmas blackout compensation doubled, reveals Bill Johnston, despite calling initial sum ‘appropriate’

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