❓ Opposition questions the Minister for Energy on Western Power's performance following board changes, citing failures and misleading Parliament. The Minister defends the changes, highlighting improvements but acknowledging ongoing issues and past underinvestment.
AnsweredQoN 229Legislative Council
QuestionView source ↗
WESTERN POWER — CONSEQUENCES OF
BOARD CHANGES
229. Hon KATE DOUST to the Minister for Energy:
I refer to the minister's comments in the media that
he ''napalmed the board'' of Western Power 18 months ago.
(1) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility continues to fail to meet the community's expectations?
(2) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility has been found to have misled the Parliament?
(3) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility has been forced to provide an unprecedented apology to the Parliament?
(4) Can the
minister provide any evidence that Western Power's performance has
improved since he ''napalmed the board''?
BOARD CHANGES
229. Hon KATE DOUST to the Minister for Energy:
I refer to the minister's comments in the media that
he ''napalmed the board'' of Western Power 18 months ago.
(1) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility continues to fail to meet the community's expectations?
(2) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility has been found to have misled the Parliament?
(3) Does the
minister acknowledge that since he ''napalmed the board'' the
utility has been forced to provide an unprecedented apology to the Parliament?
(4) Can the
minister provide any evidence that Western Power's performance has
improved since he ''napalmed the board''?
AnswerView source ↗
I thank the honourable member for the question.
(1)–(4)
There have been some significant improvements in the culture of Western Power,
particularly over the past two years. I made some significant changes to the
board of Western Power. I brought on Mark Barnaba as chair of Western Power and
he did an outstanding job. He brought a degree of rigour to the corporation
that had been lacking. I did the same with the board by including a former
member of this house, Hon George Cash, who has been a very significant
contributor to the board. I think there have been some improvements in the
operations of Western Power, but we have a long way to go. I have said this
publicly before and I will say it again: after the disaggregation process and
the splitting of Western Power, a monopoly mentality tended to exist in the
corporation. It was almost as though it was a law unto itself and that the
operations or service delivery for the community were not necessarily at the
top of the ledger. At the time, I made that quite clear to the new board, and I
feel that there have been some significant improvements. For example, when we
took over, we had a backlog of pole maintenance of 85 000 and that has been
reduced to an almost negligible amount. We have made some significant changes
to the operations of Western Power's corporate structure and certainly
in terms of the money that is being spent. Having said all that, there is still
a way to go. We will be discussing this during the tabling of the government
response to the parliamentary inquiry, which will identify the government's
and Western Power's responses to that inquiry. The inquiry revealed
some significant issues with regard to a network that has seen decades of
underinvestment by successive governments resulting in the need for marked
improvement.
If I can take members back, in
terms of the network, we have about 630 000 above-ground poles. It is one of
the largest above-ground isolated networks in the world, which does,
particularly given the disparate nature of the geography of Western Australia,
bring significant problems. As a result of access agreements 1 and 2, and the
consideration of AA3 at the moment—during AA1 and AA2 in particular, we
as a government invested literally billions of dollars in Western Power. So we
have made some significant changes.
The parliamentary inquiry
identified the need for more changes. If those who appeared before the
committee were to have their time again, I suggest that they would probably do
things a little differently. They would perhaps be a little more compliant to
the wishes of the committee and show little more respect for the committee. I
acknowledge that. I think they acknowledge that and it has been identified in
correspondence delivered to the committee.
Overall, is there still room for
improvement? Yes, there is. Has the board improved over the past two and a half
years with the advent of the new board? Yes, I think it has. And I think the
board has given a lot more rigour to the corporation. This is a side product,
but many of the issues at Western Power were base-level customer issues. We
would receive literally dozens of complaints about Western Power on a weekly
basis and my office simply could not cope. We had a dedicated officer from
Western Power come to my office to deal with those complaints. That officer has
now gone because the number of complaints fell to a trickle. So there have been
some improvements. Indeed, there have been some changes with regard to planned
outages. Some of the fundamental things that we would regard as ''the
bleeding obvious'' just were not in the psyche of Western Power at the
time. What we have been doing and what we will continue to do —
Hon Simon O'Brien : But you inherited them.
Hon PETER COLLIER : Exactly! It is exactly what I inherited.
We have constantly tried to go through this with Western Power; that is,
identify those areas in which there is most public need and take steps to
correct them. More often than not, Western Power does correct them. The one
issue that I think that we have perhaps to do better on is that of identifying
the issues before they occur; that is, we do not wait for something to go wrong
before we take steps to correct it, but go out, as a corporation, from the top
down, and say, from the top down, ''We need to get that culture of
acceptance; that culture of service delivery for Western Australia'',
because it is, fundamentally, the network operator.
It is a valid question. The focus of attention is now on the energy
sector. It has been for a number of years and will continue to be so.
Inevitably, that will include the network because we have only one network
operator; that is, Western Power. As minister, I meet with the Western Power
board and the executive or the chief executive officer of Western Power regularly.
I will continue to do so. I will continue to voice my concerns when they exist,
but fundamentally, I think that there have been some significant improvements—particularly
since the appointment of the new board.
(1)–(4)
There have been some significant improvements in the culture of Western Power,
particularly over the past two years. I made some significant changes to the
board of Western Power. I brought on Mark Barnaba as chair of Western Power and
he did an outstanding job. He brought a degree of rigour to the corporation
that had been lacking. I did the same with the board by including a former
member of this house, Hon George Cash, who has been a very significant
contributor to the board. I think there have been some improvements in the
operations of Western Power, but we have a long way to go. I have said this
publicly before and I will say it again: after the disaggregation process and
the splitting of Western Power, a monopoly mentality tended to exist in the
corporation. It was almost as though it was a law unto itself and that the
operations or service delivery for the community were not necessarily at the
top of the ledger. At the time, I made that quite clear to the new board, and I
feel that there have been some significant improvements. For example, when we
took over, we had a backlog of pole maintenance of 85 000 and that has been
reduced to an almost negligible amount. We have made some significant changes
to the operations of Western Power's corporate structure and certainly
in terms of the money that is being spent. Having said all that, there is still
a way to go. We will be discussing this during the tabling of the government
response to the parliamentary inquiry, which will identify the government's
and Western Power's responses to that inquiry. The inquiry revealed
some significant issues with regard to a network that has seen decades of
underinvestment by successive governments resulting in the need for marked
improvement.
If I can take members back, in
terms of the network, we have about 630 000 above-ground poles. It is one of
the largest above-ground isolated networks in the world, which does,
particularly given the disparate nature of the geography of Western Australia,
bring significant problems. As a result of access agreements 1 and 2, and the
consideration of AA3 at the moment—during AA1 and AA2 in particular, we
as a government invested literally billions of dollars in Western Power. So we
have made some significant changes.
The parliamentary inquiry
identified the need for more changes. If those who appeared before the
committee were to have their time again, I suggest that they would probably do
things a little differently. They would perhaps be a little more compliant to
the wishes of the committee and show little more respect for the committee. I
acknowledge that. I think they acknowledge that and it has been identified in
correspondence delivered to the committee.
Overall, is there still room for
improvement? Yes, there is. Has the board improved over the past two and a half
years with the advent of the new board? Yes, I think it has. And I think the
board has given a lot more rigour to the corporation. This is a side product,
but many of the issues at Western Power were base-level customer issues. We
would receive literally dozens of complaints about Western Power on a weekly
basis and my office simply could not cope. We had a dedicated officer from
Western Power come to my office to deal with those complaints. That officer has
now gone because the number of complaints fell to a trickle. So there have been
some improvements. Indeed, there have been some changes with regard to planned
outages. Some of the fundamental things that we would regard as ''the
bleeding obvious'' just were not in the psyche of Western Power at the
time. What we have been doing and what we will continue to do —
Hon Simon O'Brien : But you inherited them.
Hon PETER COLLIER : Exactly! It is exactly what I inherited.
We have constantly tried to go through this with Western Power; that is,
identify those areas in which there is most public need and take steps to
correct them. More often than not, Western Power does correct them. The one
issue that I think that we have perhaps to do better on is that of identifying
the issues before they occur; that is, we do not wait for something to go wrong
before we take steps to correct it, but go out, as a corporation, from the top
down, and say, from the top down, ''We need to get that culture of
acceptance; that culture of service delivery for Western Australia'',
because it is, fundamentally, the network operator.
It is a valid question. The focus of attention is now on the energy
sector. It has been for a number of years and will continue to be so.
Inevitably, that will include the network because we have only one network
operator; that is, Western Power. As minister, I meet with the Western Power
board and the executive or the chief executive officer of Western Power regularly.
I will continue to do so. I will continue to voice my concerns when they exist,
but fundamentally, I think that there have been some significant improvements—particularly
since the appointment of the new board.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.