Widespread power blackouts affecting thousands of households and businesses across Victoria again highlight the vulnerability of the state’s energy supplies under the State Government.

“Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has been repeatedly warned about outages yet has sat idle. We have now seen the consequences of Labor’s incompetence and Victorians are paying the price as they go without power,” said Member for Southern Metropolitan Region, David Davis.

“It demonstrates Labor’s failure after nine years to plan the transition to renewable energy properly and the Minister needs to explain the exact cause of today’s debacle which has left households and businesses exposed.

“Victoria is delicately poised with a major source of power at Loy Yang A offline, in need of major repair. The Victorian government was warned last year by AEMO in its August 2023 Electricity Statement of Opportunities.

“The Minister appears not to have taken the necessary actions to protect Victoria’s electricity supply. She needs to come clean on the widespread load shedding, explaining which industries were forced to shut, for how long and how much they were paid.

“A key responsibility of the Allan Government is to ensure a reliable, secure and affordable power supply is available.

“Labor failed this test last week.”

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 20 February 2024.