29 Jan 2013 Att: All General and Political reporters MEDIA RELEASE Rethink cuts to vegetation management programs

Union tells Govt Penny pinching putting lives at risk The Electrical Trades Union today called on Ergon and Energex to reconsider their scrapping of important vegetation management programs in the wake of the ongoing power crisis. With more than 150,000 homes still without power, the crisis is still very real and ETU State Secretary Peter Simpson says there are some serious questions being asked about how to reduce impacts in the future. While there were obviously some things that happened that were clearly unavoidable there are others that could and should have been avoided had it not been for direct cuts to services We have calculated that approximately 80% of power outages in South East Queensland are vegetation related, things like branches across power lines, trees too close to lines etc. many of these incidents could have been avoided had it not been for cuts to 150 jobs across Queensland and funding cuts of $14 million dollars to vegetation management programmes that were implemented in September last year The cuts are part of the Governments direction to electricity companies to implement 10% cuts to programmes as reported in the Courier Mail newspaper on 25th January.
Energy Minister Mark McArdle and Treasurer Tim Nicholls wrote to the boards in September last year demanding further deep cuts to both the operating and capital sides of the power companies' budgets.(Courier Mail 25 Jan 2013)

See information about these cuts provided to the ETU through Freedom of Information. http://www.scribd.com/doc/122055564/130122-Em-Ltr-to-Client-pdf;

http://www.scribd.com/doc/122055020/130122-Em-Ltr-to-Client-Re-Energex
The ETU called on the Government to reinstate the lost funding and initiate a vegetation management program in preparedness for future summer storms. They, the Government must take full responsibility for this failure and implement immediate steps to rectify it; failure to respond will mean that we continue to face avoidable incidents that take up valuable resources that should be used to deal with emerging crises The Union also took aim at the Independent Review Panels interim report released in November 2012 that recommended the scrapping of summer preparedness programs across the network. The recommendation is irresponsible and stupid, they are failing to see the big picture and their penny pinching, will unnecessarily put lives at risk For more details or interview Peter Simpson (State Secretary) 0419 721 041 Trevor Gauld (State Organiser) 0488 225 625 Stuart Traill (Sate Organiser) 0430 072 049