Australia meeting on power outages

Intriguing but no information in story about the time frame of the power outages. Does anybody have access to more information on this story.

"Meetings over power failures gets underway tonight

A series of public meetings dealing with power supply issues gets underway tonight at Wycheproof.

It will be followed by meetings at Warracknabeal tomorrow night, Nhill on Wednesday and Edenhope on Thursday.

Community input will be sought for a report to the Office of the Regulator General on concerns about power outages in the Wimmera-Mallee region."

Link to story:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/regionals/westvic/reghor-17jan2000-5.htm

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 18, 2000

Answers

Carl:

You must have missed the rest of the story -

Kevin Hannagan, chief executive officer of the West Wimmera shire council, says Powercor is coming up with funding for special capital works.

"Powercor have in their submission to the Office of the Regulator- General have allocated $31.2 million towards poor-performing feeders and we hope that some of that work will commence soon if approved by the Regulator-General," he said.

This indicates that the power problem is due to inadequate feeders to the area and the power company is attempting to get a capital project approved to increase the feeder capacity.

Nothing particularly sinister here.

Jim

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), January 18, 2000.

Of course the most interesting part of this story is its location - virtually everyone who followed Y2K news in 1998/9 knew (discounting the American Politico/Media Spin) that Australia was more ready than anyone else on Earth. I'm not making any statement whatsoever, just think that it's interesting.

-- Paranoia Will (Destroy_Y@BlackCopters.com), January 18, 2000.

Jim, not everything has to be 'sinister' to be relevant. Power outages in the best-case scenario cause economic disruptions and in chronic cases cause economic disruptions, hardship & even innocent deaths.

-- Paranoia Will (Destroy_Y@BlackCopters.com), January 18, 2000.

Hi Jim, Didn't say anything sinister was going on. However, it would be interesting to find out -how long this situation has been going on and whether or not there has been a spike in power outages recently....story doesn't mention a word about it. As usual the media is not doing its job.

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 18, 2000.

Americans should realise that rural feelings regarding a perception of lack of infrastructure development and maintenance in the Australian bush has resulted in electoral swings against the incumbent governments.

The names of places in this article are in the Western District of Victoria, a large place that is declining with the fall of commodities like wool. Infrastructure means timber power poles, timber bridges, metal roads and single lane tarmac roads, closure of banks and schools, centralising of government services, shoddy digital telephone systems, very expensive fuel and much more like the loss of country youth to the city.

With these losses come a poor and constantly failing power supply. These are lack of funding glitches, reflecting a government policy of central development.

The bush got its first revenge last October by voting out the Liberal and National Country coalition. This result shocked all Australia and now a focus on rural affairs sees articles such as this one.

Unfortunately I think the drift from the country to the city is advanced. There are ghost towns in rural Australia.

Power workers at Yallourn compound the situation by striking now. Words fail me to see our beautiful country so raggard sometimes. The South Australian bus is also in a state of rebellion over water allocation and declining government services. School closures are being announced this week.

All the places in these articles posted here I've visited. Most only have Internet access via STD. Rural Oz citizens are second class people but their vote is rocking the system - thus these meetings.

Regards from Down Under & thanks for your interest in this place...

-- Pieter (zaad@icisp.net.au), January 18, 2000.

Pieter, why don't you emigrate to afghanistan or albania maybe. Then you would appreciate what a fantastic country Australia is. I doubt that your wingeing and wining would go down too well in those countries.

-- Mr. Sane (hhh@home.com), January 18, 2000.

And, of course you're an expert on Oz, Mr. Insane?

Thanks, Pieter, for filling in some blanks. Been a long time since I was visiting your country, but I sure have some fond memories of it.

I understand the deterioration of rural infrasturcture as people move to the cities. We've had a little of it in the US. I took a trip to my old Nebraska sandhills roots a couple of years ago -- looked just as it did when I was last there (in 1958), except that some of the houses hadn't been painted in all that time.

The land that time forgot.

-- rocky (rknolls@no.spam), January 18, 2000.

Rocky, I'm not at expert at anything, but i am Australian and live in melbourne. I've been twice to europe and once to japan, and those experiences although very enjoyable, have truly made me appreciate what a fantastic country Australia is. So Pieter can go on with his whinging, or one day realise that he he is lucky enough to be in Australia.

-- Mr. Sane (hhh@home.com), January 18, 2000.

We have many Americans just like Mr. Sane. They don't like those who stand up, speak their mind about the hidden truths, suggest others look more closely, demand accountability, responsibility and action. In general, sheeple prefer a "sit down and shut up" mode of operation and insist everyone around them keep quietly grazing, gratefully, without question.

BAAAA

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), January 18, 2000.

If one one-HUNDREDTH of the manifold events currently happening on a worldwide basis right now were even adequately REPORTED by the media, let alone not being denounced through "technological incorrectness" making even the mere insinuation that much of these events could in fact be Y2K related, perhaps the opinion that Y2K is in fact the cause of them would not be so disregarded and unsubstantiatingly refuted.

-- Patrick Lastella (Lastella1@aol.com), January 18, 2000.

Pieter, whingeing and wining? Like his others, that was one of the more informative fact-filled posts of the thread, maybe of the day's threads. Mr. Sane, on the other hand, your content is patriotic and pompous, but useless on the issues of this Board. Better luck next time.

-- Squirrel Hunter (nuts@upina.tree), January 18, 2000.

G'Day Mr Sane.

In reply to your post naming me a whinger. I take exception to that because I am a free migrant arriving in Australia in 1966 without assistance. With a strong commitment to rural development I have supported the Liberal Party for 23 years with some branch secretarial duty.

Having come from a Socialist Europe I treasure Australian life and am prepared to stand up to contribute. Contemporary rural Australian reality has it that "the squeaky wheel gets oiled".

From the Melbourne comfort our rural movement may seem to be whinging. This is a sentiment we are trying to address by constructive proactivity.

Y2K may still cause problems. Many farmers have outdated 386 computers. I know my remediation friends just get so frustrated trying to make farmers understand that they would be better off updating equipment. The Federal Government declared fully tax deductable any computer purchase to fix Y2K related hiccups. Hardly any farmer or rural person knew this, regretfully.

The Federal Government made monies available from the sale of Telstra for rural infrastructure development in a scheme called "The Rural Telecommunication Infrastructure Fund" which is controlled by Senator Alston. Many soothing sounds come from Canberra but not by any stretch of the imagination is this a successful funding program - yet. We're addressing this issue.

The Malley area mentioned in this post is eco stressed by various land management practices bringing salt to the surface of the regions. Huge tracts of land are damaged. We're addressing this issue.

Water allocation from river and aquifer is becoming the political hot- potato of the year 2000. We're addressing this issue.

But the most disconcerting problem arriving now is the cost of fuel in rural Australia.

Toss in the continuing brian-drain of our talented youth and no wonder we have something to say to Adelaide and Melbourne centric politicians.

As an example a farming family beyond Pinnaroo has three school going children who were picked up by subsidized school bus daily. This service is now discontinued by the SA Treasurer, a person I went to highschool with. He says there is no money. Meantime 3000 boat people are landed at detention camps like Woomera at a cost of about $A60,000 annually each per internee. Our rural children don't get schooling but que-jumping boat people from the middle east do get attention.

Melbourne is the home of Mr Sane. He has services laid on and need not think too much about them. We who are rural denizens have time to think and look, and we see inequity. We intend to do something about it.

About time too.

Regards from OZ Down Under. It's drizzling rain outside this morning. Pleasantly warm.

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 18, 2000.

A brief follow-on re: the above.

I have no gripe with Mr. Sane and draw his attention to many current newspaper articles.

ie: The Border Watch Newspaper Tuesday 18 2000 editorial says in part;

"The 'bush' is about to react in the only way it can against loss of public services, lack of industrial development, lack of job prospects, education cuts, health cuts, reduced police numbers, lack of doctors and a lack of concern from the government of the day - that reaction will be to throw out the present government."

I am prepared to table facts to substantiate my observation regarding the bush.

Regards from Down Under once again

-- Pieter (zaadz@icisp.net.au), January 18, 2000.

Say Pieter, the world needs far more "sheeple shockers" just like you! Best of luck to ya, mate!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), January 19, 2000.