Unfortunately, The Power is in Their Hands

by David Heath

Monday, 07 April 2008

Page 2 of 2

This is the internet age; we expect our primary source of information to be the web. Well, perhaps not for electricity supply.

In the process of trying to find information, I tried the following sites: Every electricity provider I could think of in Melbourne (all were simply sales sites – no useful information), the Victorian Government site (nothing other than CYA descriptions of how they might handle a crisis), the State Emergency Service website (basically press releases describing how well they were coping). Google didn’t seem to provide any additional information based on the search queries I could think of.

All I wanted was information, reassurance. There was zero on the internet.

From multiple people, the worst thing I heard were the continued comparisons with the gas crisis of a few years ago. Have our energy suppliers learned NOTHING? How hard would it be to ramp up one of the major call-centre providers to answer the phones and take details of outages?

If what I’ve written is unclear, let me write openly to the providers of critical infrastructure. In times of crisis, much more than resolution, what we crave is information. We know the problem can’t be fixed instantly for everyone, just tell us how to report our problems, how to seek information and how to seek informed comment on what’s wrong and (approximately) when it might be fixed.

Like every citizen, I deserve at least that much.

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