Mount Gambier Gas Outage

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (14:51): My question is to the Minister for Energy. When was the minister informed of gas outages in Mount Gambier? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr BELL: On Wednesday 9 September, gas supplies were cut off to 9,000 customers in Mount Gambier, including aged-care homes, hotels and dozens of businesses, and remained off at some locations until Sunday 13 September.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart—Minister for Energy and Mining) (14:52): I welcome this question. I would be happy to check whatever notes I might have but, from recollection, the outage occurred at around about 7 o'clock in the evening. I think I heard about it perhaps an hour or two after that, but I can check that.

The outage was caused by the failure of two diaphragms in two separate pressure release valves at the very end of the Epic pipeline, essentially just before it entered the main reticulation system, which APA runs throughout Mount Gambier. An automatic safety shutdown to prevent any harm, danger or leaks quite appropriately took place.

What that meant was that the gas wasn't flowing into the Mount Gambier system. Yes, there were about 9,000 customers who were affected. I know that Epic, APA and also the Department for Energy and Mining got onto that very quickly. All three organisations actually sent people down to Mount Gambier to support the people from the organisations who were already there.

Fortunately, it was pretty mild weather and, fortunately, it wasn't a time of particularly high energy use. I accept the fact that, at 7 o'clock in the evening, for any family and for some businesses, not having your stove or your hot water or something like that working is a significant inconvenience. I don't downplay that at all, but it wasn't 7 o'clock on a 40° night or a 4° night, when it would have been a far more serious issue.

Certainly, I asked many questions to satisfy myself that everything was being done to get all those 9,000 customers on as quickly as possible. First and foremost, of course, was the hospital. The hospital, I believe, came back online with full gas supply at all the appliances that work from it around about 1 o'clock in the afternoon the next day, but the hospital did have its own backup power sources to provide electricity and other needs, most importantly for patients but also for staff, obviously, to be able to do the work that they needed to do.

It took about 3½ days for the very last of the customers to be switched back on to gas, and the reason that it took a while was actually out of an abundance of caution. The fault at the end of the Epic line was fixed relatively quickly, but, of course, recharging gas throughout the entire Mount Gambier system through the APA network is something that needed to be done very carefully because while the gas was out air had gone into those lines and there was a very serious concern.

There was a risk that needed to be addressed to make sure that it didn't turn into any harm or damage because people with appliances which use gas are almost always ignited by a spark or a flame. If the gas is not coming through and there is air coming through, there is actually gas and air coming through the pipelines, which is what exactly happens. People try to turn their appliances on and it doesn't work because they are getting the air coming through, and then they try, unfortunately, at times unusual ways of getting the appliance going. We wanted to make sure that no harm came to anybody through that sort of process.

The overwhelming majority of those 9,000 customers actually had a visit or some firsthand contact to help them reignite their gas appliances to be absolutely sure that no harm came to any of those people. I think that the 3½ to four days that it took was time well spent to avoid a far more serious outcome.

The SPEAKER: The member for Mount Gambier with a supplementary question.