NEWS.com.au | Power companies 'face lawsuits' over outage (14-03-2005): "POWER companies would face legal action if they were found to have caused today's blackout, which left almost half of South Australia without electricity, the State Government said today.
Energy Minister Patrick Conlon warned the Government would not be placated by 'lame excuses' from power companies for the blackout which caused widespread chaos in the state."
So why would South Australians get so cross and focussed about a bit of a black out this morning? Nothing like the blackouts in 1999 which heralded the onslaught of privatised utilities. Easy. Friday at 3pm there was a lighning strike of train drivers. Within its context it was something to understand and work with, but nevertheless, train dependent school students , in particular, had to get home some other way.Buses, parent taxi services. Then workers were inconvenienced at the end of a long week in Adelaide. Yes, the stuff of daily living, but the sort of thing which topples the precariously balanced. So we all get up this morning and at 7 it all falls apart. No roller doors, no traffic lights, no train signals, no microwaves. The timing was uncanny and we know it. Just enough to put the pressure on people trying to struggle back into harness...kids trying to print up homework, people trying to get their cars out and then big hold ups at intersections. The timing. This has really got us irked because our electricity comes from the eastern states and we are fed up being the fall guy to the eastern states. We did what we always do..just got on with it. We know, at the moment , there is no comeback, but Adelaide will start thinking. We are tired of being used and abused. Manipulated. Put upon, put out, when all we want to do is get on with our lives in a positive way. We are tired of the nonsense because it is unnecessarily destructive and there are far too many of these "explained" inconveniences and/or disasters. It is getting to saturation point.
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