John Clarke: Transpower CEO on their $1 million contribution to a regional energy package for Northland

A token for the Northland community in the aftermath of the collapsed pylon calamity.  

Power was cut to about 88,000 homes and businesses in June, when an Omexom worker unfastened three legs of a Transpower pylon.  

The electricity provider and its contractor are now putting $1 million towards a regional energy package, to be used for community projects and economic development.  

Transpower Chief Executive John Clarke told Mike Hosking he recognises the scale of economic loss is far greater.  

He says Transpower is responsible for its contractor and is comfortable with a 50-50 arrangement. 

Clarke told Hosking that it’s not about compensation, but rather it’s something to help the Northland community move forward and deal with some of its challenges. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A bit of movement over the the the power Pylon,
par Labor, Transparer and Mixim have donated a million bucks
to a fund that will support northern projects in the economy.
It's a good will jest, do you Transparer CEO John
Clark with us on this morning, Mike, I've already heard
this morning people including local MPs saying this is not enough,
it's a joke, all of that sort of thing. Were
you expecting that level of pushback or you're disappointed.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
We've believe we've done our best to hooper Northland something
back that will help improve the energy resilience and also
help plan for the future and make sure we've got
between ourselves and our two distribution partners up there, we've
got for Purpose network and.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
When you say, when you say increase resilience, what what's
the money actually for and can't they do with it
whatever they want.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Certainly we've left with the community, Northland Community and Aukland
think we've indicated along with Northland Inc. That you know,
if it's used the community resilience projects, the things that
help communities cope with storms and the other challenges that
Northland have, or things that help economic development in Oakland,

(01:17):
other sort of things that we've been seen. But we
are leaving it your right to Northland and the Northland community.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
How do you come up with a million? Apart from
the fact it's a round number.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
And ex both talk between ourselves and in our case
we identify what things we could putrecide so that we
could bree up some money to do this community initiative.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Has insurance played a part at all or not?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
The insurance has nothing to do with us. This is
not about compensation. As reiterated, compensation is not something that
happens with utility services. The scale of any economic loss
is often far more significant than the cost of the
utility service. For instance, the cost will we recover from

(02:10):
Northland for the transmission grid, which shows need a lot
of maintenance up there, works out on average to about
one dollar per day for each of the electricity consumers
in Northland.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
So you do accept that the damage done was somewhere
between thirty and eighty and so one million's just a gesture.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
The economic loss of not having a service like electricity
or water or gas is always way higher than what
has charged there, so we do acknowledge their economic costs
if you work that out, is in what we've arranged
Different people have come to calculate that.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
And is compensation still on the table or as a
millionaree Thanks for coming by by and go away.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Well, we've reiterated the domestic reidential consumers can talk to
their retailer if they have sufficles. Obviously larger industries approaching
us with their insurance claims, we'll deal with those. That's
that's you know, those seven years are open. But this
is something back to the Northland community to allow it

(03:17):
to move forward and for us to help them with
not only their electricity supply, with some of the other
challenges they have.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Well, I can't understand, John. I mean, ultimately you are
responsible because you employer maxim I get that part, But
essentially they're idiots that didn't do their job. Why aren't
they paying nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, nine hundred
and ninety nine and U toss in the scent.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well, we are responsible and we while we could argue
who how much should be shared, we're comfortable that it's
a fifty to fifty arrangement that seems appropriate and we're
doing a lot of work and we've seen the various
reports and recommendations which we're all on to make sure
we support our provide. I'd just like to make them

(04:01):
so that they get things right and something like this
never happens again.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Well that's type not John go Well, John Clark, who's
the transparer CEOs.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
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Speaker 1 (04:12):
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