Barry Soper: Senior Political Correspondent on Northland power outage

The Electricity Authority says Northlanders deserve answers - as it launches an investigation into a toppled electricity tower.  

The region experienced outages yesterday after a transmission tower fell down northwest of Auckland. 

Transpower says its workers were carrying out maintenance at the time and has started an investigation. 

Senior Political Correspondent Barry Soper told Heather du Plessis-Allan “It knocked out power to 100,000 users.”  

Soper said “Simeon Brown was there today – he said the event was completely unacceptable.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Barry Soper, Senior political correspondence with US Now, Hay Barry,
Good afternoon, have guilty? Does transpower look well?

Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'll tell you Simeon Brown was up and fung array.
Today He's ordered the Electricity Authority to review the collapse
of the pylon, and he also said that the government
may consider setting up an independent inquiry. I'm gonna I'm
going to volunteer to head that inquiry because I could

(00:30):
tell them what happened. Now, money for Jim, yeah, and
then take three months like they always do with inquiries.
And as you say, it's money for Jim, you only
have to look at it, and you don't have to
be an engineer. You have to have a little bit
of common sense. Not even that. I've studied the pylon
and the two plates that are in the ear that

(00:51):
once held the pilon one side of it down. There
are sixteen holes still very clean. And I'll tell you bolts, yes, exactly.
If they had wrenched out of the ground, the bolts
these plates would be severely damaged. But they're in perfect conditions.

(01:12):
So inquiry overdone.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
And I mean it's a pity. It's a pity for
Alison Andrew and her attempt to avoid answering that question
today that this entire country is made up of di
wires and we pretty much understand how that works.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
You have to look suggesting your listeners that are unsure
about to guard to have a look a photograph. Now,
it did knock out though power to or one hundred
thousand users, and that's significant. Thirty thousand was still off
still in the dark last night. You imagine if you
had a freezer full of food and you're still out
of power, you'd be a.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Bit concerned of the ice cream there.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Brown was there, as I said today, and he said
the event was totally unacceptable.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Everyone's been doing their bit, but to be honest, it's
completely unacceptable what happened yesterday. You know, pylon should not
just fall down. That is something which should not happen
in New Zealand outside of a major type of event.
So we need to get to the bottom of what happened,
understand the facts. There needs to be accountability for that
and appropriate actions to follow for those reviews. Transpasmatical people

(02:14):
were working on that particular pilon at the time. There's
an investigation in a way in regards to what Transpower
is doing but look, we're looking at some of the
wider issues as well, and we want to make sure
that there is appropriate accountability.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
So I wonder what form that will take. You shouldn't
take bolts out of plates holding pilon.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
I feel like somebody may need to go and find
a new job, you know what I mean, one that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Involve drills, honestly.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Okay, Now what do they do about the cancer drugs?
How do they get them purchased?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Well, like you said that they will the ministers consider
it on Monday, and I would imagine that National is
ruining the day that it made the promise during the
election campaign that it would fund the these thirteen drugs.
So you know, you've outlined the three options. I've talked
to people in the industry today and it seems that

(03:10):
what will happen on Monday. A considerable amount of money
will be offered, well not offered. It would be given
to Farmac six hundred million dollars they're talking about, and
you can imagine behind the scenes, and again this doesn't
take a rocket scientist, but behind the scenes, the government

(03:30):
will make it clear that some of this money and
I know they've got lists and you're absolutely right, Farmac,
But they would I think Farmac would be ignoring reality
if it didn't realize what the government would want to chase.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Here are you suggesting that the government's going to say
to them, here's six hundred million dollars for you, Farmac,
you wonderful independent agency who does nothing that we tell
them to do by the drugs?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yep? Absolutely, And I think that's what will happen.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
And Sarah fit because she's so desperate to keep her
job and not be fired. Would she tell us? And
of course, are you then also suggesting that having Paula
Bennett a friendly on the board would be quite helpful.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Absolutely? So okay, yep, so we'll see it. It'll be
good because people that desperately need these cancer drugs, right,
we'll finally get them.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
The Darling Tana allegation, I think is the most the
most interesting thing about it is that there are text
messages which show that she was involved in the hiring
of people on visas that are a little bit dodgy,
and it ties her to what was going on.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Well, not even a little bit dodgy. I mean there
was a worker that was on a seasonal work visa,
which limits workers to being involved in the horticulture and
viticultural industries. But she said in these texts that the
worker should in fact stay on in the bike shop. Yeah,

(04:59):
her husband was running and even during the COVID lockdown,
as she said it was essential work. I don't know
why electric bikes are essential work during the COVID lockdowns,
but nevertheless, that apparently was said. She's now been what
over three months off work on full pay. I think
the Greens are really, I don't know, going beyond any

(05:23):
tolerance the public should have of them here, because you
know this length of time, rachel Bert will be having
a ball. She's a barrister and she's associated now well yeah,
and associated with the Green Party. And this has dragged
on for far too long. I've constantly texted Chloe Swarbrick.

(05:45):
She did reply to me up until the point, and
she's ghosting you now. It's basically the muss will be
texting myself because I get no replyed to Chloe.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
It's so thank you, Barry, appreciate it. We'll rap the
political week that was quarter past six of you again,
that very so senior political correspondent.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
For more from hither Duplessy Allen Drive.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
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