John Clarke: Transpower acting CEO on the company's plan to support the Northland community after power outage

Transpower says it's looking at what it can do for wider Northland after its fallen pylon caused a widespread power outage.

An investigation has found contractor Omexom's team leader was distracted sandblasting, as unsupervised inexperienced workers removed the bolts from three legs at once.

Residents can contact their retailer about compensation - but Transpower says it can't compensate businesses.

Acting CEO John Clarke says they've spoken with Northland MP Grant McCallum.

"We will be talking with him and other leaders... they may make an announcement of how we can support the community in some way, given the challenges that they have faced."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So Transpower has released the full investigation into how the
Northern Power pylon fell over back in June, causing widespread
electricity outages that cost sixty million dollars in lost business.
The report finds it's because of insufficient supervision of an
inexperienced worker. Too many bolts were then removed from the tower,
causing it to topple over which we all knew we

(00:21):
saw the photos. Now there will be numerous calls for
Transpower to provide compensation as the outage cost that sixty
million dollars to the Northern economy. So were they or
weren't they? So I'm joined now by Transpowers Acting chief
Executive John Clark. Hello John, Hello Andrew.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Gee.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
This was a beginner's mistake, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
As we said, well, you weren't able to comprehend how
our mix on a contract We've used a lot and
good work for us could end up the situation with
the crew without sufficient training or supervision that resulted in
a worker removing more nuts on pretail. Next.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
It's incredible. I mean, do you provide you know, before
the contractors start doing the work, do you provide a manual?
This is how you actually do this. Did you ever
provide any written statement that said, whatever you do, don't
do that.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Mut We don't specify how many nuts should be removed
or the order they are removed in We set out
the high level requirement that we want the service provider
to achieve, and then we lead them to plan the
work in a way that is both safe and efficient.

(01:37):
So they and that's practice for a lot of things.
We employee meet them and other service siders because they
are experts and how to deliver work.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
All right, So omic Tom is an independent contractor. They're
actually quite a big company. Their owned overseas are worth
about five billion euros apparently, so they've got a bit
of ing. They're doing work on behalf of you. You've
got a contract, you've asked them to do the work.
The one thing that this report does not include is
who may or may not pay compensation. So whose responsibility

(02:08):
would it be to pay compensation to the good people
of Northland who had to shut down for the day.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Well, firstly, apologize again to people of Northon for the
disruption that happened as a result of the salvage. They
have had a tough time and this was just another
thing as part of the experiences they had had, and
we really appreciated the way that our partners up there
and others collaborated to help us use the backup supply

(02:36):
for about two and a half days to get people
before we could get people uprom running properly. Utilities like electricity, water, gas,
there is no arrangement where we guarantee supply to be
able to. These utilities are subject to things like storm

(03:00):
floods or manner of environmental challenges. The infrastructure spread out
of a wide area, there will be occasional equipment failures
and rarely but sometimes human errors. The frameworks we work
in today do not provide for reinvestment when full service

(03:22):
is not available. So that's the model that we have
at AP prices. I say to not hony to electricity,
to water, guess other utilities even available here roading.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Well, that may be what's in your contract, but that
doesn't win you any friends. I know that north and
MP Grant McCallum says providing compensation for the incident is
the least you could do. So what do you say
to him and the good people of Northland.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
We've met and talked with Grant McCallum. I'm not sure
if he's made comments about compensation, but we certainly talked
with him about what we can do in the Northland community,
and we will be talking with other leaders services and
may make an announcement of how we can commut support

(04:10):
the community in some way given the challenges that they
have taste.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
He says. The MP says it's good to see you
accepting the findings of the report on your power pile
on failure and acknowledging the harm it does to Northernders,
but he says we're left waiting for Transpower to take
responsibility for their actions. Do you feel you're taking responsibility
for your actions?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
As noted, we've apologized for the inconvenience and said this
event should not occur. We've taken a number of actions
to make sure it does not occur again, including requirements
around our service providers before this work begins again, because
we want to make sure they can do it safely
and in a way that does not put the power

(04:53):
system at list well.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Amixem is, as I say, a big international company with
deep pockets as well, and they made a critical mistake
which screwed up the business of a lot of northenders.
Have you thought about heading them up for providing some
compensation for the bad work that they did.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
Well, We've completed our review which gets does identify the
actions of the workers I met are doing their review,
which we'll go a little bit further, we hope into
just understanding what may have gone wrong in terms of
processes and controls and even behaviors that got to where
they are. In addition to that, we have a separate

(05:37):
review by the Electricity Authority requested by the Minister of Energy,
and I think when we look at all those reviews,
we may know more about just how the event came
to be and what the consequences are.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
All right, John, thank you so much for your time today.
John Clark has transpowers acting chief Executive. And how do
you feel about that? There is no compensation Northern time?
So sorry the power off. Some fool forgot to put
in the things. No one's taking responsibility, No money, no money.
How do you feel The word weasel weezer, weasel weasel

(06:12):
comes to mind?

Speaker 2 (06:14):
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