Grant McCallum: Northland MP on the $1 million energy package from Transpower. Omexom in the aftermath of the blackout

Northland's power network is being zapped into action in the wake of the pylon collapse outage. 

In June, a contractor unfastened three legs of a pylon at once, putting around 88,000 homes and businesses out of power. 

Northland MP Grant McCallum revealed a regional energy package, with Transpower and contractor Omexom putting one million dollars towards it. 

McCallum told Ryan Bridge that it's not enough to make up for the financial damages, but it is something. 

He said that it’s a goodwill payment and an acknowledgement that they did actually cause some harm to the people of Northland. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now though, from one disaster to another. That pylon
up in Northland that fell over and caused something different
impacts and damage across the region. Transpower is going to
be paying one million dollars towards resilient power projects for
Northland following that transmission tower collapse. Grant McCallum is the

(00:20):
North and the MP. He's with us this morning, Grant,
Good morningding right.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
And the difference between this and the cyclone damage is
that this was not an act of God. It was
an active and competence.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
But we all know that, yes, quite right. Is this
enough to make up for it?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
No, of course not. I don't think anyone's under illusion
about that. But I think one of the lot of
people don't realize is that Transpower do not have to
guarantee power supply. It's in the act. And so to
actually get them to give up cough up with anything
is it was quite a challenge, to be fair, but
we managed. So we managed to squirrel a million dollars
out of them, which we'll use to a region wide

(00:58):
projects and benefit of Auckland. Not not a lot of
money really, but at least it's an acknowledgment in a
good will payment sense that they did actually cause some
harm to the people of Northland.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
What do you reckon The cost was teams of millions?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Well, well it was. I've seen estimates ranging from forty
to eighty million, So take your pick, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
And they gave you one. They gave you one.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yes, but they started at zero and when they are
obliged to do nothing in this case. So that's so
we did our best to get some money out of them.
Do you say that's what we came up.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Do you think there should be some kind of lord
change so that they're not they're obliged to do more
than zero.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, ultimately, I suppose that would come down to then
how much you will paid to pay for power? Because,
as it had explained to me, if we if we
may have to make everything more resilient, it'll cost more
and the power prices go up. So I think as
long as people that undo bolts unnecessarily, we should be fine.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Right Northland, I didn't realize this. Northland, you're actually a
net exporter of energy. You've got your geotherm on their kaikar,
You've got a big solar going in. Can you are
you confident in the lines the distribution to get it
down country to us.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
This is a real opportunity. We actually we're not quite
in the explorer right there on the verge. We've got
the potential that if we upgrade the transmission lines from
Marsden Point North up to Kaikohe and kok Tire and
I was arguable we can then generate another six hundred
biger Watson concended energy, including increasing they them Natha and
that will make a real difference to Northland and also

(02:29):
supply energy from the North into Auckland, which will help
them because at the moment all their energy comes from
your south.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, it wo'd be lovely to have some from you guys.
And you know what, you know, what's it to if
we get you charge charge away. But you know what
happens as soon as Auckland's involved and you know everything
will be done, it will be fixed and done quickly.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
You know. Well, well you know that there might be
a word called leverage. We can be trying to use
that absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Hey, thanks very much for your time this morning. Great
to have you on. Grant McCallum, Northland MP. So there
you go, youre getting a million bucks, which is as
it says better than none.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
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Speaker 1 (03:06):
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