Energy is not essential

MEMBER for Parkes Mark Coulton has been named the Assistant Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment in the reshuffle that followed former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce being so ingloriously sin-binned.

The lesson I’ve learnt from the recent media circus is that you must not make an enemy of Rupert Murdoch, and that’s a pretty scary lesson in this day and age where social media is supposed to be winding back the influence of media moguls.

Anyway, congrats to our local MP, he’s chauffeured me around the hallowed halls of parliament house when I’ve been trying to get some federal help, and I was amazed at the respect he was shown by staffers from all sides of politics. Mr Coulton really does work at making consensus rather than enemies.

“I’m looking forward to the challenge and I thank Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Deputy Prime Minister Michael Mccormack for entrusting me with this important role,” Mr Coulton said.

I’m thinking he may now need a plane to cover his vast western NSW electorate if he’s getting hit with ministerial duties on top of his current day to day job lists. MORE than 2200 homes and businesses lost power in Dubbo on Saturday morning after some wires fried in a small substation on Baird Drive.

Essential Energy this week launched a media blitz to convince everyone that everything is rosy in electricity land.

Regional Manager Northern Mark Summers said network protection equipment activated at 9am to automatically switch off power after sensing a problem.

“Crews responded immediately and identified a fault in a padmount substation in Baird Drive,” Mr Summers said.

“Electricity was re-routed around the fault and power was restored to 1972 customers in less than an hour, with a further 43 customers reconnected by 11.35am.”

Dubbo Fire Brigade also attended the site as the fault had caused a small fire in the padmount substation.

During power restoration efforts it was identified that the original fault had caused a subsequent fault with a second padmount substation in Baird Drive.

“Specialised underground crews from Dubbo worked to repair the two padmount substations as quickly as safety allowed and power was restored to a further 98 customers at 2.48pm, then a further 54 at 4.28pm, and to the remaining customers at 1.46am Sunday,” Mr Summers said.

Resources and equipment were also sourced from Mudgee and Orange depots.

“The fault caused significant damage to the two padmount substations,