Member for Moore Shane Love MLA has demanded an immediate State Government response to Mullewa’s power supply. Mr Love said recent lengthy outages in Mullewa during some extremely hot days were not only inconvenient and uncomfortable.
“The Mullewa Hospital is backed by a generator that has only the capacity to keep the computers cool,” Mr Love said.
“Without airconditioning on a 45C day, patients and the elderly have been subjected to a severe risk when their core body temperature would have been above the ideal level.
“This is absolutely unacceptable and the town’s power generation needs addressing immediately with some stand-alone generation capacity put in place.”
Mr Love said he had met with Mullewa community members last week and subsequently written to Energy Minister Mike Nahan.
“What I am proposing is some back up in Mullewa in the form of a microgrid or battery, as we have been working on in Kalbarri and Perenjori” he added.
“We need better generation capacity at the Mullewa Hospital and we need some innovative solutions to reinforce the system to give the town some independence when it comes to power supply.”
Mr Love said the hospital’s power needs had to be brought forward and suggested the solution may have to come from within the $6 million budget allocated for the town’s new Primary Health Care site.
“I have also written to the Minister for Health calling for the creation of a safe airconditioned haven for the elderly during power outages,” he added.
“In response to the outages there are some immediate things we can do to try and ensure that the Jose Street precinct can remain open and I am in conversation with the city of Greater Geraldton about this.”
Mr Love said that while he was confident that work on power solutions for Kalbarri and Perenjori was underway, there were still issues with power supply in Cervantes, Jurien Bay and Mullewa.
“Mullewa has had a series of planned outages in the past and there are more proposed,” he added.
“I fully understand that maintenance needs to be carried out, but I believe there needs to be more consideration given to electricity users, to minimize the disruption to business and the community in the event of planned outages.
“And on the issue of unplanned outages, Total Fire Bans are now tending to result in longer outages and this is another matter I have taken up with the Energy Minister and Western Power.”
