Ellis requests Parliament recall to combat power outages

Member for Narungga Fraser Ellis MP has today formally requested to the Premier that he recall Parliament urgently to address the unacceptable number of power outages that the people of Yorke Peninsula are experiencing.

“People on Yorke Peninsula are again without power today, following on from the wide outages they had last week and it is clear that SAPN establishing a task force or washing some insulators is not the urgent action that is needed.

“I have today written to the Premier requesting a recall of Parliament to push through my Private Members Bill for better compensation for businesses and households that are enduring regular extended outages because clearly it cannot wait any longer.

“I called for regulatory action in March and April after the 20-hour outage across the entire Yorke Peninsula on 14 March and when the government didn’t act, I introduced the National Energy Retail Law (Small Compensation Claims Regime) Amendment Bill 2025 myself in August which has been sitting on the agenda since.

“So serious is this situation here on Yorke Peninsula I believe this Bill must now be worked through and Parliament must be recalled for this debate to occur. Currently, the Small Claims Compensation Scheme only compensates for loss attributed to voltage variation and this Bill is to extend this criteria to include unplanned extended power outages.

“Minlaton businesses, as an example, have experienced outages this week, last week, and last August, and April and March before that and every time each business loses thousands of dollars of stock and or equipment.

“This is also a safety issue for households. We cannot have unreliable power supply in extreme weather impacting the young, the elderly and the infirm, and nor can we leave communities isolated unable to communicate when phone towers lose power.

“Expanding compensation schemes will force action and accountability.

“It is a basic human right in 2026 to have a constituent power supply, and given we pay the highest prices in the world we should receive a reliable service.”