Powercor is continuing to deny it is responsible for devastating St Patrick’s Day fires, the law firm behind four class actions over the blazes says.
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Maddens Lawyers principal Brendan Pendergast is urging Powercor to stop wasting time and money defending the indefensible.
It follows the release of an Energy Safe Victoria report on Tuesday that found severe decay and a termite infestation weakened the reinforced wooden pole that snapped and sparked the Garvoc fire.
The ESV expert that examined the fallen pole described it as “significantly degraded… and had been so for many years”.
The pole was last inspected in November 2017 and the expert said a “competent inspection” should have found the level of degradation that was present when it failed in March.
Mr Pendergast said the report into the Garvoc fire was “damning”.
“Powercor have admitted that its electrical assets started the fire in the defence, but they deny being responsible for the event occurring and they assert that their system of maintenance… and their network of poles is appropriate and adequate and complies with the statutory requirements,” he said.
“Energy Safe is saying ‘a competent inspection’ (would have picked up the degradation) you can only deduce from this that if the inspection was done as they say it was in November it must have been done incompetently.”
About 50 property owners have signed up to the Garvoc class action, with the damage bill expected to run in excess of $15 million.
In its defence, Powercor said there were 19,000 similar wooden poles with reinforcing system attached in its network with a very low incidence of failure.
“What we say is that, true, there is a low incidence of failure, but the consequences of failure are so potentially catastrophic that there’s a very high expectation that maintenance will be absolutely thorough,” Mr Pendergast said.
He said it was time to come to a compensation agreement.
“Powercor ought spend no more time and money in court defending these proceedings but should come to an arrangement with us to do an assessment process so that people get their proper compensation payments in a timely manner and not in the drawn-out fashion that occurred in the 2009 Black Saturday fires,” he said.
A directions hearing for the Garvoc class action will be held on August 31 with Maddens calling for early mediation. Hearings will also be held that day for the other class actions.
The energy distribution network has formally lodged defences for the Garvoc, Camperdown and Terang fires. A defence for the Gazette fire is still to come.
Mr Pendergast said he hoped the litigation process would lead to long-term change.
“The maintenance of the Powercor distribution system in south-west Victoria we believe leaves a lot to be desired. It’s an ageing asset. We hope and expect that a by-product of the litigation will certainly be that standards improve immediately,” he said.
