Member for Wannon and federal Education Minister Dan Tehan said a complete rethink was needed after several blazes were sparked by electricity infrastructure.

He called for the state's independent regular Energy Safe Victoria to audit the current Powercor pole maintenance system and recommend a forward thinking plan to be considered for approval by the next round of federal government funding.

The minister said the audit needed to be transparent, results made public and then ESV should engage experts to help interpret and provide a sustainable plan before the next bushfire season.

Mr Tehan said the lessons of bushfires in the south-west on St Patrick's Day and Black Saturday had not been learnt.

Electricity infrastructure was involved in starting four main bushfires in the south-west on March 18 last year at Gazette/Hawkesdale, The Sisters/Garvoc, Terang/Cobden and Gnotuk/Camperdown.

The minister said that during the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Royal Commission the ageing and degrading state electricity network was highlighted as a massive problem.

But since then there had been negligible investment in that infrastructure.

"It's now another 10 years older and more fragile," he said.

"There are 550,000 poles in the Powercor system. Most are over 50 years old and those poles have a life expectancy of 65 years.

"In 2017 there were only 1153 new poles put in by Powercor - a fraction of one per cent.

"On the most basic mathematics - on any level - the infrastructure system is just getting older and weaker."

Mr Tehan said the current maintenance system was based on minimum requirements.

"We have to learn from Black Saturday and St Patrick's Day," he said.

"Less than five per cent of bushfires are caused by the electrical system but they lead to 85 per cent of bushfire deaths.

"That's because those fires are sparked on days of catastrophic bushfire risk.

"What we need is a far more robust electrical infrastructure system capable of withstanding those days.

"What we have got is a review maintenance program and what we need is a forward thinking plan - there must be a complete change of thinking," he said.

Relentless bushfire campaigner Jill Porter, a dairy farmer from The Sisters, who is a St Patrick's Day victim, said the current system of self-regulating by Powercor was continuing to put Victorian communities at risk.

She said her community, her neighbours and her family were acutely aware of the dangers of the current system.

"Bushfires are completely devastating. Lives are put at risk, livelihoods ruined and families wrecked, forever," she said.

"I don't want anyone to ever have to go through what my community, my neighbours and my family have survived.

"Unfortunately Victorians have come to accept that on days of catastrophic risk there will be fires started by the electrical system.

"That thinking is backwards and it's time to demand change."

Mr Tehan said the current electrical infrastructure system was quickly reaching its use-by date.

"We must act or at some time in the very near future there will be an overwhelming amount of maintenance required," he said.

"We are talking about wooden power poles in the dirt. They don't last forever and there are poles in the network that are more than 80 years old - 15 years passed their use-by date.

"It's time for action," he said.

An ESV spokesman said on Monday the regulator would be happy to brief Mr Tehan on the situation at hand and our forward plan in terms of power poles in the south-west should such a request be forthcoming.

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