Posted: 2024-08-25 20:37:05

Tasmania's state-owned electricity company, TasNetworks, says it has reached an agreement with the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union that has paused ongoing industrial action — but only while expected wild weather lasts.

After the agreement was reached, chief executive Sean McGoldrick said he would get TasNetworks maintenance crews "back into the field as quickly as possible".

"We'll repair the networks that are already under threat, and we will get ready then to recover networks as they're damaged through the coming days," Dr McGoldrick said.

The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a warning for "damaging to locally destructive winds developing from Tuesday morning".

The warning area covers all of Tasmania, with gusts of up to 110 kilometres per hour forecast for most areas.

A map of Tasmania with the entire island shaded in yellow for the warning.

The BOM's weather warning for damaging and destructive winds on Tuesday morning. (Supplied: BOM)

Dr McGoldrick said that "in previous situations of this scale, with gusts of up to 110 kilometres per hour, we've had over 10,000 customers off".

"I don't want to face that situation," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Dr McGoldrick said he would "have it out" with Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union (CEPU) members in order to force workers to restore power outages in the state.

But with the agreement reached, a Fair Work hearing scheduled for 5pm on Monday was no longer needed.

The union has said its workers are striking as part of demands for what they say is pay parity with other states.

Hundreds of people still without power

Dr McGoldrick said once all repair and reconnection work relating to the imminent storms was complete, the industrial action could resume, if necessary.

As of Monday, TasNetworks was reporting more than 20 outages, with roughly 600 customers across the state's north-west without power due to overhead line damage and damage from fallen trees.

Dr McGoldrick said TasNetworks was continuing to meet with union representatives and indivdual bargaining representatives, with the next meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

'We could lose cows': Farmers only survived on borrowed generators

Three people stand in front of dozens of cows inside a large shed.

North-west Tasmanian dairy farmers Matthew Radford (left) and Rachel Radford (centre). (Supplied: Matthew Radford)

Farming brothers Andrew and Matthew Radford run a robotic dairy and about 400 cows at Riana, in the state's north-west.

The farm lost power last week after a pole fire, leaving them without milking robots, calf feeders or water in the middle of calving season.

"It was terrible," Andrew Radford said.

"We had no water whatsoever. You can imagine the dairy after three days of not being able to hose down, the staff were wading in a lot of poop."

"We could lose cows if we didn't get them milked," Matthew Radford added.

The brothers had a generator on hand to power the milking robots, but had to source two more to feed the calves and provide water to the farm, including drinking troughs for the cattle.

They said each generator chewed through about 500 litres of diesel a day, and had cost them more than $1,500 a day to run all three.

The outage at their farm was fixed on Saturday afternoon.

A sign showing the TasNetworks logo on the side of a building.

Over the weekend, TasNetworks offered to supply generators to affected farmers. (ABC News: Luke Bowden)

Dr McGoldrick told the Tasmanian Country Hour he felt for the farmers in their "dreadful situation" and offered to cover the cost of generators.

He confirmed TasNetworks had managed to get a generator up to Mount Hicks, where a similar situation had been unfolding.

TasFarmers chief executive Nathan Calman said this was a positive first step, but the outages were "just another setback that they [farmers] don't need at the moment".

"It [the generator] will still require the services of a technician, which are obviously in short supply," he said.

"Farmers have had a really tough year."

TasNetworks had previously said it will be "standing firm" on its enterprise agreement offer, which it said protects Tasmanians against higher power prices.

But as industrial action continues, the company will put forward a revised pay offer to electrical workers this week as it tries to resolve the ongoing dispute.

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