South West Interconnected System and North West Interconnected System—Upgrades
233. Hon Dr Steve Thomas to the Leader of the House representing the Minister for Energy and Decarbonisation:
I refer to the minister’s answer to my question without notice 185 asked on 21 May 2025, which revealed that Western Power is taking an average of 10 months to connect single residential connections and over a year for larger multi-residential connections.
(1) Is the 10-month timeframe accepted as the new normal by the government?(2) Why is it taking so long to get a single home connected to the grid?(3) What was the average time to get a single home connected to the grid each year since 2017?(4) Why has Western Power taken the indicative or expected timeframes down from its website, and why did the minister refer to average time taken rather than indicative timeframes in her answer to the same question yesterday?Hon Stephen Dawson replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Give me a proper answer.
Hon Stephen Dawson: Honourable member, I give these answers on behalf of somebody else. For those who have not been here before, you ask silly questions on Thursday.
(1)–(2) Time to connect can vary depending on the location, complexity of the specific site and size of the connection being requested, as well as engineering design resource demands and constructor availability. Western Power is focused on improving connection times for all project types. A dedicated land development and residential designs area has been established, and technology solutions to reduce timeframes are being explored.(3) The extent of information requested by the member dates back to 2017. The member should put this part of the question on notice.(4) Western Power has not recently changed the format of timeframes expressed on its website.