May 24, 2024
Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington has again called for the release of a report into an incident three years ago at Callide Power Station which led to widespread blackouts in Queensland.
“Three years on from the catastrophic explosion of the Callide C power plant, Queenslanders are still waiting for answers on how and why this major incident occurred,” Mrs Frecklington said on Friday.
“In the aftermath of the extraordinary explosion, Minister de Brenni called on forensic engineer Dr Sean Brady to investigate what happened at Callide C, yet three years on, this report still has not been released.”
Callide Power Station, near Biloela, has two power plants, Callide B and C, each with two generating units (B1 and B2, C3 and C4).
The C4 unit exploded on May 25, 2021.
All four units were shut down in the wake of the explosion but three were back online within weeks, however C3 was again shut down after the partial collapse of its cooling tower on October 31, 2022.
C3 is believed to have only come back online in early April this year; work has now begun to rebuild Callide C’s two cooling towers.
The C4 unit is still offline.
CS Energy owns Callide C in a 50/50 joint venture however its partner, IG Power (Callide) Ltd, has been in voluntary administration since June 2016.
IG Power and private investors Sev.en Gamma a.s have since been involved in legal proceedings in both the NSW Supreme Court and the Federal Court.
CS Energy has argued the Brady Report is covered by legal professional privilege and should not be handed over to Sev.en Gamma a.s.
CS Energy – a State Government-owned corporation – wants to buy out IG Power’s holding and on Thursday this week (May 23), the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission announced it would not oppose this acquisition.
“Queenslanders are in the dark on what happened at Callide,” Mrs Frecklington said.
“Labor has fought to keep the Callide report secret and is now attempting to hide behind lawyers’ robes to stop the truth getting out.
“Whistleblowers have told the LNP a lack of maintenance caused the explosion which has driven up power prices for Queenslanders.
“Even the union is speaking out that there are major maintenance issues at Callide on this government’s watch which are putting workers at risk.
“Labor doesn’t want Queenslanders to know the truth.
“Queenslanders deserve answers so we don’t have another power plant explode.”
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