00:00In the depths of a Tasmanian winter, with dire weather on the way, a primary school
00:07is without power.
00:09On Sunday, Devonport dad Chris Anderson got a text from his kid's school saying without
00:14heating classrooms will be cold on Monday.
00:16They sent through a message last night just to let parents know that they were still going
00:20to open, which was really good, and just saying that, look, things will be a bit different,
00:25but to dress warmly.
00:27Power outages affecting hundreds of Tasmanians were not being repaired while TasNetwork staff
00:31strike over pay and conditions.
00:34I'm supportive of people getting paid what they should be paid, and people's right to
00:39protest, but it is frustrating for us being caught in the middle.
00:43Late on Monday, TasNetwork CEO Sean McGoldrick said an agreement had been reached for the
00:48Communications, Electrical and Plumbing union members to return to work, but only while
00:53the wild weather lasts.
00:55So with this provision now, I will get my crews back into the field as quickly as possible,
01:00and we'll repair the networks that are already under trash, and we will get ready then to
01:06recover networks as they're damaged through the coming days.
01:09The Bureau of Meteorology is forecasting wild weather and damaging winds for all of Tasmania
01:15in the coming days.
01:16That's likely to cause even more power outages and further delay repairs for those already
01:21without power.
01:23The union says they warned TasNetworks a month ago that these delays could happen, so those
01:27without power should not blame its members.
01:30If I was those customers, I would be extremely disappointed in the minister and the TasNetworks
01:35board and the CEO.
01:37Our members didn't want to have to take this industrial action, and that's why we warned
01:40in advance that this would happen.
01:42Once the weather clears, industrial action is set to resume, unless the union and TasNetworks
01:48can reach agreement over a new pay deal.
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