Enterprising South Aussies are making thousands of dollars by reporting broken street lights

Bright South Australians have been making tens of thousands of dollars just by looking up as they walk or drive the streets ... but now the easy payday is coming to an end.

Nothing can rival the popularity of South Australia’s 10-cent container recycling refund bonanza, but some keen spotters have been making much more money with this simple trick.

Drive around your suburb, find a dodgy street light, and if you are the first to report it $25 could be heading to your letterbox.

The bad news is SA Power Networks had five days to fix it, or there was no finders fee.

But the good news is you would also get another $25 for every five-day period if they still hadn’t fixed the problem.

The other good news is the company is often slow to repair the lights; the latest available figures show it paid out $178,000 – or the equivalent of more than 7000 lights broken for more than one five-day period.

The most enterprising spotters for 2021/22 earned $10,100, $5450 and $4,550 respectively, but the record was set in 2016/17 at $22,000.

But in a ruling handed down last week the watchdog Essential Services Commission of South Australia has found the scheme is no longer needed.

CEO Adam Wilson said the payments had little effect on the frequent repairs which were quickly done by the company.

SA Power Networks manages 220,228 street lights and in 2021/22 dealt with 26,685 reports of faults.

“A street light repair measure is included in the Public Lighting Service Framework, and the payment has limited benefit,’’ Mr Wilson said.

“Also annual reporting on street light outages and repairs will be retained during the 2025 – 2030 period to monitor the impact of these changes.”

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said most reports were made for community and safety reasons, not to collect the spotters fee.

Adam Wilson, chief executive of the Essential Services Commission of South Australia says a spotters fee for broken street lights is no longer needed. Picture supplied by ESCOSA

In a ruling handed down last week the watchdog, Essential Services Commission of South Australia, found the scheme is no longer needed.

“Tasmania changed its payments a few years ago.

“They removed the incentive payment completely but have not seen any drop off in reporting of faults by members of the community.

“We will continue to rely on the public as our eyes on the ground to report street light issues to us.

“The huge majority of reports (92 per cent) are made because people care about their local community and draw no payment.

“We expect that will continue.”

Mr Roberts said most of the spotter fee payments were made were because some faults took some time to repair, caused by complex faults such as underground cable breaks.