Vikki Campion: EnergyCo bureaucrats paid more than military chiefs

Bosses at EnergyCo, the state body bulldozing through the lives of regional NSW, are commanding wages of up to $464,058 a year -but you couldn’t charge your phone with the power they have delivered to the grid, writes Vikki Campion.

The intermittent power industry has become a train to a station called opulence for those lucky enough to land themselves on the luxury seats of EnergyCo, the state body bulldozing through the lives of regional NSW.

The salaries this organisation commands to construct transmission lines to link yet-to-be-built intermittent power precincts (predominantly foreign-owned) to your power bill — paid by the NSW taxpayer — are eye-watering.

This group of bureaucrats is paid more than some of the military top brass who put their lives on the line.

A special determination of the NSW Remuneration Tribunal reveals EnCo bureaucrat Douglas Parris, whose LinkedIn photo is a picture of himself in New York with Labor climate appointee Matt Kean, is paid $464,058 per annum — that’s about $9000 a week. It’s more than Premier Chris Minns on $416,440, Energy Minister Penny Sharpe on $333,072 or even Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on $416,212.

That’s some decent wages being paid by an organisation that could not charge your phone with the power it has delivered to the grid.

While your power bill goes up and up, EnergyCo bureaucrats are being paid up to $464,058 a year.

Most recent figures show EnergyCo has two deputy secretaries on more than $450,323, four executive directors on $352,329 and 12 directors on $242,943 a year, all paid more than some of the highest ranks in the military — army colonel or navy captain — which earn between $179,000 and $231,000.

Just under a quarter of the entire organisation of EnCo are in senior management, an organisation that advertises “community consultation” at Wooloomin and then, when people turn up, as exposed by The Daily Telegraph this week, lock down and say on video: “We are not here to answer questions”.

EnCo offers cash-strapped rural councils more than $250,000 to do studies to aid their development. What other developer can walk into an under-resourced council with a bag of cash and say ‘you can have this, but you have to come up with a study on behalf of your community that says our plan is good for you’?

It’s mathematics; here is the answer, you give us the equation that equals it and the money is yours.

On top of this, they ploughed $48 million of taxpayers’ money from NSW Treasury into consultants in one year, disclosed in their 2022-23 financial report. Their latest is still to come.

What part of the $48m consultancy told them they should force blind 94-year-old widows to sign away her rights on her home, as Madeline Bower revealed in The Daily Telegraph this week?

What part of the $48m investigation missed entire homes on their desktop analysis of rural land and declared it acceptable to build transmission lines over the top of airstrips, which are kind of important in medical emergencies?

NSW’s five renewable energy zones. Picture: energyco.nsw.gov.au

This organisation hides behind a Zoom meeting when people turn up.

The head of community engagement has changed repeatedly, as we have been asking the same questions for years, with no satisfaction or major change in their original alignment.

Questions such as: What is the justification of how they came up with their plan to spiderweb transmission lines over our homes and farms instead of using existing corridors on public land?

Some consultants, who would fly into the renewable energy zone (REZ) from Sydney for “consultation”, told us it was based on a 2019 generator expression of interest, where anyone could claim they have a project on the table.

Others said EnCo cannot use the existing transmission corridors, which have been there in some instances for 90 years, because of “fire risk”.

However, Andrew Kingsmill, Executive Director of Energy Corporation of NSW (paid $397,300 according to the special determination), told a recent inquiry into undergrounding the transmission lines: “A 500-kilovolt line has never started a bushfire in Australia.”

How many 500 kilovolts lines are in NSW? He told the inquiry: “It is in the order of seven or eight.”

So, in defending building them, they are both a fire risk and not a fire risk.

You paid consultants $48 million just to think about where to put high voltage power lines.

The bulk of the $48m in consultancy fees went to the big global consulting firms such as Deloitte, PwC and KPMG.

Deloitte got about $2.5m, including $2m just for “accounting and taxation advisory” for the Central West Orana REZ, where there would be plenty of accountants in Dubbo and Orange who would have been more than capable and willing to get their hands on some of that loot.

Or ICA Partners Pty Ltd, with views over Sydney Harbor, paid more than $5m for “strategic commercial advice” for EnCo.

Strategy for what? Infuriating people?

Or WSP Pty Ltd, headquartered in Canada with a Sydney office, which charged more than $5.8m for biodiversity and environmental assessments in the bush.

More than $48m in consultancy and all this company gives us is being ignored, belittled, held in contempt and a fortnightly newsletter about three paragraphs long?

If what you pay represents people’s worth and value, then the Premier and the Minister are the minions and the mouthpiece of third-party consultants.

What’s the point of having a parliament in NSW if the people you need to question are not there?

Not in the so-called corridors of power, but in a bureaucracy in another building entirely.

Americans have a say in their bureaucrats. They elect more of them.

In Australia, we do not vote for the real power and get the real truth because it is in the bureaucracy where the real power lies.

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