Ergon errs

Tourist attraction Lawdogs Australia nearly had their expansion plans brought to its knees last week after Ergon Energy workers allegedly endangered their new farm animal display.
On Tuesday last week crews doing work adjacent to the law enforcement dog training centre left debris they had cut off a transformer on the ground in a paddock used for grazing animals.
Owner Matthew Hibberd said, “We were not advised of the crews coming and this was non-urgent work being carried out, however, we accommodated them anyway.
“This meant losing power for over an hour and moving animals from the area they needed to work, but we trusted everything would work out okay,” Mr Hibberd said.
“While they were working we observed questionable safety procedures involving staff throwing items from the ground up to the workers in the cherry picker bucket as well as items dropping down to the ground.
“Luckily we cleaned up before putting animals back in the paddock, as goats would have loved chewing on the insulated copper cabling and it would have surely killed them,” he said.
The goat is a new arrival at the address for a planned expansion to include a farm animal display.
“We are still figuring out fencing and parking etcetera before we put anything formal in to the council. However, these animals are valuable to us and much loved by my family and the staff,” Mr Hibberd said.
“We also have cows here for agistment in that area. To think they could have been injured from this is extraordinary,” he said.
“It was very stressful for my sister, who is a wildlife carer, and had been taking care of the new animals here.”
Mr Hibberd said a complaint had been lodged with Ergon Energy and the Minister for Energy and Water Supply.
Ergon Energy area operations manager Matt Gleeson said, “Ergon Energy accepts some recent work at The Summit was not completed to a customer’s expectation.
“We take customer feedback seriously and Ergon Energy will continue to strive for excellence,” Mr Gleeson said.
“Once advised of this situation, the crew returned to the premises immediately to apologise to the customer and offered to address his concerns,” he said.