Minister Paul Papalia backs ‘world class’ Emergency WA system as prison and hospital falter in the heat

A Perth hospital and prison have become the latest sites to experience power disruptions, as summer storms and bushfires caused havoc around the State. Continued high temperatures on Tuesday led to power issues and disruptions at Acacia Prison. A faulty chilled water pipe impacted air conditioning at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. A North Metropolitan Health Service spokesperson said the hospital did not have to cancel surgeries, but some procedures were temporarily delayed. The heat meant Acacia Prison was forced to swap to generator power, although a Department of Justice spokesperson said mains power was restored at 3.30pm and prisoner routines were unaffected. The heatwave has also created difficult, dry conditions for firefighters, who have been battling summer bushfires sparked since last week. Important efforts to issued public emergency warnings for five fast-moving bushfires were affected on Monday, when the EmergencyWA alert website and app went offline for almost two hours. Nationals leader Shane Love said the app and website failures, which were blamed on technical issues, were deeply troubling. “The Cook Labor Government has spent $16 million developing this app and spent the past three weeks urging Western Australians to download it and rely on it as their primary source of emergency information,” he said. “Yet on Monday, while multiple significant fires were burning across both metropolitan and regional Western Australia, the Emergency WA app was down and unavailable for more than two hours.” In Parliament, Emergency Services Minister Paul Papalia defended the “world class” system and said it offered additional ways of providing alert information to the community. During an at-times fiery parliamentary question time, he said text and app notifications had continued to work throughout Monday and local residents could still tune in to warnings broadcast by ABC radio. “There was never a time where people were in danger of not being provided with information,” Mr Papalia said. “What we have is an enhanced capability, which is world-leading and should be supported by everybody. “People should be encouraged to rely upon additional information that can be accessed via an app that nobody had before it was introduced in WA and exists nowhere else.” Roger Cook said the the outage was “not ideal”. “I’m glad they were able to get on top of it as quickly as they did, but it’s not ideal, and obviously we’ll seek assurances that that won’t happen again,” he said. The Premier was speaking outside parliament as the lower house was recalled to pass the amended State Development Bill — after it was passed during a late night session of the upper house last week. The Bill was designed to fast-track key projects of economic or other significance to the State. Its passage was welcomed by industry, which had piled pressure on the Government to pass the overhauled legislation by the end of the year. Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA head of policy Anthea Wesley said the law would likely bring more business to WA. “One of the biggest barriers to investment in major projects right across Australia is the length of time it takes to navigate red and green tape,” she said. “These delays not only take time, they’re also costly. “By focusing on streamlining those processes, we expect to see more global investment flowing into WA.”