Guns seized in power dispute

BY MICHAEL FOX

Police seized 11 firearms from the man who refused to let power line workers on to his Waikato property.

Farmer Steve Meier yesterday refused to allow electricity workers access to power lines to fix a fault that had cut electricity to 50,000 homes.

A power cable hit trees on Mr Meier's farm, causing a fire that led to cuts to an area from Huntly to Whangarei. Lines company Vector introduced rolling outages to Auckland suburbs to share the load and restored power at 8pm.

Yesterday's Waikato property dispute, according to Transpower chief executive Patrick Strange, has followed several years of tension between the company and Mr Meier.

However, Mr Meier claims that he told Transpower years ago, and again recently, that the trees below the lines needed trimming and was willing to have lines staff on his property to do the maintenance.

This morning, Hamilton police boss Inspector Rob Lindsay said yesterday's firearm seizure was a precaution after officers were called to the property by power workers who had been barred from entering the property to carry out the repairs.

"The repairs were necessary after the power cables had shorted and a fire had started, fire crews had been to the address to extinguish the blaze about an hour earlier."

Mr Lindsay said he and four other officers attended. Two of those staff were armed, he said.

Eleven firearms and the landowner's firearms licence were taken to ensure the safety of all those involved, he said.

Mr Lindsay said that, under the Arms Act, where officers suspected an offence had or was about to be committed, they were entitled to seize firearms.

"The firearms were taken under these circumstances because the landowner presented behaviour that gave us some concern. This was a precautionary step only and no arrests were made," said Mr Lindsay. 

DISPUTE

Transpower head Patrick Strange said the company had been having a hard relationship with Mr Meier, "probably the most difficult in the country".

"We have been trying to get on the land for some months, we've been sending him notices saying we needed to do tree-trimming...

"When the fire was on and we tried to attend to it, he still blocked us and we had to basically have more than 10 police, I think, on the site to allow us to go on to the land."

However, Mr Meier said Transpower was "illegally on his property" last night while working on the fault.

He said he and his wife had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on court action to stop Transpower "illegally entering" their farm.

POLITICAL FALLOUT 

Meanwhile, Auckland Mayor John Banks is calling for heads to roll at Transpower following the major power outage.

Hot water cuts are expected to continue in parts of Auckland today.

Mr Banks told Radio New Zealand this morning that the outage and failure to resolve the argument with Mr Meier was not good enough.

"This time next year… at the time of the Rugby World Cup we’re going to have 60,000 credit cards arrive in Auckland," he said.

"Imagine what would happen if one angry farmer in the Waikato shut down chunks of power to Auckland, shut down the Eftpos machines and shut down 60,000 credit cards."

He said "third world power reticulation to a first world city" was not good enough.

He said more needed to be spent on infrastructure upgrades.

Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee disagreed with Mr Banks, saying the mayor's comments were "hot air and very unhelpful".

Mr Brownlee said the outage was caused by "a bad set of circumstances", which started with the fire but was compounded by the Otahuhu power station and two other circuits being out of action for routine maintenance.

"There was a multiplicity of reasons (for the outage) and the way to fix it is to have the new high tension lines through the Waikato built as quickly as possible," he told Radio New Zealand.

Mr Brownlee said Mr Meier's version of events was only "one side of the story".

"There is overdue maintenance in the transmission group from one end of the country to the other and that's about previous government neglect."

He said the National government had approved over $4 billion of capital expenditure to bring the grid "up to speed" but that it would take time to see the work completed.

"There is overdue maintenance in the transmission group from one end of the country to the other," he said, placing the blame on the previous government neglect.

COMPENSATION

Vector said it had not yet decided whether it would compensate customers or seek compensation from Transpower over the outage.

"In these kind of circumstances there is not usually compensation made," said chief executive Simon Mackenzie.

The matter would, however, be canvassed as part of the investigation into what happened.

Transpower had to direct Vector to reduce pressure on the electricity network, causing power to be cut to thousands of homes in Auckland, the North Shore, Manukau and Waitakere, Mr Mackenzie said.

Newmarket Business Association chief executive Cameron Brewer said the outage "[did] nothing to inspire confidence in the security of electricity supply into Auckland".

"Power cuts seem to have become a regular event in Auckland and it's fast becoming beyond a joke."

- With The Dominion Post and NZPA

- © Fairfax NZ News