And, the MP said she stood by her comments from March 2015 in relation to the future of jobs at the energy provider.

“As I understand it, the positions deemed to be redundant are unfunded,” she said.

“It would be unreasonable to expect an organisation to continue to pay wages to people who are without a role and the Fair Work Commission has recognised this in its recent Workplace Determination, when it states that: ‘There is no avoiding the proposition that the removal of the prohibition on involuntary redundancies will almost certainly lead to greater job losses than there otherwise would have been, and that this will have significant detrimental consequences for individual Essential Energy employees, their families, and the communities in which they live’.

“However this is an unavoidable consequence of the economic paradigm in which Essential Energy operates.

“In circumstances where Essential Energy, although government-owned, is required to operate as a business producing commercial rates of return rather than as a social service, and is subject to a regulatory regime which forces reductions in its revenue in order to minimise electricity costs to the consumer, it seems to me that a significant reduction in the size and cost of Essential Energy’s workforce has become inescapable.

“To maintain a prohibition on involuntary redundancies in those circumstances would simply be a denial of reality,” Mrs Williams said.

In March last year Mrs Williams was quoted as saying: ‘There will not be an Essential Energy worker out there that will say they were forced to leave their job’.

“The comments I made in 2015 regarding Essential Energy were accurate,” she said.

“The state government has not been responsible for any forced redundancies. The current job reductions are a result of a determination made by the Australian Energy Regulator which was subsequently approved by the Fair Work Commissioner.”  

“I will continue to advocate for increased job opportunities for our area.

“Regional communities are already reaping the benefits (of electricity privatisation) and will continue to do so in the future.”

The local member did concede that any level of job loss can have an impact on regional sustainability.

“However, customer expectations are changing and the broader energy sector is rapidly evolving. To remain a viable organisation, Essential Energy must match its business operations with the challenges and opportunities these changes create,” she said.

“Essential Energy needs to drive towards a prudent and strategic business management model to create downward pressure on the network component of electricity prices, which ultimately benefits the communities it services.”

Essential Energy could shed up to 600 regional jobs by July 2018, and up to 1000 more in 2019.