South Australia’s energy wars really began with the privatisation of the electricity network in the 1990s. It’s worth looking at what we’ve learnt since then
Blackouts, when I was a kid, were fun. The emergency candles would be collected from under the sink, Mum would crack open a packet of cards, or the Trivial Pursuit box, and in the newly low-lit illumination of our surroundings, we’d eat squares of chocolate and indulge low-tech amusements as if stolen into an unexpected, folksy holiday.
But to imagine a whole state blacked out, from horizon to horizon, erases the folksy glow from the childhood blackouts of my mind. In these hard-wired times, there’s a doom aesthetic that accompanies ideas of total darkness. This may be why last week’s state-wide blackout of South Australia – amid a terrible storm – has had such a heightened, emotional impact on the national imagination.
Related: A storm is brewing with the states. And it’s entirely of Turnbull’s making | Kristina Keneally