Criminal damage against utility infrastructure around Australia has cost power companies and consumers $276 million since 2023, according to research by Before You Dig Australia (BYDA).
In total, vandals were responsible for 2,300 attacks against telco and electricity assets in the same period, stripping valuable copper from power and fibre optic cables feeding homes, streetlights and community assets.
Vandalism is the seventh largest cause of utility damage nationally, with more than 15,000 reported utility strikes each year in Australia – almost half of them against telco assets – costing the economy $4.6 billion, although the true figures are likely to be 2-3 times higher.
BYDA’s latest research report, Australia’s Underground Utility Safety Reckoning, updates our original 2024 Economic Assessment of Utility Strikes in Australia, which calculated the indirect and social costs of utility repairs was 32.4 times higher than the direct cost of repairs.
Indirect and social costs include service interruptions, loss of income and business trade as well as environmental damage.
Read the full media release to learn more.