NATURE abhors a vacuum and so do country communities who have been told to expect job losses.
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Essential Energy might be unhappy with the scrutiny it has received this week after the news that it will be cutting more than 180 jobs around the state, but the company can't be too surprised.
By failing to be clear from the start about what sort of jobs would be lost and in what locations, Essential merely invited every country community to fear the worst before a list of affected locations was finally released late in the week.
And by failing to provide concrete justifications - beyond the bland "drive efficiencies in our business" and "deliver a better service at lower cost", that is - the company invited the public to come up with its own reasons for the cuts.
A round of redundancies of that scale in that industry is going to generate headlines at any time, let alone in a state gripped by drought and with a newly assertive deputy premier who, only days ago, was making it plain he'd decided to get pugilistic.
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Essential will be banking on the clamour of voices on this topic eventually quietening and the news spotlight moving on, but a bad taste is likely to be left - and energy companies in this country have enough problems already without unnecessarily adding to the total.
Essential's best bet - and it's one the company is highly unlikely to take - is to be completely clear about what it's doing, why it's doing it and why (presumably) there is no other option.
Until the company does that, other voices will continue to fill the silence - and they're unlikely to be sympathetic to the Essential cause.
