Tuesday, 1 August 2023

Bills

Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lily D’Ambrosio:

That this bill be now read a second time.

David HODGETT (Croydon) (17:05): It is a pleasure to rise, coming back after the break, well prepared to talk and make a contribution on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. You might recall that this bill, I think, was dropped into the house in early June, if my memory serves me correctly, with another bill. So it has been some time, but it is good to have it on the government business program; it is important legislation. And I note that we are carrying the legislative agenda this week, the Minister for Energy and Resources and my good self. The minister has two bills in – this one and of course the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Amendment Bill 2023, which will be debated this week too – and I note from today’s introduction of bills that we have got another bill coming. It is great to see a bipartisan approach to getting the legislative program here up and running in the chamber.

On this bill: it is very straightforward and clear-cut legislation, and of course, with the title ‘Energy safety’, it is very important. It might be straightforward and might be clear cut, but we cannot underestimate the importance of energy safety. Therefore I do say at the outset that we on this side of the house are actually supporting this bill, supporting its passage through the house here, and I will proceed with the time allocated to me just to make a number of points and, as per usual, just put on record the main purposes of the bill, any concerns that I raised that were being addressed through the minister’s office, any background, any other main provisions and those sorts of things, just so I have got that on record. But we are supporting the bill because of its importance, and it is, as I said, straightforward and very clear-cut legislation.

The bill is part of the government’s package of reforms aimed at making Victoria’s energy systems more sustainable and accountable to delivering consumer-focused outcomes. The bill will amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005 to strengthen the energy safety compliance framework. Simply put, obviously our energy safety legislation was designed to suit a system that is changing very rapidly. It was designed for a system where you had a number of large, centralised generators delivering power to local centres. It did not account for new technologies like solar, wind and batteries at the utilities scale and rooftop scale, so the government committed to a large-scale review of energy safety legislation. I think, if my memory serves me correctly from the bill briefing, there was an independent review into energy safety legislation. It was the Grimes review of 2017, which was the background behind this legislation. Out of that came some long-term measures and some short-term measures – again, if my memory serves me correctly from the notes I took at the bill briefing.

I think certainly in the short term the priority for the government is around what changes are needed to address some of the issues arising with the introduction of those new technologies – that is, solar, wind and batteries. So that is what it is aimed at doing, and the aim is to ensure that renewable generators such as solar and wind farms are treated in the same way that traditional energy companies are so that they have the same duties and obligations in terms of safety that the traditional energy companies do.

It also bulks up the ESV – Energy Safe Victoria – inspection powers. Again we have had examples where there have been a few issues with small-scale batteries, where ESV had a limited amount of time that they could hold on to a battery for investigation. So this bill fills a gap in the legislation. Obviously ESV needs time to take these components away so they can conduct a proper investigation so they can make an assessment and make changes. That was a gap in the legislation, and I think there were a couple of examples there where they went to investigate that and time was against them, so that is fairly straightforward. Clearly ESV need that time to take the components away so that they can undertake that proper investigation and make changes or recommendations or certainly make an assessment. The bill also ensures that the new forms of generation pay fees to ESV so that ESV is resourced to do the job that it does. That in a sense is the summary of the bill that was outlined to us at the bill briefing.

I want to now turn to the main purposes of the bill and put those on record. The main purposes of this bill are to amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998 in relation to:

(i) requirements for certain owners and operators of electrical installations; and

(ii) general duties of owners and operators of complex electrical installations and railways; and

(iii) modifications of supply networks and changes to safety management systems; and

(iv) revised electricity safety management schemes and bushfire mitigation plans; and

(v) voluntary electricity safety management schemes for operators of complex electrical installations; and

(vi) the period within which things seized by enforcement officers must be returned; and

(vii) preservation of serious electrical incident sites; and

(viii) acceptance and enforcement of written undertakings; and

(ix) the period within which a proceeding for an offence against that Act may be commenced; and

(x) penalties for offences against that Act …

The bill, in part 3, will amend the Gas Safety Act 1997 in relation to:

(i) preservation of gas incident sites; and

(ii) modifications of facilities and changes to safety management systems; and

(iii) revised safety cases, and

(iv) the period within which things seized by inspectors must be returned; and

(v) acceptance and enforcement of written undertakings; and

(vi) the period within which a proceeding for an offence against that Act may be commenced; and

(vii) penalties for offences against that Act …

Part 4 of the bill will amend the Pipelines Act 2005 in relation to acceptance and enforcement of written undertakings and penalties for offences against that act.

By way of background, as I said in my introductory comments, in terms of the history of our energy safety legislation, what it was designed for and what changes are needed, over the past two decades, driven by a range of policies at state and federal levels, the electricity sector has been replacing carbon-intensive generation with zero-carbon technologies. We all know that, we are all supporting that and we are all moving towards that at various paces. But at the same time the sector is moving away from a small number of large-scale facilities owned and operated by a handful of companies towards smaller scale, more widely distributed electricity production. This exponential growth in new energy technologies, particularly in renewable energy and storage, has exposed critical gaps and other weaknesses in the energy safety legislative framework.

The current safety framework was developed and based on risk profiles of regulated entities in the late 1990s, which did not factor in uptake investment in small-scale renewable and battery installations. These risks are real, with two serious incidents in 2021 underscoring the inability of Energy Safe Victoria to regulate these facilities before these incidents occur. Back to the point I was making before, given that background and the pace we are moving at and how our energy safety legislation was designed, that is changing rapidly. With wind, solar, batteries and, at the utility scale, rooftop, the government needs to ensure that they are all abiding by the same rules or, as the point I made, that they are all treated in the same way that traditional energy companies are so that their duties and obligations in terms of safety are the same as those traditional energy companies from the 1990s.

In terms of main provisions, the bill makes amendments to the Energy Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005 that will improve community safety through more effective and targeted regulation of new and emerging energy safety risks, including those posed by emerging technologies. The bill will do this in a number of ways, and I will just put those on the record. The bill will do this by extending the mandatory requirements under the Electricity Safety Act 1998 for major electricity companies to prepare an electrical safety management scheme and bushfire management plan to declared owners and operators of specified electrical installations. These amendments will mean that those businesses identified as posing a greater safety risk to surrounding lands from the operation of their electrical installations will be required to demonstrate a clear plan for mitigating those safety risks. These businesses will also be subject to certain safety duties and obligations commensurate with a major electricity company under the Electricity Safety Act 1998.

The bill will also do this by minor technical amendments to the administration of safety management plans by the relevant entity to ensure they remain current to technological changes in electrical installations or the supply of gas. The bill will align the existing general duties under the Electricity Safety Act 1998 for companies with complex electrical installations with those existing general duties for companies with electricity supply networks. The bill will require an electricity supplier to preserve the site of a serious electrical incident and a gas company to preserve the site of a gas incident for inspection by an enforcement officer or authorised inspector.

It will extend the period Energy Safe Victoria can hold on to seized things for an affected company or person. Again, back to the point I was making before, we had an example of a couple of incidents, a few issues with small-scale batteries, where Energy Safe Victoria were limited in the amount of time that they could hold on to batteries. That was a gap in the legislation, so that fills that gap. It extends that period in which Energy Safe Victoria can hold on to seized things from an affected company. It will provide Energy Safe Victoria and the Minister for Energy and Resources with the power to enter into enforceable undertakings with regulated entities as an optional tool instead of bringing court proceedings. Finally, the bill will do this by increasing maximum penalties for offences by energy entities relating to maintaining safety networks.

In terms of areas of concern, we did receive some feedback from the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, the AEIC, via the member for Lowan. Again, it is interesting how the bill process works, where we go out to stakeholders. Our members consult with stakeholders and get feedback, and one of the things that works well is often we get feedback from people that are also providing the exact same feedback to the department and to the minister’s office, so there are no secrets there. There are no surprises. They are raising matters, and then we are able to go to the minister’s office or the department and either get answers to those through points of clarification or raise those as concerns in the debate. I just wanted to outline the process here, because it is a good example of how some of these cooperative work practices actually come together in getting to this stage of the bill and help us form a view on what we do in terms of supporting, opposing or moving a reasoned amendment on a bill.

As I said, we did receive some feedback from the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner via the member for Lowan, and the AEIC raised the following:

We note that s 142 of the Electricity Safety Act 1998 requires that an electricity supplier must report to ESV any serious electrical incident that occurs in relation to its supply network and that cl 38 of the Bill seeks to extend this obligation to declared owners and operators.

There have been several recent safety incidents at renewable energy facilities, for example, a blade drop incident, that were not due to an electrical incident.

We would therefore like to highlight the opportunity for the scope of reportable incidents to be expanded from a “serious electrical incident” to include any event that has caused harm or has the potential to cause harm to any person or the environment.

What the AEIC were doing there was they gave an example of a blade drop incident and just suggested that the scope of a reportable incident be expanded from a serious electrical incident to include those events. The email from the AEIC went on to say that:

Additionally, we suggest that the Act be amended to include an obligation on an electricity supplier or declared owner or operator that has reported an incident to provide a report to the ESV on the root cause of the incident.

We got that feedback, and then on Saturday 27 May I raised this with Mr Nick Parry, the minister’s senior energy adviser, who advised that Andrew Dyer, the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, had also raised this matter directly with him. Then Nick Parry sought clarification from the department, and on 29 May he provided the following information, which I will go into.

Again I put this on record as an example of where we get a bill dropped in; you might not have the background information or history of how that bill came about. You get a briefing where you ask a number of questions, you get feedback from stakeholders and then often you have got to form a view and get back into the house to debate the matter a week or so later. In this case it does give an example where, over the course of a weekend, we were able to have access to and contact the minister’s office and put on record some concerns, which they were already aware of because in this case the AEIC had also raised them directly with the department or the minister’s office. So Nick was aware of that. He was able to quickly get clarification from the department and alleviate our concerns – or answer our questions – which meant that in turn we could go back to our members and say, ‘Here are the questions you asked. Here’s the information we’ve got’ et cetera. It is a good example of the way the process works.

Mr Parry did come back to us. It was terrific dealing with Nick. Having spoken to the department and Energy Safe Victoria, the minister’s office confirmed that the definition of a ‘serious electrical incident’ under the Electricity Safety Act will include anything that could cause death, damage or serious risk to public safety, and this includes a blade drop at a wind farm. Just to restate that, the minister’s office was able to come back to us and say, having sought advice from Energy Safe Victoria and the minister’s office, that they could confirm that the definition of ‘serious electrical incident’ under the Electricity Safety Act will include anything that could cause death, damage or serious risk to public safety, and that does include a blade drop at a wind farm. On the second point, ESV has the power to require information in relation to an incident, which includes a root cause analysis. So I received further advice from the minister’s office, who had spoken with Andrew Dyer, the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner. The AEIC were satisfied with that, and that was confirmed.

I know I am repeating myself here, but I outline this process just to show the cooperative work that can go on in dealing behind the scenes with the department and the minister’s office from an opposition’s point of view to show how that occurs to allow us to get points of clarification – otherwise it makes it very difficult to form positions on bills and to answer questions – but also to thank Nick Parry and the departmental staff for their assistance in this matter. Practices occur when clarifying areas in a bill – and in this case we are supporting the bill. When we are trying to form a position on a bill we want to have an informed view, an informed position, which in turn allows a smooth passage through the house or allows us continually to raise those points on behalf of stakeholders in the house for the minister or the department to perhaps take away in between both houses in the course of the debate of this bill. But this case was a terrific example.

Over the course of a weekend, which was a pleasant surprise, we were able to get the answer back very quickly. Sometimes these bills come on quickly. In this case, as I said, it was dropped in early June, and here we are debating it on 1 August. But sometimes you get a bill where you have week on, week off sittings and you might have to have this information back to debate it a fortnight later. So I thank the departmental representatives – and I will come back to them – and I thank Nick Parry from the minister’s office for the service we were able to get in terms of getting our points clarified and questions answered.

Like with all these things, we try to consult widely when a bill is put into this house. We have our own databases where we go out to any number of stakeholders, including of course our own state Liberal–Nationals MPs in the coalition. We write, phone or invite people to make comment on the bill from all sorts of stakeholders. Apart from that feedback that came via the member for Lowan from the AEIC, there were no other areas of concern raised or identified with the bill. As I said at the outset, it is pretty straightforward legislation, pretty clear-cut, albeit very important, so given the bill briefing we were not really expecting anything from the stakeholders to set off any alarm bells there, and in that minor clarification we were able to do that.

I do want to, in the time left, just put on record my thanks firstly to Nick Parry from the minister’s office. I hope I have got all the names right because, as I say, we had two bill briefings back to back from department officers and there were a couple of different officers from different sections to deal with the two bills we had. My apologies if I leave any of them out. Mr Nick Parry, Holli Smith, Lisa Opray, Barbara Blake and Solly Marshall-Radcliffe – I think they were all the people. They have got another bill coming in. We are carrying the legislative agenda – the minister has got two bills this week and another one next week. I say that in a genuine way, and I say that every time I do get up and speak on a bill. The process of being able to contact the minister’s office, get a speedy bill briefing organised, get a bill briefing and invite any members from our side to have points clarified and raised allows us to form a view and to get back in here for the smooth running of the house. I do genuinely put my thanks to Nick, Holli, Lisa, Barbara and Solly for the efforts and advice and feedback that we got there to get those questions answered.

As I said at the outset, we are supporting the bill. Without re-emphasising the points, just to go over it again, simply put, obviously our energy safety legislation was designed to suit a system that is changing very rapidly. It was designed for that system where you had a number of large centralised generators delivering power to local load centres. It did not account for new technologies like solar, wind and batteries at the utility scale and rooftop scale. This aims at ensuring that renewable generators – solar, wind farms et cetera – are treated in exactly the same way that traditional energy companies are so that they have the same duties and obligations in terms of safety that the traditional energy companies do.

In summary, the bill is about modernising the safety framework around the delivery of energy. The bill ensures that renewable generators such as solar and wind farms are treated in the same way the traditional energy companies are so that they have the same duties and obligations in terms of safety that the traditional energy companies do. As such we are supporting the bill and have taken that position as the coalition. I look forward to hearing the contributions of other members of this house.

Paul EDBROOKE (Frankston) (17:28): I rise this afternoon to speak on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. From the outset can I just say that it is great to hear that the opposition will not be opposing this very important bill. I also thank the minister, the department and the minister’s staff. We have got Holli and we have got Molly as well. It was Holli that taught me all about heat pumps a few weeks ago, so thank you for that. They are all over their brief, that is for sure.

This bill will modernise Victoria’s energy safety legislative framework to improve community and worker safety and create more effective and targeted regulation of new and emerging safety risks that are posed by emerging technologies as the state undertakes a rapid energy transition to renewables. This is part of a global shift away from fossil fuel to achieve the goals set by the Paris climate agreement of seeking to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Global energy systems are phasing out fossil fuels as the dominant energy source. These reforms will strengthen the safety compliance network by increasing obligations for electricity and gas companies, including owners and operators. Basically, much like we see with the gig economy, we are having to catch up in a legislative framework way.

This legislation gives Energy Safe Victoria (ESV) the legislative power to compel owners and operators of critical and complex installations, such as batteries, to reduce safety risks prior to energising their infrastructure, and it ensures that newer technologies like batteries, wind farms and solar farms are held to the same standards as existing generation network technologies. The bill will also provide Energy Safe Victoria with an enhanced enforcement toolkit to effectively regulate the transforming energy sector, which has come a long way since 2014, when this government aspired to be outperforming the nation, as we are now, in this sector. The bill also, importantly, will help ensure the safety of workers and communities as we continue with our journey and transition to a renewable energy future, and I know the member for Narracan thinks this is very important too.

As everyone in this chamber should well know, Victoria is leading with one of the fastest energy transitions in the world. We have had more than triple our share of renewables in power generation in just the last eight years. We have helped nearly a quarter of a million Victorian households install solar panels on their roofs, reducing bills and giving them control over their energy. We held the Victorian renewable energy target option, the country’s largest reverse auction on renewables. We have installed the Victorian Big Battery, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and we have made Victoria the home of big batteries. Through these actions we have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than any other state in Australia since 2014 – and we have only just begun.

Having comfortably surpassed our 2020 renewable energy target of 20 per cent, we just increased our 2030 renewable energy target from 50 per cent to 65 per cent. We have set a 2035 target of 95 per cent, and this target will be backed by separate targets for offshore wind and energy storage as well. We will have at least 2 gigawatts of offshore by 2032, 4 gigawatts by 2035 and 9 gigawatts by 2040, and to support this increase in renewable capacity we will have at least 2.6 gigawatts of storage capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts of battery storage by 2035. We have also brought forward our net zero emissions target from 2050 to 2045. That will require the transformation of our entire energy system, including transport and industry, but our energy safety legislation just has not kept pace. This is nothing short of the most fundamental technological transformation in our lifetimes. It is exciting. It means jobs, it means cleaner and cheaper energy, and it means cleaner air. But it also means that we need to maintain the safety of communities and workers, and our energy safety rules must keep pace with that technology. That is why we are here today.

This legislation does that by making commonsense amendments to Victoria’s energy safety legislation. It aligns our energy safety obligations for renewable energy companies with the traditional companies and strengthens the investigative and enforcement powers of the independent safety regulator Energy Safe Victoria. We have had some recent incidents that have highlighted the urgency of these amendments. Over the past two decades the electricity sector has been replacing carbon-intensive generation with zero-carbon technologies. I think you would be living under a rock if you did not know that. The sector is obviously moving away from having a small number of large-scale facilities that have historically been owned and operated by a handful of companies – Engie would be one, down at Hazelwood – towards a more decentralised and widely distributed electricity generation industry.

Why do I mention Hazelwood? Because it is one that comes up quite often – that governments would be stopping private owners or closing down power stations. In reality these private owners have no choice. Stockholders and investors are just not investing in fossil fuels; it is a dirty word out there. Nations are already pressing ahead at a great rate of knots. One example would be Scotland, which is actually exporting electricity into Europe from its wind turbines. The exponential growth in these new technologies has exposed some critical gaps that we need to actually attend to. This legislation provides a crucial safeguard for consumer protections and confidence by ensuring the safe delivery and regulation of these new technologies.

The bill also makes amendments to the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005 to increase civil penalties up to sixfold from previous amounts. This is really important when you consider, for example, in 2018 the Terang and Garvoc fires, which were caused by powerlines, destroyed 6000 hectares of land and property and were found to be caused by Powercor. The fine imposed by the court was $130,000. That does not meet community expectations.

It is not all about money, though. We have had to deal with private energy provider issues before and make reforms to make sure disasters did not happen again. The largest example of that would be the privately owned systems that were tragically highlighted, I think, in the Victorian bushfires on 7 February 2009, which claimed 173 lives and destroyed thousands of homes. The 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission found that five of the 11 major fires that began that day were caused by failed electricity assets. Among those fires was the one at Kilmore East in which 119 people died, and that was caused by several privatised power assets. The current penalties do not align with the potential implications to life, property and the environment that may result from failing to fulfil safety obligations. Low penalties potentially incentivise business to take safety risks as well.

The Andrews Labor government is unapologetic about our energy safety regime. Victoria’s robust energy safety framework is proactively updated to ensure that we continue to keep workers and our community safe. There are inherent risks with all electrical infrastructure, but these risks are mitigated through appropriate energy safety rules. Following the fire that occurred at the Victorian Big Battery in 2021 during testing, ESV was given control of the site and immediately made recommendations to the government. We always endeavour to implement recommendations made by our state energy safety regulator. As I have said, safety is non-negotiable to this government.

At the election we committed to a comprehensive review of energy safety legislation for the long term, but these proposed reforms are a good first step, representing a range of quick wins here today. As we continue the transition to renewable energy, we will maintain our proactive approach to safety, and that is why we need this bill. Previous governments were able to privatise the ownership of essential community infrastructure such as electricity generation and distribution assets, but we will never be able to privatise the risk, responsibility or consequences of poor private sector maintenance, investment or safety on our community.

In saying that, that is why I am so happy that we are bringing back the SEC. Born and bred in the valley, the SEC means we can focus on not just increasing the safety of new energy but the impact it has on the cost of living, and of course that has been a huge focus of this government. We would not like anyone out there today to take it on themselves to tell people that this legislation might be a huge impost on people in our community. We want to assure Victorians that analysis by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Better Regulation Victoria indicates the proposed change to the safety framework is unlikely to significantly impact costs. The total financial impact across the entire sector is anticipated to be less than $1 million per year. That is about $1 per bill in current cost to consumers.

We are absolutely leading the nation when it comes to climate action. We are decarbonising at the fastest rate in the country, and since this government was elected in 2014, we have cut emissions by more than any other state. We have the strongest climate change legislation in the country, and Victorians voted overwhelmingly for the next steps in our ambitious plan. Our targets of 75 to 80 per cent reduction by 2035 and net zero by 2045 align Victoria with the Paris goals of limiting global warming to 1.5°degrees Celsius. We do not just talk about climate change; we are delivering on it with policies like this. I heartily commend this bill to the house.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (17:39): As the member for Croydon indicated, we are supportive of this bill and actually in support of renewables and the transition to renewables more broadly in a practical and commonsense way so we can not only keep the lights on and cook a good stir-fry but so our farms and factories can keep doing what they do best – that is, manufacturing and producing food for not only the rest of the state and the rest of the country but indeed the rest of the world. I assure you that currently sun and wind just do not do that. Energy systems obviously need to be safe, they need to be sustainable but they also need to be reliable, and we need to remember that.

I do thank the member for Croydon for a very comprehensive bill briefing and summary on the changes that we are debating in this place today. This bill seeks to amend the energy safety compliance framework in a rapidly changing landscape, and it is evolving very quickly, so this bill will modernise that for that very quickly evolving space.

This bill seeks to ensure that renewable energy companies are meeting the same compliance requirements as traditional electricity operators and companies, and this topic is vitally important to the entire electorate of Mildura. With the explosion of renewable energy investment right across the region, companies have recognised and they have taken advantage of the abundant sunlight that we have in our region and the incredible amount of wind, particularly through the spring and summer months, and they are really harnessing that, taking advantage of it, with solar farms on massive scales being developed. That also has an enormous impact on local economies not only with the creation of jobs while those farms are being constructed but also with the financial injection into small towns such as Wemen, Robinvale and Bannerton, those small communities where these solar farms have been constructed. That has huge economic value as well as obviously the benefit for renewable energy while they are in those locations building those farms.

Let us hope, though, that this also means that companies are rolling out the projects with regard to renewable transmission lines, because once we have those farms constructed in the regions, we have got to be able to get that power everywhere else. We need to be able to transmit all of that power that is generated through these solar and wind farms, so let us talk about the infrastructure to do that, like the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West project. People in particularly the south of my electorate are very concerned about the VNI West project after having what they thought was the preferred option for the new 500-kilovolt transmission lines changed without consultation. Imagine how confused they were to learn that all of a sudden there was a new option, option 5, and be told that that was now the preferred option. There were a few community meetings that were held but poorly advertised, and we have worked with the market operator around that.

Submissions were called for as well, and submissions were received. One very interesting one was from Professor Bruce Mountain and Simon Bartlett AM, who submitted a very detailed document outlining a few important points. With that submission, a report says that if developed, VNI:

… will be the biggest single expense in the Victorian transmission system in more than 50 years and the biggest mistake in transmission planning in living memory.

The Victorian Government has used its legislative powers to make the Consultation Report the last step in the regulatory approval process.

Simon Bartlett is not just a guy that has decided to write a submission. He was previously a member of the national electricity market’s reliability panel and a professor of electrical engineering and chief operating officer of Powerlink. Professor Mountain is the director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University. They did submit this very detailed critique of the Australian Energy Market Operator consultation report; they have been working very closely with the community from Charlton, Donald, St Arnaud, up through Kerang, Horsham and right through the region; they have attended many meetings and spoken with the community at length; and they did conclude that the development would be, as they state, a monumental mistake. They say, and there are five key points, that it would:

Drastically increase Victoria’s susceptibility to state-wide blackouts through exposure to natural disasters and … bushfire risk –

and I am paraphrasing here, just to save time –

Double transmission charges in Victoria and lay the foundation for further transmission developments that together will triple transmission charges in Victoria.

Force new renewable generation along the … VNI route where AEMO predicts congestion which will mean that up to 50% of the renewable generation built along that corridor will be wasted through spills as a result of transmission congestion.

It all gets very, very technical, but in the end it was reported by Mr Bartlett and Professor Mountain that there could be far more elegant solutions to being able to transmit all of the renewable energy from the region’s solar farms and wind farms in a much more cost-effective way and a much more energy-efficient way than the new proposed 500-kilovolt lines that are sought through VNI West.

The community are still fighting for consultation. They are in constant contact with all of their local members, myself included and our federal member, and working for the detail that they need, because we all know that the devil is usually in the detail when it comes to these matters. I have stood with these communities, like I said. I have held informal meetings, and although everyone agrees that a shift to renewables is needed, at what expense is that needed? We also need to remember that compliance with safety should also mean compliance on new infrastructure builds. Community consultation should also be a part of that.

Like I said, I have stood with these communities, I have talked to them at length and I text them often. These are communities not just in my electorate but also in a neighbouring electorate. The young farmers in St Arnaud have been very vocal about this. The Victorian Farmers Federation branches in Charlton and Coonooer Bridge have been very vocal about it, and they have a wind farm there as well. We obviously know that the transmission lines are needed to get all of that energy into the grid, but at what cost? So when we talk about electricity safety and the communities that electricity will be generated in as we transition to renewables, we need to remember them and not disregard those communities who – and I bang on about this all the time, but I will remind everyone once again – are producing our food and fibre, your food and fibre. They should be shown the same, if not more, respect than the communities they are producing it for, because without them we do not eat and we are not clothed. We are broadly in support of this bill, but the compliance element also needs to extend to those companies to make sure that they are consulting with communities in the proper way.

Nick STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (17:48): It is indeed a pleasure to rise to make a contribution on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. Although it is a fairly narrow bill, a very technical bill, it does point to a larger agenda of the Andrews Labor government, and that is in terms of increasing the proportion of renewable energy in this state and bringing down greenhouse gas emissions.

It is equally a pleasure to follow the member for Mildura in this debate. One thing I would say is renewable energy is nothing to be afraid of – absolutely nothing to be afraid of. You know, we remember the Gillard years and the debate around the carbon tax and those ugly protests against the carbon tax and the scaremongering that we saw – things like the Sunday roast is going to cost $100 if the Gillard government introduces a carbon tax. Now we are hearing that we might not be able to cook a stir-fry at home if we go down this track. But do not worry, member for Mildura, there will be plenty of stir-fries because when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining, we are investing in storage. We actually have storage targets, which I am going to come to in a moment. Forget about cooking a stir-fry at home; you could open a restaurant in Mildura to sell stir-fries. There will be plenty of renewable energy powering our state. In fact, this is actually the fastest transition in our country.

Over the past five years renewable energy in Victoria has doubled. Renewable energy has doubled, and that is a good thing, because we are all about reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. The energy sector accounts for roughly around half of Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions, and that is why we have these ambitious targets when it comes to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, where our target is net zero by 2045. When it comes to our renewable energy targets we have an equally ambitious agenda. We had an agenda of 25 per cent by 2020, which we have already achieved, but we have updated these renewable energy targets, which are now 65 per cent by 2030 and 95 per cent by 2035, and in addition to that – I said I would come to the storage targets – at least 2.6 gigawatts of energy storage capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts by 2035.

We can do this because this government is bringing back the State Electricity Commission, which those opposite privatised in the 1990s. They privatised it in the 1990s. People lost their jobs. These multinational companies made billions upon billions of dollars, and what have Victorians got to show for it? Higher prices and ageing infrastructure. Well, we are taking a far different approach. We are investing in renewable energy, and we are doing it at such a fast pace that we need to ensure that we are doing it in a safe way and that we are adapting energy safety regulations and the energy safety framework in this state to fit in with this new energy landscape of renewable energy. As with all new technologies, they come with new risks and risks that we must protect against to keep our energy transition going as we strive to reach the targets I just spoke about. This bill provides Energy Safe Victoria with an enhanced enforcement toolkit to effectively regulate the transforming energy sector. It introduces reforms that strengthen safety compliance through obligations for electricity and gas companies, including owners and operators; it gives Energy Safe Victoria power to compel owners and operators of installations, such as batteries, to reduce safety risks prior to switching them on; and it ensures newer technologies, like batteries, wind farms and solar farms, are held to the same safety standards as existing technologies.

Certainly when you consider our Solar Homes program, a very successful program – in fact I was with the Premier and the minister back in 2018, before the 2018 election, when that was announced. We were in the home of a family in Moorabbin announcing the Solar Homes program, and since that time I think around a quarter of a million households in Victoria have actually installed solar panels under the Solar Homes program, a massive achievement. It is not just about reducing our emissions, it is about cost of living, because we know that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy. Victorians understand that. Not everybody on the opposition benches yet understands that, but this really does have to be about science over ideology, and that is certainly what this government is about. But in terms of –

Will Fowles interjected.

Nick STAIKOS: Science over idiocy, that is exactly right, member for Ringwood.

But on solar homes, because we were suddenly installing solar panels on so many more roofs on so many more households, safety was a prime consideration, and in my electorate we have Holmesglen TAFE’s Moorabbin campus. I will call it solar central. It is where many of our solar workers receive their training. In fact at Holmesglen a working safely in the solar industry course was developed, which is now, as I understand it, offered statewide. It is a free course, and it is the course that all of our workers on the Solar Homes program must complete prior to commencing their work. This government, throughout this renewable energy revolution, has always had the safety of workers and the safety of the community at the forefront of its agenda.

These are all very, very important initiatives, but when we think about bringing back the SEC, again it is about investing in renewable energy to bring our greenhouse gas emissions down and investing in ensuring that we keep our energy bills down as well. The recent budget that the government handed down included funding to kickstart the revival of the SEC, and at the state election campaign we committed $1 billion towards delivering 4.5 gigawatts of power through renewable energy and storage projects. That is the equivalent replacement of coal-fired power station Loy Yang A, which is set to close in 2035. It is just something that makes sense. It makes sense that we would invest in the cleanest and cheapest form of energy. That is exactly what this government is doing. We have ambitious renewable energy targets, which we are meeting, and we have ambitious greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, which we are also handsomely satisfying, and that is something that we are very proud of.

This government has a big, bold vision for Victoria. We are ambitious for Victoria, and renewable energy and green technologies are the future. They also create thousands upon thousands of jobs and opportunities for Victorians. That is what we are all about. We are going at a fast pace, investing in renewable energy, investing in energy storage and bringing back the SEC, and as we are keeping up this pace and making these investments we also need to ensure that we are doing it in the safest way possible. This is what this bill is all about. I commend it to the house and I wish it a speedy passage.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (17:57): I am rising this afternoon to contribute to the bill before us, the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. Anything that we can do as a state to make the inherently dangerous commodity of energy safer is a good thing. Whether it is electricity transmission and generation or whether it is gas development, transmission and usage – whatever it is – it is important that we keep our communities safe. The one thing that we know about the renewable energy transition that Victoria is undergoing at the moment is that we are actually spreading this risk much more comprehensively right across the state.

If I can talk about the wonderful seat of Polwarth for a moment in terms of its contribution to Victoria’s energy rollout, we have both plentiful natural gas supplies and plentiful wind supplies. We have got solar installations and we have got battery installations – the whole lot of it can be seen in my electorate. Of course when your community starts living with these potentially dangerous installations, then risks and danger can arise, and it is important that government has the necessary legislation and programs in place to protect people.

Why is this important? Well, one of our chamber colleagues here earlier, the member for Frankston, talked about the need for corporate responsibility. He talked about the effects of the fires down in my patch, the Garvoc fires and the Terang fires, and he spoke about the inadequacy of this current government’s penalties, where literally millions and millions of dollars of private assets and livestock were lost in the St Patrick’s Day fires and yet only a very small fine was issued to the power company involved. That does not meet community standards; I agree with the member for Frankston about that.

But let us talk about where we are at now with this. We are spreading this generation of electricity, this generation of energy, which is inherently dangerous. It has also coincided with a very benign weather pattern that we have had now for about the last four or five years, particularly in western Victoria. Really it was back in 2015, 2016 when we had our last quite bad fire period in that area, and it has been pretty benign since.

We have had an enormous growth in renewable infrastructure. As we speak now, I have just looked on the national electricity market site, and in my area, nearby we have got the largest wind farm. It is soon to be surpassed by Rokewood and Golden Plains. But the Macarthur wind farm, sitting here right now, has zero production midweek. Right at the point of the day when people are coming home and using energy and equipment it is zero. Mount Gellibrand, which I can see from my bedroom windows, has zero production as we speak now. Dundonnell, which I can see on a clear day across the various western Victorian lakes, has zero production right now. And of course Mortlake South has only just, after three years, been connected to the grid, and it is producing zero.

So today we are actually using gas. We are using gas taken from my electorate. It is being pumped up to Mortlake, and it is actually the Mortlake gas peaking plant that is supplying good clean energy in western Victoria right now, not any of the billions of dollars that we have spent on wind farms. They are all sitting on zero, which is quite ironic. We actually need it right now. It is a cold, miserable day, and all those houses that are only going to have electricity will be relying on gas to keep that electricity going for them on a day like today. Then we can look at the Newport power station. It is going flat out right now because the wind is not actually working today and is providing zero energy into the grid. We need complex levels of electricity transmission.

We can also cite, in my electorate, two major transmission line failures just in the last three years. The minister and others will be familiar with the fact that the Salt Creek wind farm powerline arms collapsed. They fell down and caused quite a bit of destruction in a fairly built-up part of the rural landscape. Of course early in 2020 a windstorm came through and brought the biggest powerline in the state crashing down all over the road, just missing cars, and knocked out the main transmission line that so much of our renewable energy will be relying upon. We have not really had the necessary investigations into both those collapses, and I would hope that this legislation will in fact feed into the necessary understandings that we need both as a community and as an industry to make sure that these potentially very catastrophic events do not happen again and certainly do not happen any time soon.

We also, in preparing for this legislation, understand that it does not necessarily deal with other types of accidents that do not actually involve the transmission of energy, whether it is gas or electricity, and that might be other catastrophic failures that occur in the production of energy. We have seen at the Dundonnell wind farm, for example, the propellers just fall off the turbines. One of the advantages of that is that in a paddock you might not have people under them. But farms are active and dynamic workplaces, and the fact of a big, 80-metre-long propeller coming flying through the air and landing on top of your head is probably not a good thing. So it is probably important that this type of legislation would deal with that. We are also familiar with hoses blowing hydraulic oil and other critical incidents that may form something that will cause a great deal of harm not only to a community and to individuals but to the energy system as a whole.

Another great concern that has come about, and there has not been the research or understanding, because of the benign weather I spoke about earlier, is that modern day western Victorian firefighting relies incredibly on the use of air support, whether it is fixed-wing or helicopter support. Right throughout our region we will require good firefighting skills and expertise from aerial pursuits. We have not actually yet had a full investigation to make sure that these firefighting methods will not be hindered by the use of a growing renewable energy industry, whether it is the actual structures themselves or the transmission infrastructure that is required.

We welcome any reviews of this, but the one thing I think that really sits in the back of the minds of so many people in my electorate and western Victoria generally is some of the reviews that this government has overseen. For example, the Auditor-General’s report back in October 2020 spoke about the fact that there is so much known about the cause of fires, particularly with electrical infrastructure, and one of the most catastrophic statistics out of that is that approximately 80 per cent of all property and life lost in bushfires in Victoria since the 1940s has been caused by electrical installation failures. Those electrical installation failures have occurred in particular weather patterns and at particular times of year. So essentially your hot north wind fire is the one when a power pole comes down and causes catastrophic problems. We have long identified the simplest solution. It is putting power underground; it is insulating wires. Referring again to the member for Frankston’s point about the inadequacy of the way we perhaps dealt with Powercor after the St Patrick’s Day fire, that same company went and installed another 6 kilometres of bare wire in the middle of the Otway Ranges, the home of the worst parts of the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983. So only weeks after being chastised very, very loosely with a warm lettuce from this government and a $130,000 fine, they still went about installing the types of infrastructure that caused this fire.

I would hope that in any review process or legislation that this government brings about to make companies more responsible about the way they expand and grow the renewable energy resource, they will also take into account the need to make sure that we are not saying one thing on one hand and doing the complete opposite on the other. Unfortunately there is more than enough evidence. We talk a lot in this chamber about what we are doing with energy and how we are growing renewable energy, but we are not actually matching that on the ground and in practice in the communities that care. So I support this legislation to the extent that it is going to start bringing into focus the need for all the elements of the changed energy system to be more cognisant of communities and safer in operation, and we only hope that this will grow and develop in a way that truly keeps all Victorians safe in their homes and on their farms.

Chris COUZENS (Geelong) (18:07): I am pleased to rise to contribute to the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. Can I start by thanking the minister and her team for their significant work on this bill – and not just on this bill but on all issues around climate change and the environment and for listening to the people of Victoria, because that is what they want. Only today in this place we heard about the pathway set by the Honourable Tom Roper and the significance of his work in those early days, and I think our ministers in this government are continuing that work and will leave a legacy in this state.

I think the issues around climate change and environment are huge in my local community. People are talking about them all the time and about what needs to happen to make significant change. They most definitely support what this government is doing – the different legislation that we have brought forward in this place and the different programs and projects that we have put forward to look after our environment but also to address the issues around climate change. We have only got to look at what is happening in Europe and in the US at the moment with the extreme heat and the predictions of that maybe not being as bad but coming into our next summer and those going forward. The community is really concerned about these matters.

We also heard last week reports in Geelong that we are looking at a 0.8-metre sea level rise, which will impact on communities across our region, in particular the Bellarine. This is really concerning for communities like Geelong. We are hearing these reports; people are concerned about what this means for their future and for their children going forward. To have this significant legislation and all the other pieces of legislation that we have brought into this place to really address those issues is really important, and I do commend the minister and her team for the work that they have done on this.

The bill will modernise Victoria’s energy safety legislative framework to improve community and worker safety. It will create more effective and targeted regulation of new and emerging safety risks that are posed by emerging technologies as the state undertakes a rapid transition to renewable energy. The reforms will strengthen the safety compliance framework by increasing obligations for electricity and gas companies, including owners and operators. This legislation gives ESV legislative power to compel owners and operators of critical and complex installations, such as batteries, to reduce safety risks prior to energisation. This bill ensures newer technologies, like batteries, wind farms and solar farms, are held to the same standards as existing generation and network technologies. They will also provide Energy Safe Victoria with an enhanced enforcement toolkit to effectively regulate the transforming energy sector.

At the election we committed to a comprehensive review of energy safety legislation for the long term, but these proposed reforms are a good step representing a range of quick wins. This bill will help ensure the safety of workers and communities as we continue with our journey and transition to a renewable energy future. This also is about jobs. It is about skills and training leading to those jobs that we need going forward. It is important for our communities. We have to have people with those skills, and the investments we have made in the training and skills area are significant. I understand that Federation Uni in Ballarat have received funding from this government for the wind farm generation and skilling up, providing the courses needed to do that. Communities are benefiting not only from the climate and environment side of things but also in jobs and skills and training, and young people are looking to those jobs as being opportunities for their careers in the future, which is really exciting.

Of course Victoria is leading the way as one of the fastest energy transitions in the world. We have more than tripled the share of renewables in power generation in just eight years. We have helped nearly a quarter of a million Victorian households install solar panels on their roofs, reducing bills and giving them control over their energy. This is making a huge difference for so many people. I know in my community of Geelong people are taking up the option of having solar panels put on their roof because not only do they want to reduce their bills but they want to do something towards protecting our climate. Many people are now talking about what the next step is, what else we can do to address climate change in our local communities, and the roof panels are really important.

We held the Victorian renewable energy target auction, the country’s largest reverse auction for renewables. We have installed the Victorian Big Battery, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and made Victoria the home of the big batteries. Through these actions we have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than any other state in Australia since 2014, and we have only just begun. Having comfortably surpassed our 2020 renewable energy target of 20 per cent, we increased our 2030 renewable energy target from 50 per cent to 65 per cent. We have set a 2035 target of 95 per cent. This target will be backed by separate targets for offshore wind and energy storage. We will have at least 2 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032, 4 gigawatts by 2035 and now 9 gigawatts by 2040. To support this increase in renewable capacity we will have at least 2.6 gigawatts of storage capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts by 2035. We have brought forward our net zero emissions target from 2050 to 2045, which will require the transformation of our entire energy system, including transport and industry, but our energy safety legislation has not kept pace.

This is nothing short of the most fundamental technological transformation of our lifetimes. It is exciting. It means more jobs, cheaper energy and cleaner air, which is exactly what all our communities want. But to ensure that the safety of workers and communities is maintained, our energy safety rules must keep pace with the technology. This legislation does that by making commonsense amendments to Victoria’s energy safety legislation. The amendments will align the energy safety obligations of renewable energy companies with those of traditional companies and strengthen the investigative and enforcement powers of the independent safety regulator, Energy Safe Victoria. Recent incidents highlight the urgency of these amendments. Two serious fires in 2021 at the Victorian Big Battery and the Cohuna solar farm highlighted the limitations that Energy Safe Victoria has in regulating facilities such as solar farms and battery installations. ESV was unable to intervene or regulate these sites until the fires had occurred.

Over the past two decades the electricity sector has been replacing carbon-intensive generation with zero-carbon technologies. The sector is moving away from having a small number of large-scale facilities that have historically been owned and operated by a handful of companies towards a more decentralised and widely distributed electricity generation industry. The current framework was originally developed based on a small number of large, regulated entities in the 1990s and did not factor in possible uptake and investment in renewable energies or the technological diversity that has emerged in both utility and residential-scale installations. It is critical to safeguard consumer protections and confidence by ensuring the safe delivery and regulation of these new technologies. I commend this bill to the house.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (18:17): I rise to speak on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. I am glad that the Minister for Energy and Resources is in the chamber today, because energy transition, energy security and energy affordability and reliability are one of the key issues – it is something we must get right. We have got too many Victorians struggling to keep the lights on and struggling to pay their energy bills. We have got to do it. We have got to transition sensibly. We have got to do this responsibly, and we have got to actually do it with the experts, because one of the things that many experts say is that if you rush too quickly, the consequences are absolutely severe. I want to commend the great work that Alan Finkel has done in his book Powering Up. If you ever want a road map for how we go about doing these things, you should listen to Dr Alan Finkel, a former chief scientist of Australia, who had a role on the government’s SEC until he stepped down from that. He said in his book:

It won’t be easy getting to zero …

…

It will take mining on a massive scale to extract the minerals needed for batteries and solar panels. It will take giant factories to build the parts for towering wind turbines. It will take untold miles of high-voltage transmission lines to carry the electricity to power the mines and factories and the 24-hour buzz of civilisation.

It will take engagement with and support for affected communities; financing at unprecedented scale; strategic government policies that convert targets into actions.

The interesting thing he says is:

Between 1990 and 2021 the behemoth known as global civilisation only reduced its fossil-fuel diet from 87% to 83% –

From 1990 to 2021 – that is 31 years – we went from 87 per cent to 83 per cent. He said:

We shaved off 4% in the last 30 years. In the next 30 we need to shave off 83%.

That is huge. That does not mean we should not be trying and we should not be working, but we have got to do it in a planned manner, because if we do not, we are all going to end up paying the price.

We have also got to ensure that the private sector are a major contributor in all of this, and we have got to ensure that we bring them to the table and utilise their R and D to look at innovation and different ways of doing things, because you cannot expect that we just one day flick off coal, which is gone – it is finished; there is no future for coal. We need to ensure that when turning off coal everything else can plug and play and we are able to keep the lights on and do it in an affordable way. This is one of the things that Alan Finkel also says:

Coal-fired plants have no future but shutting them down before the firmed solar and wind generation plants are built would risk extended electricity blackouts. That would not just be a disaster for modern life; it risks rescinding the social licence for moving as fast as we can to net zero.

These are some of the real issues. They are big issues. One of the things that Alan Finkel has been a strong proponent for is the use of gas firming and the use of gas peaking. He understands that gas is an important transition fuel. Natural gas is something that you should not be burning each and every day. But what you can do is that when you need it, it should be there. To do that it has got to be part of that mix, because you cannot go from zero to hero overnight and not expect there to be real issues with all of that.

We really, really are concerned with the way the government is managing this. The government has effectively said to the private sector, ‘We’re going to shut you out. We’re going to put you to one side. We’re going to run the show. We’re going to create this big monster called the SEC. We’re going to invest in things. We’re going to ensure that we know who are winners and who are losers, and we’re going to actually run the show.’ Ultimately they are going to decide how we are going to get to net zero without a plan. We are seeing that already have huge disastrous effects. We have got a lot of wind and a lot of solar throughout Victoria that is not connected back to the grid. One of the big issues, again that Dr Finkel talks about, is actually how we connect up those pipes. How do we connect them up? It is the connectivity cost of laying down the lines but also the actual cost of compensation for many of those landowners to put the powerlines in to connect up much of the solar and the wind, which still does not have the connectivity piece. As I have said many times, it is a bit like buying a Ferrari or the best electric vehicle that you can possibly have but not having the roads to run it on. You have got to be able to have the lines to be able to run the power down and through. Again, without a plan what we have had is a lot of investment – lots of big, grand projects are up and running – but not the connectivity that goes with it. That is why things like the Latrobe Valley are great opportunities for some of this, because you have already got the connectivity there and you have already got the pipelines to be able to connect things back. We should be exploring and looking at different ways to do that.

This particular bill talks a lot about safety, and safety is a really key important part of all of this. You have got to do it right. You have got to do it in a safe way, and you have got to ensure that whatever the transition is, we do that in such a way. I think we are still a fair way away in terms of understanding, when you are sending up literally farms of batteries, what you will need to do in terms of security and managing some of that. Some of the disposal of that, at the end of life, we still have not got that right in terms of how we are disposing of a lot of these new materials as they are coming into the market. It is a really important part of the safety. They are an important part of the energy mix. Also we need to be looking at things like hydrogen, what role hydrogen plays in terms of green hydrogen, which can be created by renewables. What role there will be for hydrogen as it comes into the market is an important piece with all of this as well.

The minister on many, many occasions has spoken about prices coming down. In fact with the recent announcement on the banning of gas they said there will be savings of $2000 or $1000. We have heard this many, many times before from the minister. I have not met anyone in the state that has actually seen their power bills come down – not anyone. We are seeing that for most people their power bills have doubled. We have heard of situations of on average a 25 per cent increase just recently in electricity bills. It is probably the first time I think we have ever seen this in Victoria, where people that have not actually even cared much before are really caring, really noticing and are having to make conscious decisions about what they do.

That might not be a huge issue for some, but it is very much a huge issue for those that can least afford it, the disadvantaged. We have heard many people talk about issues in terms of the housing crisis and homelessness; these are basic services that we need to ensure. Energy is an essential service. We have got to have it available, we have got to make it reliable and we have got to make it affordable. We do not have it affordable at the moment. There is no plan to make it affordable. And sure, once we are in a position where we have got renewable energy running 24/7, we have got the technology to cope with that and we have got the connectivity that actually connects it all up, then I am sure things will change. But we are not there yet, and we have got to use the best experts we can, like Dr Alan Finkel, to actually provide us the pathway to get there.

We have also got to ensure that we are working with stakeholders in the private sector that have experience and that are willing to invest. We have no manufacturing capability here in Victoria. We have potential, but we are not actually using that capability here in Victoria the way we should be. We should have not just renewable hubs for using renewable energy but renewable hubs for manufacturing technology as well. And it is not just competing on the big stuff, like solar panels and everything else, which we will not be able to compete on with the likes of India and China and other places; there are other value-added parts of the technology where we can. That is where we should be.

We have got great universities that are doing fantastic things. Swinburne years ago invented some solar paint, which is an add-on for what solar panels could be used for. That technology has been around for a while. That should be adapted, created and commercialised. There are great opportunities that we should be investing in here in Victoria. We have got to see how that fits in to the overall market, but to do that we need confidence. We need the government to actually provide that confidence, and we need competition. The government does not want competition here in Victoria, and that is the real issue with the fact that the SEC is a dud plan. It is going to cost Victorians, and that is why a lot of the private sector is going elsewhere, and ultimately Victorians are going to end up paying the price for more electricity prices.

Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (18:27): The member for Caulfield has made a range of very, very sweeping statements in relation to the SEC in his contribution. I did want to take just a moment to address some of those. He suggests that the private sector will be going elsewhere as a result of the SEC being reintroduced in Victoria; I think in fact the opposite is true. There are these great partnership opportunities now. We have never said that the SEC will be an entirely government-owned or government-run affair. It is an independent entity and is only going to be majority owned by the government, and that gives us the opportunity to partner up with the private sector on a whole range of technologies. We know that this transition is happening, we know that it is happening quickly, and we know that there is a strong role for government as a partner and as a lead investor to make sure that the transition happens in a way that ultimately benefits the climate but benefits Victorians in their capacity as consumers.

Whilst the member for Caulfield is fond of making very, very broad generalisations about what the SEC may or may not be, the lived reality will be different. It is very easy for the other side of the chamber to just chip away at government policy, saying this will not work and that will not work. I mean, those opposite were pretty fond of saying the Metro Tunnel would never happen and various other things would never happen, and of course they are all happening. It is very easy to say things will not occur, and then by the time these very large and complicated things are rolled out, people have forgotten exactly how vocal the naysayers perhaps were at the start of the process. But the SEC policy is good policy. It is policy that was endorsed by Victorians.

The member for Caulfield of course snubs his nose at all those Victorians who so resoundingly endorsed this policy at the last election, an election that was won comprehensively by those on this side of the chamber, as evidenced by our numbers stretching all the way around the corner there. I think it is churlish at best to be saying that Victorians got it wrong in relation to the SEC and that the government has got it wrong in relation to the SEC. We are in the early stages of the rollout of what will be an outstanding partner for good. The SEC will help us deliver on our renewable energy targets, help us deliver on our carbon emission targets and help ultimately to put power back in the hands of Victorians.

This is the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. It is ultimately a bill that reflects the maturing state of the renewable energy industry, and it is ultimately about an industry that is coming into adulthood. So when you run an adult government and you have maturing industries, you need to make sure that you have a legislative framework that adequately captures both the nature of the changes in the sector but also make sure that the regulatory environment is fit for purpose, and that is simply what this bill seeks to do. I am pleased of course that the opposition are supporting the bill but amused by the fact that they see it as an opportunity to take a swing on a whole bunch of frankly entirely unrelated matters.

What does the bill do? It is about reforms that are going to strengthen the safety compliance framework by increasing obligations for electricity and gas companies, including owners and operators. It effectively says that the obligations that currently run if you are a brown coal-fired generator or a gas-fired generator, that level of safety and compliance, will also apply if you are a solar generator or a wind generator, if you are running a storage facility, if you are involved in work connecting those things to the grid or otherwise – that we have a safety regime that reflects the level of risk, not a safety regime that simply reflects the age of the underlying technology. That is an appropriate response, that is a smart response, and I am very grateful to the minister that is at the table, the Minister for Energy and Resources, for bringing this bill to the house.

We are in the middle of a global shift away from fossil fuels, and the member for Caulfield quoted Alan Finkel, who I had the pleasure of working with at a business called Better Place a number of years ago. We are in a global shift away from fossil fuel, and the targets that the Victorian government have set have been exceeded again and again and again as we make this transition in this jurisdiction faster than almost any other jurisdiction right around the globe.

We need to limit global warming. We can already see the very real consequences of global warming. There are some frankly frightening numbers coming out about the polar ice cap melting at the moment that I think are going to put the global climate under some pretty serious pressure. We on this side of the chamber have been absolutely consistent on our support of taking action on these matters and making sure that it is meaningful. No-one on this side of the house has engaged in doublespeak around climate change. That cannot be said for others. We have been absolutely consistent that we need to set good targets – aggressive targets but achievable targets – and we have done that, and then we have gone and exceeded them. We have comfortably surpassed our 2020 RET – renewable energy target – of 20 per cent. We increased our 2030 renewable energy target from 50 per cent to 65 per cent and we have set a 2035 target of 95 per cent of Victoria’s energy coming from renewables. Just think about that for a moment – in 12 years time 95 per cent of our electricity coming from renewables. That is a seismic shift in the space of a generation, and it will deliver not just on our carbon commitments but new jobs, new industries, new technologies, new IP, a better way of going about powering the state and ultimately the ability to do so more cheaply than if we were lagging behind the rest of the world on these things.

I am very excited about offshore wind. I know the minister is also pretty excited about offshore wind, with 2 gigawatts coming by 2032, 4 gigawatts by 2035 and by 2040 9 gigawatts – 9 gigawatts; it is a monstrous number – coming from offshore wind. We are very fortunate that Bass Strait is geographically not too far from some of our origin points in terms of the existing poles-and-wire infrastructure and that it is really, really, really windy, and that is a great opportunity for this state to be able to do more – to well surpass our own needs in terms of renewable energy but to assist in the very important national transition.

If you are going to go down this transition path, you have to ensure that the safety of workers and communities is maintained. The energy safety rules themselves have to keep pace with the changes in technology, and that is what this legislation does. It makes really sensible amendments to our energy safety legislation to align those obligations of the renewable energy companies with those of the traditional companies and, in addition to that, strengthen the enforcement powers, the investigative powers, of the independent authority, which is of course Energy Safe Victoria. We know that there have been instances where some of the participants in the newer parts of the energy economy have had safety issues. That only serves to highlight that as they become a bigger and bigger part of the grid we need to make sure that the regulatory environment adequately addresses that to make sure that we are not allowing regulatory shortcuts to infect that new part of the power supply system.

It is probably amplified to some degree by the fact that we now have upstream and downstream movements of electrons, ultimately, and that is placing unique pressures on our poles and wires. You actually can have voltage spikes that were not contemplated in the original design because it was all: generate in the Latrobe Valley and disperse across the state. You have now got generators at the other end of those poles and wires, and there are some unique challenges that fall out of that. If you are going to be managing those challenges and managing them well, you need to have the right regulatory framework to do it.

Ultimately, as we go to this decentralised and widely distributed electricity generation model, we accept the absolute reality that that is where the investment markets are moving and that is where government policy is already taking us. Whilst we might have had at times a slower pace of change from national regulators around some of these issues, as the Victorian government, as the government of the most progressive jurisdiction in the nation and as the most carbon-responsive jurisdiction in the nation, we will continue to be a leader when it comes to making this transition work, making it sensible, making it stick and, most importantly, making it safe.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (18:37): I rise to speak on the Energy Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2023. I do thank the member for Croydon, who has put in a monstrous amount of work to actually get information for us on the bill. The main purposes of the bill are to amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998 in relation to requirements for certain owners and operators of electrical installations, general duties of owners and operators of complex electrical installations and railways, modifications of supply networks and changes to safety management systems. For a long time in the power industry we have been fossil fuel based, so we have had all the safety requirements for a very long time. But as we change and transition to renewable energy we need to make sure that these amendments are coming through to provide safety for our workers and for us also.

Revised electricity safety management schemes and bushfire mitigation plans – we need to make sure they are changing and that we amend voluntary electricity safety management schemes for operators of complex electrical installations and the period within which things seized by enforcement officers must be returned. So if something goes wrong, they need to get in there quickly and do their due diligence to work out what has gone on. Legislation around preservation of serious electrical incident sites is going to change and diversify to many sites around the state. The acceptance and enforcement of written undertakings and the period within which proceedings for an offence against that act may be commenced will change. We also have penalties for offences against the act, and all these need to be changed as we diversify out of coal-fired industry and into renewables. We also need to amend the Gas Safety Act 1997 in relation to preservation of gas incident sites, modifications of facilities and changes to safety management systems. Provisions will change in relation to revised safety cases and the period within which things are seized, as I said before, and when the inspectors must return it.

Forever and a day the Latrobe Valley has been the hub and the heart of powering Victoria. Obviously we have Loy Yang A and Loy Yang B down there, Yallourn and also Hazelwood, which is now shut. For so long we have been able to contain where the power generation was going to be so the safety measures that are being introduced here are needed. We need to make certain that our workers are safe and that the actions to build the renewable infrastructure are scrutinised and we are doing the right thing. With Loy Yang and Yallourn, and to an extent when Hazelwood was there, the safety measures were controlled by the unions, obviously. That made sure that with time frames and when work needed to be done and shuts needed to be done they were carried out to a certain standard. These standards are changing as we move right across the state with renewable energy, whether it be in wind – both onshore and offshore – or solar panels and the solar hubs that we are going to have. Before the member for Caulfield was talking about hydrogen options and how all that ties in. We need to make sure that no matter where we are heading, safety is paramount for all of these.

We spoke about obviously the option of having massive batteries right around the state. In Hazelwood in my patch down in Morwell we have a massive battery that has just come online. With the infrastructure that is needed and the way that the workers need to go about building the batteries, we need to make sure that it is done in a regulatory fashion. With the actual time frame that the Andrews government has given us for the closing of the gas-fired power stations and transitioning into renewables, we need to make sure that, if we are pushing hard for the renewables to take over from fossil fuels, corners are not cut, because the time frame is hugely tight. If you talk to people that actually run the coal-fired power stations in the valley at the moment, that is their biggest concern – not that we are moving out of fossil fuels and coal-fired power stations, but the actual time frame and having enough energy supply available to the whole of Victoria, solely looking at renewables.

We need to have the infrastructure for the offshore wind farms being built – and they are massive. I have spoken about it before. One blade hangs on the end of the wind turbine, and when you put the second one on, it is higher than the Eureka Tower. They are massive infrastructure bits and pieces that need to be put in place, so we need to make sure that the safety of all our workers is not jeopardised and we are not cutting corners. These are things that need to be taken into account when we are doing this.

The Longford gas plant is further on, out of my electorate, but we talk about being able to utilise gas. One of the biggest concerns with the local industry down in the valley is that when a generator actually drops off, we have got to restart that generator. We are talking about being able to store the energy in a battery at a power station to be able to start up another generator. They have got grave concerns – these are the workers that work there – about whether enough power is going to be able to be held on site to actually start a generator. We need to make sure. This is a very, very tight time frame for moving into the renewable sector, and I am assuming that the time frame is not allowing for things to go wrong, because we are shutting the Yallourn power station at the end of this decade and then early in the next decade, in the 2030s, we are shutting Loy Yang. We are hoping that it all is going to work properly, because if we shut the power stations and stop gas, we are not going to have the supply to keep the lights on in Victoria. That is a concern that people are telling me about when we talk about the transition to the renewable sector.

The actual bill that we are talking about here is to make sure that everybody is safe, all our workers. We have got transition lines to build at the moment. With the current transmission lines that carry the power for the state, where we are not relying 100 per cent on electricity to power us, is the infrastructure on those poles good enough to carry the power into Melbourne and into our regional towns? Is there enough there to be able to do that? Or are we going to transition and all of a sudden it is going to be, ‘Oh, do we need to upgrade the powerlines there?’ We hope that it is actually all being thought out properly. I am sure they have done their due diligence, but it is that time line of transitioning that I keep coming back to. We just need to make sure that that is working properly.

But when we are doing all the works there, hopefully we will be manufacturing in the Latrobe Valley, because that is what we do down there in the power industry. We make stuff for the power industry. So instead of having stuff brought in from overseas and made overseas, hopefully a majority of it can be made here in Victoria in my patch down in Morwell in the Latrobe Valley, because we have got the infrastructure there to do it, and we have got people there that can actually carry that out.

At the end of the day, with safety, no matter what happens we want our mums and dads that are going to work to make all this happen in a very tight period to be going home at night. We do not want accidents happening. This is why we are supporting the bill to go forward, because we need to make sure that no matter how we get there and in what time frame we get there, if it is a short time frame or, as we are all thinking, it is going to be an extended time frame, most of all it is a very, very safe time frame. We do not want anyone going to work to make sure we have got lights on here in the chamber and not going home at the end of the day.

As I said and the member for Caulfield said, we will be supporting the bill, and hopefully time frames and everything like that will be worked out at a sensible rate and we can put at ease the minds of the general public that are asking those questions: ‘Is it a very tight time frame? Will renewables be there when we shut the power stations?’

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (18:47): The member for Morwell said it correctly: when mums and dads go to work, we want them to come home. That is fundamental to this bill, and I appreciate those sentiments leading off into my own contribution, so thank you.

The community is committed to changing our energy system, and Labor is absolutely committed to doing that too in Victoria. Thousands of people in the community that I represent are already making that change. They have made the change: they have got electric vehicles, they have gone to solar, they have got batteries. This bill seeks to modernise Victoria’s energy safety legislative framework. It is about improving community and it is about improving worker safety. The bill ensures that the new technologies that we are using today – batteries, wind farms, solar farms – those technologies of the future, have the same standards as existing generation and network technologies that are already in place.

Victoria is rapidly making this renewable energy transition. I am so pleased to see the Minister for Energy and Resources at the table here, who is driving forward a lot of this energy change. We have helped as a Labor government nearly a quarter of a million Victorian households install solar panels on their roofs. We have reduced their bills. We have made sure that they have got control over their own energy. In my own community we have had massive uptake of solar panels. In the community of Point Cook, where thousands are seeing the benefits of this every day, we have more than tripled the share of renewable energies across the state, and that has occurred in just eight years.

Victoria is leading one of the fastest transitions to change of anywhere in the world. It brings challenges, fast change. Of course it brings challenges, but we are up to the task in this Parliament to meet those challenges. We have reduced greenhouse gases in Victoria more than any other state government since 2014, and we are passing the targets that we have set for ourselves – 20 per cent by 2020 renewable energy – we have ticked that box. We have increased our target from 50 per cent to 65 per cent by 2030. We have set a target for 2035 of 95 per cent – massive changes, ambitious changes. We only have to look at the brutal summers experienced overseas, the brutal summers experienced here, to understand why we need to make these changes and make them rapidly.

We have installed the Victorian Big Battery, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and Victoria is the home of big batteries. The targets that we are putting forward are backed by targets for offshore wind and energy storage. Offshore wind off the coast of the valley is going to be one of the big drivers of electrical change in Victoria. We have set ourselves targets of 2 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2032, 4 by 2035 and 9 by 2040 – huge changes to our system. We have increased renewable energy capacity targets. We will have at least 2.6 gigawatts of storage by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts by 2035. We are undertaking an entire transformation of our energy system, of our transport and of our industries. It is the most fundamental technological change of our lifetimes that is going on, and we are part of it, and Victorian Labor is leading it. It is exciting. It is not just a challenge that should be approached with difficulty. It is exciting because it means new jobs, clean jobs and a transition of our economy that works for people and a sustainable planet. And we must do it.

Safety of our workers – for the last two decades the electricity sector has been replacing carbon-intensive generation with zero-carbon technology. The sector is moving from large-scale producers to small-scale producers distributed across the state, decentralised, needing transmission but needing more facilities to build this power. The exponential growth in technologies has exposed critical gaps in our framework and our safety. These reforms are needed to make sure that we meet that compliance framework and increase the obligations on electricity and gas companies and the owners and operators. It is to ensure, as the member for Morwell said, that workers come home every night – and you know that just as well as everyone with the electricity sector and the long, great history that we have had in the valley. This legislation does that with commonsense amendments to Victoria’s energy safety legislation. The amendments will align safety obligations of renewable energy companies with those of traditional companies and strengthen the investigative and enforcement powers of the independent safety regulator, Energy Safe Victoria.

There have been some incidents that have caused us to really think this through very strongly, including two serious fires in 2021 – one at the Big Battery and one at the Cohuna solar farm. They highlighted the limitations that we have at Energy Safe Victoria. They highlighted the need for change. Energy Safe Victoria was unable to intervene in a timely manner until the fires and the incidents had occurred – after the fact, not beforehand – and we know that good safety is about getting there before the incidents happen. The current framework was developed on a base of larger facilities built through the 1990s and before and well regulated and well unionised to protect a large amount of that safety, so it is crucial to safeguard our consumer protections with confidence and ensure the safe delivery of regulations to these new technologies. This bill will provide Energy Safe Victoria with a toolkit to do this.

These regulation changes come from all the way back in 2017 and the Grimes review into the network safety framework and the obligations, incentives and other arrangements of the sector. In 2018 the government responded to this review, supporting or supporting in principle 42 out of the 43 recommendations. Half have been completed and the other half are on the way. At the last election we committed to undertaking a full-scale review of safety legislation. It is a timely review because of the changes in technology and the sector. This bill changes three acts: the Electrical Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005. This bill makes changes to allow the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Minister for Energy and Resources, to declare certain electricity installations to be of a class where duties and obligations apply – a sensible approach which allows more to be brought in over time as it is required.

These obligations are comparable to those currently imposed already on major distribution and transmission companies. The bill increases the civil penalties which have not kept pace with community expectations. When 6000 hectares of land and property were destroyed by a fire caused by Powercor, as ultimately was found to be the case, Powercor were fined $130,000 – $130,000 for 6000 hectares of land and property. It is not acceptable. It provides the wrong incentives to power companies and distributors and it defeats the intent of the previous legislation. In line with these community expectations, increasing penalties will give the right incentives to companies to do the right things by our communities and to keep our communities safer than they already are. When power poles fall and cause fires, when powerlines clash together and cause fires, they go on to affect thousands and thousands of people, both immediately in the vicinity and then much further beyond. So it is important that we actually get this right, that we send the right incentives for breaches of legislation and that we are able to actively investigate what went wrong rather than having the incidents removed from the site – so we can actually get it right.

This proposed legislation will also change the start period of when Energy Safe Victoria can bring court proceedings against a company that breaches these safety obligations. The current safety framework only allows ESV to bring court proceedings three years after an offence has occurred, and investigations often take much longer than that. That is even when ESV becomes aware of a breach of the legislation.

As I said earlier, the community is changing. They are ready for change. They are up to taking on the change. They are taking on the solar panels, they are taking on the batteries and they are taking on the electric vehicles. We are equally committed to making that change and making sure that we have the legislative framework to make sure that parents do come home at night, that our workers are safe. I commend this bill to the house.

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (18:57): I have got a couple of minutes to speak on this bill. I was not actually going to speak, but I have just been listening to some of the diatribes coming from the other side about what a wonderful job this government is doing on energy. It is really disappointing that the Minister for Energy and Resources and Minister for the State Electricity Commission is going out the door as we speak, because I have actually been listening to what has been said over there and what government members are saying: ‘It’s such wonderful stuff, the policy that this government is producing. The SEC, it’s going to save us all, it’s going to drive down prices, it’s going to deliver renewables.’ I cannot remember which one said it, but I think it was the member for Bentleigh who said that, thanks to the SEC, we will be able to deliver renewables, because apparently the SEC invented renewables and that is the only way we are going to get any. Well, that will be news to all the developers around the world that have been delivering renewables without the assistance of the SEC for some time, in particular the Star of the South.

I heard the member for Ringwood and the member for Bentleigh and the member for Point Cook talking about offshore wind – ‘our offshore wind plans’, the Labor government members say. Star of the South first came and saw me about an offshore wind project off the Gippsland coast in 2017. When was the first time this government mentioned it? In 2021 – four years later, after the private sector had already started developing an offshore wind farm. Now this government is trying to claim credit for it.

We heard the member for Ringwood say, ‘We’re great here in Victoria. We’ve got Bass Strait, we’ve got great wind, we’ve got close connections to the Latrobe Valley.’ There was no mention of the people in between those connections in Bass Strait and the Latrobe Valley who are going to have 80-metre-high pylons marching across their landscape to connect all of this. We have got this great offshore wind farm that is going to be fantastic for Gippsland. The government says there will be lots of jobs and we going to have the port in Hastings. We are going to build a brand new port in Hastings and completely ignore the Gippsland ports. I think there could be great opportunities for us in offshore wind, but Gippsland runs the risk of seeing this government have giant offshore wind development going off our coast and absolutely nothing coming to Gippsland in terms of the jobs because they are choosing Hastings and ignoring the opportunities for Gippsland in somewhere like Barry Beach.

We have heard from the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings –

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I am required under sessional orders to interrupt business now. The member may continue next time we revisit the bill.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.