Thursday, 21 March 2024

National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Lily D’Ambrosio:

That this bill be now read a second time.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (10:20): I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. Before I mention what this bill does do, it would be remiss of me not to say what this government has not done and what this bill does not do. What this government has not done is anything effective with VicGrid since it was formed. We are here today with a bill before us which starts to provide VicGrid with powers for works in relation to energy and transmission. But for years the community, business and the coalition have been calling for action on transmission and on VicGrid, and the government has done nothing. We are here to talk about a bill and powers that are contained within that bill, but it is important to note that and to put that on the record before the substance of the debate commences.

I note in March 2019 in one of the first speeches I gave in this place I spoke about the NSW Transmission Infrastructure Strategy, which was released in November 2018, which in many ways does some of the things that this bill now does. So some five years ago there were calls for action in terms of strategy and planning on transmission in Victoria. We have, after almost half a decade, started to look at doing some of the things that have been done around this country years and years and years ago. It should be noted, though, that what the government is proposing to do in this bill in terms of planning and strategy for transmission is not equivalent to what has happened around the country. I do note that some of the elements of this bill have picked up the New South Wales approach, if I can put it that way, and the government through their briefings prior to this bill being debated confirmed that the New South Wales model had been looked to and had been incorporated.

The one difference that exists with this bill and these powers as opposed to the New South Wales model is how strongly involved industry was in the development of this bill and future planning and strategy of transmission. It is a big difference, because in New South Wales the government worked with industry on planning how renewables primarily and transmission upgrades to the grid would take place, and that makes sense. Of course it does, because it is a partnership in terms of leading that work and then working with the community with their social licence to deliver it. That is a big difference between the way this government operates and the way the New South Wales government has operated in these matters.

What this bill does in short is provide new infrastructure energy planning powers in Victoria and outline how that infrastructure work will be brought about in terms of working with communities. That is the overarching purpose. So the government is empowering VicGrid to undertake planning and consultation on energy projects and to consult with the community to some degree on those works. It will further implement a new Victorian transmission infrastructure framework, set a time line for that planning and also allow payments for landholders who hold energy infrastructure. In short, that is what this bill does.

If I can set the scene on where we are as a state – not just in terms of policy and infrastructure, which I will speak to in detail shortly, but in terms of how the delays in the government’s approach to dealing with these issues have had an effect on every single household – what matters to Victorians is that they have reliable, secure and affordable power. That is what matters to Victorians. They deserve reliable, affordable and secure power, and the government has not delivered that. We know from the recent St Vincent de Paul report finding that Victorians are paying 22 per cent more for gas and 28 per cent more for electricity. The most recent ABS statistics show a 25 per cent increase in the last year on energy costs. So the year-on-year costs are significant. We know it because we hear it from our communities. We know it because it is a key issue raised in our communities. And though I am not a huge fan of polling, polling shows that two out of three rate the issue as one of their most significant concerns. That only underlines what people actually tell us in the street, what people speak to us in the street about. We know the cost for people is up year on year on year – 25 per cent as per the ABS in the last year.

But we also know that it is not just in relation to affordability. On the reliability and security, we have as a coalition deep, deep concerns about the government’s failure to ensure that our energy is reliably provided to Victorian households. Of course we saw most recently the worst blackout in our state’s history, where 530,000 people were left without power. But it is important to note that though that was the worst blackout in our state’s history and the government will say, ‘It’s not our fault; it’s the weather,’ over the last six years 1.9 million Victorian businesses and households have suffered a blackout. So set aside this most recent event because the government will blame the weather, but almost 2 million Victorian businesses and households have suffered blackouts over the last six years. So security and reliability of energy is obviously a significant issue in our state. The Australian Energy Market Commission found that 95 per cent of blackouts in Victoria between 2009 and 2018 were caused by transmission and distribution failures, not the weather – 95 per cent. These are real issues. These are real challenges.

I am not suggesting that every single issue was caused by the Minister for Energy and Resources herself. What I am saying is it is the minister’s job to make sure they do all they can to fix it. Today we are considering a bill that does not go far enough in terms of fixing these issues after spending years and years and years doing nothing in relation to transmission.

Many of us will have read recent reports around the transmission infrastructure in Victoria and how alarmed we should all be in relation to the grid and the Australian Energy Market Operator warning of imminent and urgent issues in relation to our energy transition. These are serious concerns, and I quote from AEMO:

The projected electrification of traditional gas loads, particularly heating loads in Victoria, increases forecast consumption and maximum demands in winter. For Victoria in particular, winter peak demands may exceed summer peak demands by the end of the ESOO horizon.

So we are having the peak body warn of the system and warn of the lack of capacity of our system to meet the needs of Victorians, and that is the government’s job – to ensure that supply is provided. If I can refer back to AEMO again:

To ensure Australian customers continue to have access to reliable electricity, it’s critical that planned investments in transmission, generation and storage projects are urgently delivered.

How many warnings do we need? We are being warned by people who know more, who are experts in this field, over and over again. I refer to the warning of supply earlier. The warnings have been clear from the most peak minds, the most peak experts, that our transmission system is not good enough, that our supply is at risk, yet we are dealing with a bill that does not do anywhere near enough and is the best part of a decade behind what the other states have been doing.

After the recent blackout where 530,000 people were left without power we saw a report of an AusNet Services assessment that one in seven of Victoria’s 13,000 electricity transmission towers were damaged by patchy or extensive rust. About 8000 of them – more than half – are now a decade or less from their designed service life. This is a deep, deep concern. So we are now having industry say, ‘We’re concerned about the infrastructure.’ It is not just the peak experts; we are now having industry say we have issues. The report further says that:

All failed structures were built to historical design standards with inadequate strength to withstand convective downdraft winds occurring during extreme storm events.

I mean, you cannot get a clearer warning for the weather, can you? I think that even the minister can understand that one. The report says further that, of the 13,000 towers, 12 per cent were deemed to be in average condition with patchy rust and 1.5 per cent in poor condition with extensive surface rust and that 60 of the towers were a present health and safety risk because they were next to roads. How deeply concerning. It shows clearly how urgent it is to ensure our transmission is of the standard that we will need moving forward. Without being alarmist, it is a concern that we have had so many blackouts and that a weather event caused the damage that it did. So we need to get cracking, and what this bill does not do is get cracking fast enough on ensuring that we have the grid for the future.

I do think it is important to note that the coalition spoke very, very strongly on these issues in the last term and also in the last election. We announced policy to ensure that we as a government would have worked very closely with industry to work on upgrading our infrastructure. It was a core part of our energy and climate policy. That was announced, from memory, in July 2022. It is almost two years later, and we are dealing with a bill that starts to do some of that work. The government has been so slow on these issues it is a serious concern – and should be for all Victorians.

I note the warnings the government has been receiving do not just relate to infrastructure and do not just relate to security and reliability of energy; they also, specifically on energy today, relate to gas. We have seen AEMO again warn about serious issues in terms of gas supply at a time when the Labor government are persisting with their mad ideological ban on gas. The CEO of AEMO said:

From 2028, supply gaps will increase in size as Bass Strait production falls significantly …

What that means is that Victoria’s total available gas supply is forecast to reduce by 48 per cent, from 297 petajoules in 2024 to 154 petajoules in 2028. At the same time, and I am quoting reports, demand is expected to hit 187 petajoules in 2024 and 176 in 2028. What does that mean? This:

… increases the probability of outages.

Further:

It is clear that more gas supply is required because the forecast decline in production is faster than the forecast decline in gas consumption …

We have seen the government sit on its hands for the best part of a decade as other states were doing work, and warnings come in and collect dust on the minister’s desk in relation to infrastructure, in relation to supply and today in relation to gas. How many warnings does this government need?

We know that over the last six years almost 2 million Victorian businesses and households have suffered blackouts, so starting work frankly is not good enough and committing to creating a plan will not get us what we need as soon as we are going to need it. Planning is not good enough. Delivering is what matters, and we have seen from business very, very clearly how concerned they are about what is going on in Victoria. In fact we have seen extremely clearly from people like Paul Guerra from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry how concerned they are, because as he said:

We cannot let energy security be the casualty of the transition to net zero.

And:

… call out the ideology. This isn’t a game. This is our future. Reliable energy at affordable prices must be aligned.

When you have people like him speak to these issues with such fervour, you know that he is speaking on behalf of industry more broadly.

The chamber recently released a survey of 500 members and on the release said if the government ‘cannot guarantee that the lights remain on in this state’ then they guarantee that many businesses will find places other than Victoria to set up. That survey found that energy policy was a top concern for Victorian businesses, with 65 per cent rating it as their biggest worry – two out of three businesses rating it as their biggest worry – with him underlining that businesses will find other places to invest. That survey also found that 86 per cent believe that a move to renewables will impact their output – the businesses that is. These are deeply worrying concerns.

I do want to note one of the issues in relation to this bill and the capacity under this bill to declare renewable energy zones in terms of the bill – but at the same time that this bill was laying on the table, the Premier and the Minister for Planning were announcing a new renewable energy power. You can see how these two issues are aligned in terms of the government’s thinking and how this power will play into how this bill will operate in terms of renewable planning. What the government did last week was announce they would extend the development facilitation program, which is in short a power that the Minister for Planning has under the act to take projects out of the system, as it were – to exempt them from the planning system and deal with them individually and personally, as the minister or through the minister’s delegate. Last week the Minister for Planning announced that renewable energy projects would now be exempt from the planning system, at the same time as this bill is proposing to allow the minister to declare renewable energy zones. So yes, the bill has a renewable energy zone power, which does include consultation, but at the same time the government has confirmed that there will be a new power on top of that for the minister to bring in renewable energy projects and deal with them personally or through her delegate, though when I looked, just midweek, the details of that power had not been added onto the government’s website in relation to this particular program.

If I can give some context, the way this power works is when a project is put forward the department considers it, and if it meets certain criteria, the minister can make a determination completely outside the planning law. No consultation, no meaningful consultation allowed – and that is a key theme for how this government is operating in relation to planning more generally but in relation to this power and renewable energy projects. Just for some context, although the details have not been released, in other priority sector criteria the average cut-in for being eligible for a project regionally is about $10 million. So I think it would be reasonable to expect that there may be a cut-in around that amount. Potentially there could be a cut-in of zero. We do not know, because the government, other than by putting out a press release with very little detail and a lot of quotes, has not put the detail on their own website. So it could be zero. It could be every project – every single project. But as I say, in other sectors the cut-in for regional projects has been around $10 million.

What this does is undermine social licence. We see it with planning and we are seeing it with renewables more broadly; not only have the government forgotten industry, but they have also forgotten the community. You can see with that particular power I spoke to earlier there are a number of other areas in which the government has circumvented the planning system, and the community is rightly concerned. I have a number of my National Party colleagues with me at the table, and they would be aware of a report that was on the department’s website, until it was removed, which stated that up to 70 per cent of Victorian agricultural land could be required for renewable projects.

I have gone to the government, to be fair, and said this is a concern, and they have said that that report did go to ‘the impossible scenario’, in their words, of providing up to 60 gigawatts of capacity, whereas to meet the targets the minister believes that we will be aiming for 25 gigawatts, so just under half. Well, if you are on agricultural land and you see a report which is then removed from the government website that says 70 per cent and then the minister says, ‘That is the impossible scenario, so it’s just under half’ – so what is it, 30 to 35 per cent of agricultural land? That is the obvious math. That would concern everybody who lives in regional Victoria, and I think that it is only fair and reasonable for a fuller explanation to be given by the government in relation to those calculations, because it is a genuine concern that has not been properly answered by the government. At a time when social licence is ebbing away in relation to renewable projects, many members in this place would know of communities right across the state that are concerned about being cut out of consultation in relation to renewables. That is not how you do business; that is not how you operate as a government. You do not cut the community out where you are going to build it, and that is exactly what is being proposed. Then, on top of that, members are seeing reports that say 70 per cent of agricultural land will have to be covered. Well, even if it is 30 to 35 per cent, how will that look?

I do want to note that the coalition in the upper house will be moving a number of amendments, and they will be moved by the shadow in the upper house. They go to two things primarily: firstly, to ensure that proper community consultation occurs. That would be through, in our view, a community advisory panel that would include the interests of Victorian farmers, the interests of the Victorian manufacturing industry, the interests of Victorian rural councils, the interests of Victorian small business owners, the interests of the Victorian seafood industry and the interests of Victorian consumers in Victoria. The shadow in that place will move an amendment that relates to that community advisory committee and all of those people and interests involved in that. Finally, the shadow will move amendments that relate to easement land tax, which is of course passed on to consumers in the form of higher electricity bills. So those amendments will be introduced in that place, in relation to both the land tax easement issue and also community consultation. There is more that this bill does not do than what it does do. This bill does not fix the problems that we have. This bill does not address the warnings that the government is receiving. So the coalition has deep concerns about it and cannot support it in its current form, because we cannot be ripping away the rights of the community.

We cannot be not ensuring that we have reliable, secure and affordable power. We must do those things, and this government has not done that. The government have not addressed the warnings they are receiving, and so until they can provide reliable, secure and affordable energy, they stand condemned.

John MULLAHY (Glen Waverley) (10:50): It is a pleasure to rise as the first government speaker to speak in favour of the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. At the outset I would like to thank the Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for Climate Action and Minister for the State Electricity Commission for her hard work as a trailblazer for the Victorian renewable energy transition. I extend that thanks to the minister’s entire team and the thousands of public servants in the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and its associated entities for the work that they do.

Make no mistake, Victoria is in the middle of a renewable energy boom, and we are only just getting started. It is not words like those of the Greens political party and it is not inaction like that we saw with the policy purgatory that was the previous Liberal–National government. It is with real action that only Labor governments deliver. As the minister for energy, climate action and the SEC recently highlighted in this place, Victoria has already slashed our emissions by almost a third since 2005 while our economy has grown by 42 per cent over that same period. It busts the myths peddled by the Institute of Public Affairs science deniers and coal huggers that bold climate action is somehow incompatible with economic growth and prosperity. The reality is that bold climate action is delivering thousands of jobs, driving economic growth and boosting Victoria’s economy to new heights, and it is why the Allan Labor government proudly backs climate action.

Since 2020 alone we have delivered more than $3 billion of investment to support our renewables transition, because we know that half of our emissions are created in the energy sector and action in this space is the key to slashing emissions further. This investment into renewables is paying dividends. To give the house some perspective on the scale of this transition currently underway, Victoria currently has over 5.2 gigawatts of large-scale wind and solar capacity online today, and there is another 7.5 gigawatts more in the way of projects approved by this government. That will more than double our large-scale renewables capacity. Of course that is in addition to our hugely successful Solar Homes program; the Victorian community’s passion for rooftop solar has delivered more than 4 gigawatts of capacity.

The numbers speak for themselves. Our renewables transition is moving at a rapid pace under our government, and the contrast could not be any clearer when compared with the Baillieu–Napthine era, when investment and progress stagnated. Where would our state be if the Liberals and Nationals had had more time on these benches? The outcomes would be bad: they would be dirty and they would be nuclear. But thankfully we have a progressive Labor government that is taking our renewables transition to the next level, with 30 per cent of Victoria’s electricity needs sourced from renewables compared with 10 per cent or so when we came to government. From next year all Victorian government electricity needs will be sourced from renewables – everything at schools, hospitals and public transport, and even the electricity in this place.

We are only just getting started, because at the 2022 state election the Victorian people resoundingly endorsed the boldest energy policy in Victoria’s history, putting power back in the hands of the Victorian people and accelerating decarbonisation across the entire economy. First, we are bringing back the SEC, creating 100 per cent renewable government-owned power for Victoria. We are well on the way, with a power of work underway to deliver the first billion dollars of investment to grow our renewable energy workforce and drive down Victoria’s energy prices, because we know that renewables are the cheapest form of new energy generation in this state. Second, we are bringing forward our net zero target to 2045, setting Victoria up with one of the fastest decarbonisation targets in the developed world. For context, our transition here in Victoria is set to be faster than world leaders like Canada, Luxembourg or New Zealand. Third, we are accelerating our renewable energy targets, adding more renewable energy capacity to the Victorian grid and faster.

Originally we were set to have half of our energy sourced from renewables by 2030, but we are going to do even better, upping that target to 65 per cent, and in just over a decade, in 2035, we will have 95 ‍per cent of our energy sourced from renewables. That is bold, and only the Allan Labor government is making it happen. These three elements – bringing back the SEC, bringing forward net zero and ramping up our renewable energy targets – were endorsed by the Victorian community at the last election, and I am proud to be part of the Allan Labor government that is making this happen. This bill before the house today, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024, is part of our legislative package to make it happen, because as a government we need to be setting the legislative conditions needed to support our whole-of-economy decarbonisation. The market will not magically do it alone. The Victorian government needs to lead the way as a proactive partner on this journey, making investments of our own and supporting the investment choices of our industry in our state.

And that brings me to the specifics of today’s bill. The National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024 is all about providing the legislative framework needed to deliver energy grid reform as we shift from fossil fuel electricity generation to renewables. This bill achieves this in a number of ways. First it establishes the broad transmission planning objectives, which the CEO of VicGrid will use in the creation of Victorian transmission plans, the first of which is due for publication in July next year. Furthermore, it writes into law the processes for the declaration of renewable energy zones across our state, including around matters such as community consultation, but also around detailed work around the renewable energy zones, which will connect to the transmission network. The bill also establishes a scheme to compensate landowners who host new transmission infrastructure, supporting the expansion of the transmission network in our state and in addition to existing acquisition laws. Put together, these changes are all about supporting investment in our transmission network as we deliver a rapid renewable transition, because without the legislative framework, you cannot deliver the benefits of our upcoming renewables boom.

What does that boom actually mean for Victorian families? It means a brighter future for Victoria’s environment. It means cheap, reliable energy for households and businesses, and most excitingly, it means jobs – thousands and thousands of great union jobs. That is what excites me most as a dad, as an MP and as a proud member of the Electrical Trades Union. This government’s investment in renewables is going to set up the next generation with quality, stable jobs in a prosperous industry with immense capacity to deliver social, economic and environmental good for this state. It is set to create 59,000 jobs over the coming years and decades. That will not just change individual lives; it is about improving outcomes for families and our entire Victorian community, in the city and indeed in the mighty regions.

We hear a lot in this place from those opposite about how renewable transition is somehow harmful for folks in the regions, the supposed blight of solar and wind on the landscape and the apparent city-centric focus of our government, but it could not be further from the truth. On this side of the house we are proud to have so many regional and rural MPs who were resoundingly endorsed at the last election, and even city MPs with rural and regional lived experience, me included. As a Geelong boy raised on a farm in Meredith in the member for Eureka’s beautiful part of the world, I remember fondly and can still see the beautiful views from outside our window of the Golden Plains wind farm.

I take comfort in knowing that the Labor government is investing in a brighter future with local jobs, investment in the regions and indeed a cleaner world for our next generation. Regional and rural Victorians see the benefits. That is why they resoundingly endorsed this government’s bold climate action agenda over the rhetoric and the supposed voice of the country in the Nationals and the Liberals. I am so proud of the government’s commitment to real action in this space – not nuclear energy or fossil fuels from those wishing to make Victoria a climate pariah. This VicGrid bill is an important step in continuing our nation-leading journey to net zero, setting Victoria up for a sustainable expansion of our transmission network as we bring thousands of new projects online. It is for that reason and for so many more that I commend the bill to the house.

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (10:59): I rise to make a contribution on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. Before I start what I was going to talk about I might just remind the member for Glen Waverley, who said the Labor government has put the power back in Victorians’ hands, that when it comes to these renewable energy projects and transmission lines, the people of my electorate, who are victims of VNI West, the major proposed transmission line, would consider that they are powerless with what the Australian Energy Market Operator and the state government have done to them through that particular planning process. It is appalling how they have been treated and the games that have been played about whether it was this route or that route or another route, and then all of a sudden it was a whole new route after the discussion had progressed quite substantially. So there is no power. People do not feel they have any power at all.

If you look at this particular piece of legislation, which effectively takes some powers back from AEMO to VicGrid, again it might give the illusion that there is some community consultation going to happen and it might give the illusion that the community is going to be involved in these particular projects, but if you look at what the Minister for Planning has done, on the other hand, in having these renewable projects come under the development facilitation program, the minister can do whatever the minister wants. There is no joy at all in this particular piece of legislation for the people in my electorate who are going through torture – and I do not say ‘torture’ lightly, because they are going through torture – with the way they are being consulted and dealt with by the people who are doing the planning for VNI West.

If you take the people of Tragowel, who are going to have this giant substation forced on them in that particular community, they do not want it there and they have got no power to stop it. If you take some of the people further south that are going to have the huge powerlines going through their properties, for generations they have been in those particular areas and for generations they have farmed that land very, very well and looked after it. They have got no power to stop it.

If you look at the compensation clauses, one of those people that is going to be affected raised them with me after he read this particular piece of legislation. It starts with a set figure, and there is indexation once the project is built and has triggered that compensation clause, but the figures in here are around $8000 a kilometre. If that project is not built for six years, that $8000 will have depreciated substantially over that time. I would put it on the record particularly for that constituent of mine, who did the work and actually read the legislation as we sent it out for consultation, that he said that money will depreciate every year until the project is built and it will not have anywhere near the buying power it has now in six or eight years time – if this project ever does actually go ahead.

The other issue that I would like to raise in this discussion is that the community was very, very engaged in this and looked at what alternatives there may be to having this huge powerline go through their particular properties, and they had quite a lot of discussions with a gentleman called Bruce Mountain. His organisation has an alternative view, which is called plan B, which would be instead of building this huge transmission line from New South Wales, coming down to Bulgana and linking up with the western link, we would upgrade the existing routes and build the high-voltage powerlines on the existing easements. We would still have the capacity to feed in all the power that we need to feed in out of renewable projects in northern Victoria, but we would not start a whole new scar through the landscape with these monstrous powerlines.

Under pressure, the minister agreed to have an analysis done of AEMO’s proposal versus the plan B proposal. As I understand it, that report was finished late last year, but ‘No show, Your Honour’ ‍– no-one can actually get access to that particular report. As part of this debate I would like to call on the minister to release that report and have the courage to actually put it out into the public arena so the people who are being affected by this project, who went to the effort to look at alternatives, who actually analysed what was going on – which I do not believe the government necessarily has done – can see: does plan B actually have a net positive for the Victorian community, for Victorian energy users? Because these big projects are not being paid for by the government. Ultimately they are paid for by energy consumers, and what a lot of people do not realise is what their energy bills will be in 10, 15 years time. We think energy bills have gone up now; wait until the costs of all these major projects hit the balance sheets of power companies and that is passed through to energy users. People’s bills will continue to go up. The panacea that the minister is trying to paint that renewable energy projects will drive down prices, as she keeps emphasising, I do not believe is going to happen when you look at the investment that is going to be required to both produce that energy but particularly to transmit it around the state and particularly with the eastern links that have the interstate transfer.

Victoria has grown up with reliable, affordable energy. Our manufacturing industries have grown up and created the wealth of this state based on that energy. As I understand it, as this program goes on, instead of Victoria being a net exporter of power, we are going to become a net importer of power, so that puts us at the mercy of our interstate cousins and the power that they will produce. It does not matter whether you are on the end of a road or whether you are on the end of a water pipe or on the end of anything – if something goes wrong, it is the person on the end that actually misses out. So if there are any issues with power in the future and we are on the end of the line from interstate, although there may be interstate sharing agreements, we run the risk of being the ones that will miss out through those particular issues.

What we are finding also – and I am sure the member for Ovens Valley will speak about this – is we are having huge batteries put into our electorates.

Members interjecting.

Peter WALSH: That is great! That is really great until you have a bushfire. We see apartment blocks now banning people from bringing their scooters in because the batteries are a fire risk. We are talking about a battery so big, and we are talking about acres and acres of batteries going into rural communities. If there is a bushfire – and there always is a bushfire, particularly with the way that the Labor government under their green ideology is managing the public estate – the fuel loads will be higher, the risk will be higher. If those batteries catch on fire, I bet you will be nowhere to be seen out there on those particular issues. The community is powerless to stop these acres and acres of batteries being put in the middle of their particular community.

Members interjecting.

Peter WALSH: People can interject, people can ridicule, but the facts are those batteries will burn, and there is no known capacity to put those fires out. There is not enough water in those communities to put those particular battery fires out.

Members interjecting.

Peter WALSH: I take it that the ridicule from the other side is because they do not care about country communities. They do not care whether country communities will burn or whether people will live with the pollution and the toxicity from those particular fires there. They just do not care. So keep on going. Just show how much you do not care. Show how much you do not care around those particular issues.

Coming back the legislation before us now, it does not empower country people at all. What the planning minister has done in making renewable energy projects, including current projects, part of the development facilitation program means they are disempowered. They are having their powers taken away. There will be a charade. There will be an illusion of consultation. It will be, ‘We’ll go and talk to them, but we’ll actually tell them. We won’t talk to them. We won’t listen to them. We’ll actually tell them what’s going to happen.’ That is what the communities and people in my electorate feel about what has gone on with VNI West, and they can have no joy that this legislation will actually improve that for them.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (11:09): I too rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024, and it always fills me with just a little bit of frustration when I follow the Leader of the Nationals, particularly when talking about the sorts of climate change natural disasters that are taking place across the world, across this country and indeed across this state. We talk about the risk of fire and we talk about drought and lack of water – we need to talk about climate change; in fact we need to talk about climate action.

It would be wonderful to be able to stand here and know that the Leader of the Nationals and those opposite actually back in real climate action. This side of the house time and time again, every week when we come to this place, is introducing legislation and bills to do just that – tackle climate change and take real climate action. There is a reason why we are seeing increasing fires and the ferocity of those fires, and it is climate change, and we need to take some climate action. This is partly what this bill is about.

Anthony Cianflone interjected.

Sarah CONNOLLY: That is right, member for Pascoe Vale. We know that those opposite do not believe in climate change, and they certainly are not prepared to engage with this side of the house when it comes to taking climate action.

I do have to say I am really glad to be able to stand today to debate again another piece of energy legislation. Time and time again, since I was elected in 2018, I have been absolutely astounded at how hardworking this government and the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action have been – there is no other way to describe it – in pumping out legislation to improve Victoria’s energy network and absolutely turbocharging our investments in renewable energy. For the last three sitting weeks we have had a piece of legislation relating to this portfolio, which again speaks to how impressive, how gargantuan – I can barely say that word – the work really is that our government has been doing in the energy space. Just last week we were here in this place debating legislation that would enshrine the SEC in Victoria’s constitution – such an important debate that took place here in this place. The sitting week before that we passed legislation that enshrined our government’s ambitious renewable energy and emissions reduction targets into law. And this week we are here to debate another two pieces of legislation that deal with – surprise, surprise – renewable energy.

This bill in particular takes a look at our energy transmission network and the grid, because it is all well and good to be investing in renewable energy projects, particularly at the pace we are – projects that are going to transform our energy network – but we need to be able to get the energy generated into homes, into businesses and into the many, many thousands of buildings that now rely upon it.

This renewable energy future requires significant investment. I recall a few years ago my office was contacted by a constituent who had taken part in our government’s Solar Homes program. This was a phone call about which I think many MPs here in this place will be able to say, ‘Yes, I’ve had many of them myself,’ if they too have not already experienced the problem. This constituent did the right thing and set up solar panels on his property, but there was one slight problem – our grid was built and designed with the purpose of feeding power one way. It had always been like that – directly to the consumers. With solar now allowing households to generate and feed electricity back into the grid, it is now a two-way street that a large proportion of the network was not designed for and was never set up for. It is something that our government is already tackling. In the last term we invested $10 million, remember, into the grid of the future program, which looked at upgrading our transmission network to enable that feedback that we were getting from solar-powered homes.

This bill takes a more holistic approach. It sets a strategy for long-term planning for and the transformation of Victoria’s transmission network and energy grid, because we know that by 2035, when we reach our target of 95 per cent renewable energy in Victoria, we are going to need to unlock an additional 25 gigawatts of new capacity. At the moment our current network generates about 15.6 ‍gigawatts of capacity, and you do not need to be a mathematician to see we need to do something in this space. We are set to lose at least 4.8 gigawatts with retiring coal-fired power generators. But we do know on this side of the house – and I do believe that our community know; indeed it is a global conversation that many, many countries are going ahead and tackling and getting on and doing something about – that it is clear that the next big build is in renewables. It is a big build that is going to generate an additional 59,000 new jobs by 2035, attract billions of dollars in investment and create some of the cheapest electricity we have ever produced. Just this week we have already seen it begin to pay off for Victorians with the Victorian default offer dropping power bills by $112 for households and $266 for businesses. That is a huge win whether you are a family or you are running a small business. Indeed it is something that, when I have put it up across social media channels, has been so popular, with so much commentary about being able to save money and put that money towards other things like holidays or food on the table. Whatever families are wanting to spend that extra money on, now they have a bit extra in their back pocket. That is money back into the pockets – let us be clear about this – of over half a million Victorian families and 58,000 businesses.

Our renewable energy transition will ensure that power prices continue to drop over the coming years. But key to this transition is the preservation, the operation and the management of renewable energy zones. I look at this and I think, ‘Oh, my gosh. We’ve got another acronym for energy, and that is the REZ.’ These zones are areas that have been identified as prime land and prime locations with the greatest potential for renewable energy projects to generate the best outcomes. There are currently six of these renewable energy zones in Victoria, and they have been identified by the Australian Energy Market Operator. We know they are going to be in the central north, Gippsland, the Murray River region, the Ovens–Murray region in the north-east of the state, western Victoria and indeed the south-west coast, including Portland, Heywood, Mortlake and Terang.

What this bill does is combine each of these zones under one big framework, and that is going to be the Victorian transmission investment framework. I am not going to read out that acronym, because I think one in my contribution today is well and truly enough. At the helm of the framework is a new government body, and that is going to be VicGrid, which is the subject of this bill today. VicGrid was first announced by our government in 2020 and was established as a division within the former Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, which is now the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action.

The first thing the bill is going to do is empower the CEO of VicGrid to make decisions regarding the planning of these REZs, and this is effectively going to make VicGrid a body responsible to the Victorian government for the planning and development of those zones. Under the current legislation we know that AEMO is solely responsible for the planning and the expansion of Victoria’s transmission network. But what we have actually done is gone out and listened to the stakeholders and the key players in this space, and what we have heard about is the way this process currently works. It all seems, quite frankly, pretty backward. All it does is create angst in communities that host this infrastructure, and it creates further uncertainty, sadly, for investors. What we have also learned is that communities want to be consulted earlier on, and I think that is something we certainly do take into account regardless of what bill and legislative reform we are undertaking. In addition to the planning, VicGrid will also be empowered to assist AEMO with its functions and performance, and this includes things like environmental surveys and facilitating investment.

I have only got about 60 seconds left, and this is such a great bill. There is so much to talk about on the contents, and I know that my colleagues on this side of the house will very soon delve into the detail of this bill. But I do have to say, as someone who spent 13 years working across the country on transmission and distribution of electricity and gas networks, this is a fantastic bill. This goes to the heart of making sure that legislation is continuing to keep up with the dramatic investment that we are making into renewables – because it is one thing to make announcements, but it is another thing to bring bills and legislative reform here to this place to be debated to ensure it is in place and working when these sorts of renewable energy projects come online. I do want to commend the minister for her hours of work on these projects, and I commend the bill to the house.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:19): I rise to make some comments on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. What this bill seeks to do is enable Victoria to opt out of the national electricity transmission planning process and instead establish VicGrid as its own body to effectively ensure that transmission connection is done at a state level with a new planning process and a new planning framework to connect electricity into the grid.

This government has a very poor track record when it comes to connectivity of energy programs and particularly when it comes to transmission of new energy. This is one of the massive reasons why we have seen failure. We have all been very strong in terms of looking at transitioning to cleaner energy but also ensuring we have got affordable and reliable energy, and one of the biggest mistakes that we have seen happen up until now is the government has sought investment in new projects – new wind, new solar – and not had the transmission to be able to connect that back into the grid and be able to benefit. There have been many times that I have heard from electorates right across the state of projects that have been funded, that have been put up, that only 15 or 20 per cent of the energy is able to be used because there is not enough grid capability. That is a massive failure, because already the government has spent a whole lot of money subsidising these programs and it is not able to utilise that energy going forward. That is why we are paying the price that we are for energy. It has been a big misfortune to see that 25 per cent rise in energy costs under this government in the last 12 months. That has fundamentally been through poor management and poor supply.

The idea of having a Victorian grid authority is certainly something that is not a problem and we should be looking at how we do this properly, but one of the key things as part of establishing VicGrid is to ensure we bring all the players together, we get proper consultation and we get the best outcomes. We know that the government has on one hand been slow off the mark in progressing this but then at the same time more recently has not in that time frame – and they have had plenty of time to do it – consulted with landowners, farmers, industry and all the people that are going to be affected by new transmission going forward, and that is a real concern. This is going to continue to cost.

We also need to look at better ways of doing things. We know that one of the big projects that the government wants to push forward is VNI West, which will be a massive cable, a massive network, and I have had a number of key experts in this energy space tell me that they will be creating effectively MCG towers that they will connect a lot of VNI West through – big towers, big infrastructure, big cables. It is effectively putting all of our eggs into one basket in terms of this transmission, because it goes effectively from Victoria into New South Wales – one big, massive cable. We saw the issue when we had the blackouts just recently with transmission lines with towers. Ultimately, faulty transmission lines and towers led to redundancy in our network and blackouts that all Victorians had to experience. This is a similar situation. There have been a number of people, including Bruce Mountain, who I spoke to recently, who have suggested to me that if you have an issue on that grid, on that network of VNI West, it takes out the whole system. So that is the first issue. And we are not looking in terms of future capability. This government on one hand talks about all of these distributed networks and distributed power. You have got people like big manufacturing, and you could potentially utilise some of them in more of a hub-and-spoke kind of model. None of that has been considered. None of that has been thought through. It is like, ‘Here we go, let’s put a big, massive cable straight through agriculture and straight through farmland.’ And ultimately, who is paying for it – taxpayers again are paying for it. Ultimately, we know that it just has not been properly considered and properly thought through. It is what is seen as a quick fix.

The other concern, particularly while I am on the issue of VNI West, is the fact that the whole allowance and the planning model, which I do not think the Minister for Energy and Resources has actually properly looked at, considers the fact that Victoria, which had the best reputation of being a net exporter of energy, proudly had that medal to say we were the home of manufacturing because we had cheap, reliable and affordable energy. But at the same time we had abundant energy, so we could export it to other states. Now what we will be reliant on going forward in terms of the projections is 25 per cent of energy coming from New South Wales into Victoria.

Let us just play that out. If that happens in terms of a time of pressure on the network and New South Wales is absolutely full-scale in terms of using their energy – a warm, hot summer period – do you think they are going to turn around and say, ‘Well, you know what? We’ll flog 25 per cent of our energy over to Victoria to keep their lights on, but don’t worry about what’s happening here in New South Wales’? Of course energy security is going to be paramount to New South Wales. Again, we need to ensure that energy security is paramount, because we have seen what happens when it is not. We have seen what happens to families when they have three, four or five days or two weeks of no power. All their groceries, their food in their fridges, is gone. Who pays for that? We had a number of examples of people coming into the Parliament and talking about a week’s worth of food – gone. The government said, ‘No, we’re not paying for anything.’ We had a number of businesses that had to throw out a whole lot of food leading into I think it was Valentine’s Day – a big time when a lot of these big traders had to throw food out because they did not have power. If you play that out and you do not have the security and you are putting all of your eggs into one basket, that is a problem.

I suggest the government needs to take advice from a number of energy experts, because there are a number out there that are offering other solutions and other ideas. We cannot rush. Bruce Mountain is one of them, from Victoria University, a very capable –

Jade Benham interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Do you want me to tell them? I know a number of you are big supporters of Victoria University. Bruce Mountain is an absolute expert in this space, and it would be great to be able to talk to him.

Jade Benham interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Yes, he is a professor. Great man – yes, he is. He is a great man, and I suggest that the government should be talking to him, but again the energy minister is not speaking to the likes of Bruce Mountain and others.

St Vincent de Paul have been a strong advocate, and they are energy experts in terms of their division. They have been very vocal on energy pricing issues and in recent months have commented that they are not sure that VicGrid has the required skills or experience for this task. That is from St Vincent’s. It is going to be important that we have the right skills, that we have the right people in play and that we engage. One of the things that I would be very keen for the government to consider doing as part of this is to have a community stakeholder group form. There is no mention of that. Let us get a community stakeholder group formed before we start committing to millions and millions of dollars that we are all going to have to pay on our energy bills – straight on our energy bills. Let us consider that.

We have got an easement tax currently that sits there – an easement tax that goes back to Alcoa, the Portland days, as part of that smelter. That money is literally sitting there, and there is no consideration for that as well as that continues. That adds about $70 to every household bill. We have seen bills just continue to rise. The government do not have the solutions. All the government do is announce things in press releases – the SEC. We have got gas bans. Today we hear that there is a shortage of gas because the government have sat on their hands and done nothing. We know the importance of gas as a transition fuel. This government has been missing in action when it comes to gas. This government is not looking at affordability, reliability or energy security. Clean energy is part of the transition. It is all part of the game. You cannot just have one part of the equation, you have got a have the lot.

I think we are in for a real shock going forward. I know energy is a big issue when it comes to cost of living. This government is missing in action on that. It is all about press releases, not about detail, and SEC lollies and show bags are not going to fix energy prices in this state.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (11:29): It is a pleasure to rise on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. I really do thoroughly enjoy rising on this bill off the back of yesterday’s Energy and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Enabling Offshore Wind Energy) Bill 2024. We have had a lot of talk in this chamber. There has been a lot of wind in this chamber and a lot of hot air coming from that side of the chamber. But for all the hot air being generated by those opposite, they are not generating any power for the Leader of the Opposition. They are not generating any power for their divided party room, and they are not deriving any power from the Victorian people by continuing on with this illogical, prehistoric position, which is denying the science of climate change and denying the need for us to move towards a renewable energy future.

The other thing I note is that the numbers do not lie – the numbers speak for themselves. As we on this side of the house increase our investment and increase our commitment to renewable energy, the number of Labor MPs in this chamber, funnily enough, increases. There were 55 of us the last time I checked. And as we decarbonise and as we drive down carbon emissions across the state, you know what else goes down – the number of Liberal MPs in this chamber. I think there is a strong correlation in the political science of supporting renewable energy and actually getting outcomes at the ballot box and taking real action on climate change. So good luck with the hot air on that side of the house. We are getting on with what the Victorian people voted for over here.

In that respect I do support the efforts of this bill, which are all about taking real and meaningful action on climate change by connecting our future renewable energy zones to the Victorian power grid. It is all about ensuring that we keep the lights on for businesses, workers and families as we transition towards that renewable energy future by positioning Victoria to be the renewable energy hub and capital of the country. Of course while we are doing that, it is all about making energy more affordable and accessible and secure for Victorians and creating a new wave of jobs for the regions of the member for Lowan, the member for Nepean, the member for Mildura and a lot of the regional MPs, where a lot of these renewable energy zones are actually going to be embedded. I find it absolutely ironic that as regional MPs they are actually advocating against jobs in their own region. They are advocating against renewable energy infrastructure and renewable energy powerlines, which this bill is all about. They are going to be constructed in their respective regions, so they are against union jobs in their regions. There against unions representing safe and secure jobs in their regions. Let the record show that – it is quite amazing.

The bill of course does build on the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023, which we passed a couple of weeks ago to set those landmark targets; it is built on the Energy and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Enabling Offshore Wind Energy) Bill 2024, which we have been talking about as of yesterday; and of course it complements our ongoing measures to take real action. The main components of this bill are of course to establish the new electricity transmission planning objective and supporting framework for the planning of major electricity transmission infrastructure across Victoria. It is also to establish interim measures to enable the CEO of VicGrid to support the delivery of high-priority electricity transmission projects such as the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West, the Marinus Link, the Western Renewables Link and transmission connections to offshore wind projects, which we were talking about yesterday. It is about the provision for cost recovery of VicGrid activities in electricity transmission infrastructure planning and project development as the industry standard.

Emma Kealy interjected.

Anthony CIANFLONE: The member for Lowan has quite a lot to say today, which I am actually shocked about. She always has a lot to say, but it is all about talking against climate change, renewable energy and jobs in her own region – bizarre, just bizarre. ‘Serenity now,’ like Frank Costanza says. ‘Serenity now’ – I have got to say that again.

While those opposite continue to deny the reality of climate change and actively resist decarbonisation, we on this side of the house are listening to the scientists and taking the actions we need to, including through this bill. Just yesterday the United Nations weather agency released new data emphasising the urgency around governments around the world having to take real action to combat climate change. The UN report State of the Global Climate 2023, released yesterday – I refer the members opposite to have a read of it, I can send them a link, no problem – shows that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with global average surface and near-surface temperatures at 1.45 degrees above preindustrial levels. On an average day in 2023 nearly one-third of the ocean surface was gripped by a marine heatwave, harming vital ecosystems and food systems, and observed concentrations of the three main greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, reached record levels in 2022 and again increased globally in 2023. As the UN Secretary-General António Guterres said:

Sirens are blaring across all major indicators

…

Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding up.

According to the UN, fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – are by far the largest contributors to global climate change, accounting for over 75 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions, and are responsible for compounding global warming issues.

The good news in the report – and I refer the members opposite to this section of the report, I genuinely do – is that as of 2023 renewable energy capacity across the globe soared by more than 50 per cent, now totalling 510 gigawatts, the highest observed rate in two decades. The report stated that the surge in renewable energy generation, primarily fuelled by solar, wind and the water cycle, has positioned the renewable energy sector as the leading force in climate action and achieving decarbonisation goals. That is why I am proud to be part of an Allan Victorian Labor government that is leading the nation and indeed many jurisdictions around the world when it comes to taking this real action on climate change to drive down our emissions and move us towards a renewable energy future.

As of 2021 the main source of Victoria’s emissions was burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which equated to around 51 per cent our state’s emissions. However, since 2014 we have taken that real action to decarbonise at the fastest rate in the nation. We have driven down our emissions by 32.3 ‍per cent and we have grown the share of energy generation that comes from renewables to 39.3 ‍per cent of the state’s energy generation, all while growing our economy and growing jobs by 42.8 per cent. We can actually do that. We can invest and progress towards renewable energy and grow the economy and grow jobs in the regions too, where unemployment, by the way, is at record low levels.

As we on this side of the house do this, the Liberals of course are stuck in the past with their heads buried in the sand. Of course these measures are all consistent with our legislated emissions targets, which we recently passed: 28 to 33 per cent below 2005 levels by 2025, 45 to 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, 75 to 80 per cent below 2005 by 2035. And of course we are working with this bill towards that net zero emissions target by 2045. Along with that we have invested $3 billion into renewable energy infrastructure. We have also set forward some of the most ambitious renewable energy targets in the nation and in the world – 65 per cent renewable electricity by 2030, 95 per cent renewable electricity by 2035 – and we have set those new energy storage targets of at least 2.6 gigawatts of storage capacity by 2030 and at least 6.3 gigawatts of capacity by 2035.

Underpinning each of these targets and measures will be our capacity to oversee unprecedented growth in Victoria’s renewable energy generation sector, which needs to be connected to the broader Victorian electricity grid, which this bill will play a crucial part in achieving. We are undergoing one of the most rapid transitions towards renewable energies in the world. As I said, we are working hard to reach those targets, but to get this cheaper, cleaner and more reliable renewable energy to people’s homes and businesses across the state we need to modernise and expand the electricity grid. The current legislative framework was never designed to accommodate a transformation of this scale. The last time we built a major new transmission line was more than 30 years ago. The member for Narracan likes his history. It was 30 years ago, member for Narracan, that we built the last transmission line before the Liberals sold off our energy assets. The current arrangements simply are not fit for purpose. They do not allow for the planning and investment we need for the future, and they do not hold those private companies that the Liberals are best mates with that built and own these transmission assets to account. They do not properly account for land use, and most importantly they do not bring local communities and traditional owners with them as part of the process.

The bill will address these issues by implementing an entirely new way to plan and develop transmission renewable energy zones in Victoria, known as the Victorian transmission investment framework. We know on this side of the house where the sun shines and where the wind is the strongest. It is in those renewable energy zones that we have designated in central northern Victoria, in the Shepparton region, in the Gippsland region, in the Murray River corridor down to Bendigo, in the Ovens–Murray region, in the south-west Victoria region through Portland and in the western Victoria region up to Horsham, in the member’s electorate. These renewable energy zones have been identified and are recognised by government and industry as the areas across the state with the greatest potential for accommodating and operating baseload renewable energy power and, as I said, where we can harness the wind, the sunshine, the rain, the tides, the waves and the geothermal heat to provide for the state’s future energy needs. I commend this bill to the house. It is all about taking that real action, which the Liberals are in denial about and forever will be.

Emma KEALY (Lowan) (11:39): I rise today to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. It is a fascinating experience hearing some of the rhetoric which comes out of the members of the government’s mouths as they try to convert everybody to a certain position in the world that simply does not reflect accurate history or the current situation in any way, shape or form.

I would encourage each and every one of the city-centric Labor MPs in this chamber to make their way out to regional Victoria and speak to just a couple of the landholders who have engaged with VicGrid, which has been established for more than two years now, even though this legislation pretends that is a brand new thing and that we are going to do things differently. Guess what, locals have already had their experience with VicGrid. They have already had their experience and they understand exactly what this is all about, and it is all about not listening to community concerns. We in our region, in country Victoria, are people who actually understand rural communities and who bother to listen to and engage with people who live in the country, and we remember that footage of a security guard throwing young Billy to the ground because Billy was daring to bring a speaker into a community meeting because the older people from the community could not hear what was being said. This is what is happening: the government are tackling young people to the ground who are trying to help their local community in the efforts of consultation.

Members interjecting.

Emma KEALY: I hear the laughing coming from Labor because they do not care about country people. This is funny to Labor MPs in this chamber. I note that the member for Wendouree is in here, and you have got a very interesting record when it comes to engaging with your local people and standing up for them against policy which just harms their communities, as does the member for Ripon. I note that I have not seen her speak on this legislation yet. She likes to say one thing quietly to local people, and do I hear her say it in here? No. She has not fronted up to one single forum – not a single thing that VicGrid has hosted. She has not been there and will not stand up for her community.

Sarah Connolly: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, whilst I absolutely take delight in listening to the member for Lowan, she has strayed so far from the bill I am unsure what she is talking about.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): It is not a point of order.

Emma KEALY: I would like to inform the Labor MPs in the chamber what is actually happening in western Victoria. Now, you are deadset certain that VNI West is the number one way to go, and I have heard the member for Pascoe Vale speaking about how renewables are so important we need to expand them. You know what? If the government was truly focused on engaging and getting access to more renewables, you would look at plan B. And what is plan B? You should all know what plan ‍B is because many of us have raised this opportunity, this great option that Bruce Mountain has put forward in a fabulous document called No Longer Lost in Transmission. If you have not read it, I am more than happy to make this document available to the house. Now, I would like to just reference some statistics on this. Plan B is essentially upgrading existing powerlines rather than going through prime agricultural land and going through areas where there are no easements at all, where we have got powerlines which are going right by houses in areas where people just do not want transmission lines, because they have never had them.

Lauren Kathage interjected.

Emma KEALY: I actually would like to raise and compare and contrast VNI West versus plan B. Let us have a look. I am getting interjections from across the chamber because apparently the member for Yan Yean is now an expert on VNI West, which is great to see, but let us just go back to the document rather than taking her word for it, because we never take Labor’s word for it because they consistently put out mistruths. Let us have a look: require minor widening of 10 metres, 1000 ‍kilometres; requires new easements, 130 kilometres for plan B. How many kilometres of new easements for VNI West?

Lauren Kathage interjected.

Emma KEALY: Apparently the same, we hear from Yan Yean. I am sorry, but it is actually 1270 ‍kilometres of brand new easements – over 1000 kilometres of new easements. I would say you can hear the rattling of the nod, but I do not even think there is a rattle in there at this point in time. And we look at the capital cost. This is the thing – we hear from this government all the time, ‘Renewables will cost less; we’re going to drive down the cost of living.’ Guess what, you look at the transmission lines and you are going to drive power bills through the roof.

We know that even with the difference between plan B and VNI West, that cost, which is over a billion dollars a year, will actually work out as an increase on household bills of about 30 per cent, and for larger consumers – our businesses, the people who create jobs in this state – it is going to either double or triple their transmission costs. That is a problem, and you never hear this from the Labor government. You never hear that by expanding this infrastructure – it is not the government paying for it from this magic bucket that everything comes from – it ends up on your power bill. So every time you hear a Labor MP saying, ‘We’re keeping cost of living down,’ do not believe them, because their drive to renewables means more transmission lines, and the more transmission lines we have, the higher the cost of every single energy bill in this state. Every single household will have a higher energy bill. Every single business will have a higher energy bill, and that will close down businesses in this state. It is already driving businesses to move interstate, where they are looking at sensible options with existing infrastructure and upgrading the infrastructure they have got and they are making sure that they have better options and reliable energy for their local community.

Now we are seeing this odd little conflict. If you listen to what the government say and what they do, they are two completely different things. Even in this legislation we hear that VicGrid is going to be responsible for community consultation. But what happened just last week? We had an announcement last week that we are going to have a development facilitation project which would sidetrack – actually completely push aside – any community consultation at all. This is the concern that people have in my local community, because while Labor likes to prosecute country people as being anti-environmental, you know what, people are concerned that this sideways process will actually not just silence community consultation; it will also mean there is no requirement for an environment effects statement. There will not be the requirement for the environment to be considered as part of this, and it is very concerning to my local people –

Sonya Kilkenny: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, can I bring the member back to the bill and also ensure that when she is referring to matters they are factual.

Emma KEALY: My locals are very concerned about it, and, Minister, if you would like to come and meet with them, please do. They are very concerned about it, and they have not been able to get access to information from the Minister for Planning. Given that she is here and so interested in listening to the community and getting factual information about their concerns around the environment, I invite the minister to come with me to that Bulgana area and meet with local people who are impacted by VNI West. I will put that forward in writing, and I do appreciate the minister’s interest in that matter.

We have also got concerns from Laverton saying, ‘This will empower the CEO of VicGrid.’ Do you know what – what about empowering the communities who are going to be impacted by this? What about supporting and listening to farmers? You might say, ‘It’s just 2 per cent of farmland that’s going to go.’ That is not what is in the government report. In the government report, which has now been taken down off the internet to keep it hidden, 70 per cent of agricultural land will host renewables going forward to reach your targets. I cannot see anything in this bill that talks about agricultural zones. I cannot see anything about that. This government relies on the income and the economic benefit of the agricultural sector. Our smallest rural communities rely on the strength of the agricultural sector to keep those local businesses, schools and hospitals alive. By doing this cutthroat transmission across to having just a host of renewable energy in country Victoria, you are going to kill the agricultural sector. Listen to them. Get it right. You can do that. You can deliver more renewables with plan B. Support plan B. Makes sure you listen to our country communities.

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (11:49): It is great to rise and speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. I will come to some of the comments made by the member for Lowan, because it gives you a sense of how difficult federal policy and state policy have been on renewable energy transmission. If you were listening to the member for Lowan’s speech, you would think that there was no renewable energy in our state, that it is suddenly going to take over all the land and that we are not having this transition. It is actually 35 per cent at the moment of the energy mix. And the notion that 70 per cent of agricultural land would go under renewable energy does not stack up – it does not stack up in any form. And you can see –

Emma Kealy: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, it is a requirement for every member of this place to be factual in the information they provide. The member has suggested that I have provided misinformation to the house. I am happy to make the government document available to the house so that he can read that and inform himself and ensure his comments are factual.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): On the point of order, I think the member for Lowan knows that is not a point of order.

Members interjecting.

Tim RICHARDSON: And chastise everyone for interrupting during the member for Lowan’s speech.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): I ask the member for Mordialloc to continue, please.

Tim RICHARDSON: Yes. I know it is a sensitive topic, the transition to renewables. We saw this during the coverage of Nemesis, when the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull tried to bring on the National Energy Guarantee and was undermined by none other than the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce and a range of Liberals and Nationals. I have always thought that the Nationals in Victoria were a bit of a green-leaf-type Nationals outfit, not the heavily polluting industry, non-transition, ‘Let’s bring coal into the Parliament’ type Nationals that we see in New South Wales and Queensland, but what we have seen today is the quiet bit being said out loud on energy policy: the fact that they do not want to transition to renewable energy. They are not listening to their communities. And it is really strange –

Jade Benham interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: Member for Mildura, you are not quite at the table yet. You might be leader in time to come for the Nationals. You are out of your place. But I know that it elicits a strong response. I would have a bit of a complex if I was in the Nationals and I had Barnaby Joyce as my leader previously rather than Darren Chester. That would elicit a bit of an emotive response. I would have a response like that if I saw some of the dysfunction that happens in energy policy and would want to say, ‘Split our coalition’, like they proposed at the end of 2022. You see, they have lost their way in representing communities on what really is a transition, an equitable transition, into the future.

Jade Benham: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, this is in no way related to the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): I ask the member for Mordialloc to come back to the bill.

Tim RICHARDSON: We are on the VicGrid, on the transition. The member for Lowan literally just said that agriculture, hospitals and education are gone in the future. That was wide off the bill, you might say – a bit of a fleeting moment when you do not have your speaking notes quite ready. But this is an example of not wanting to front up to do the policy development and a sensible debate on this.

You see, when you put forward a policy like the national electricity VicGrid bill, you are saying to the community, ‘Well, these are the nuts and bolts, infrastructure and really important structures that need to be established to empower the energy transmission.’ If we cannot get the renewable energy there based on infrastructure that is not fit for purpose, how are we going to meet that ambition when heavily polluting, old fossil fuel technology comes offline? We know the dates. Surely the Nationals, when market failure is happening in brown and black coal technology, when we have had to prop up those industries – and we have seen that federally, propping up old industries – are not saying that they are wanting to prop up those technologies into the future. They are failing communities and they are failing jobs, and every single sensible policymaker knows that those heavily polluting industries are going under.

What do we do? Do we step back then and not take action, not invest in the heavy transition that we need to secure the energy future and the jobs and the security of Victorians going forward? That is what the VicGrid is all about. That is the planning certainty and the investment certainty that we need. It is a critical element of that. So to come in here and say, ‘We oppose this form of transition to renewable energy,’ but then not offer a single skerrick of the transition, except – and I will give them their credit; they did have a crack. They wanted to burn it all: put it in the incinerator, burn all the waste. That was one policy. We do not hear too much about that. The member for Malvern had a good go at it – ‘Yeah, let’s go and burn stuff. Let’s go have a crack’. Incineration – literally the last form, the last rung on transition to renewable energy is burning it. No, we then had the next brain fart, which was absolutely incredible: nuclear energy – nuclear. We have got a ban in the state. How do you front up to that? You do not hear anyone on the Nationals or Liberals side acknowledge how crazy this policy is except for the former Liberal candidate for Dunkley and the Leader of the Opposition federally, Peter Dutton. They are the only people that are talking about this as a viable alternative. That is the nature here.

We do not have Victorian Liberal–Nationals with a credible alternative or policy here at all other than, ‘It’s going to be bad – we’re telling you it’s bad,’ even though we are already at our 35 per cent renewable energy target. We have exceeded those renewable energy targets, and it has offset heavy impacting, polluting technologies that are failing.

Do I need to remind them of that infamous moment when the Liberal candidate for Frankston in 2018 said, ‘We will let coal-fired power stations be market-driven. We’ll leave it to the markets.’ David Speers said, ‘Well, if that’s the case, they could build new coal-fired power stations now.’ Then there was 7 minutes of the greatest TV that we have ever seen on Sky News or across any news media. There was a panicked, ‘No, it would actually be the state continuing to prop up old technologies and coal-fired power stations.’ If that is still your policy, with all the information, say the quiet bit out loud and say you are still opposing renewable energy and you are backing old, heavy-polluting technologies that are impacting on communities.

The transition to renewable energy is clear. It was something that the Liberals tried to put up in their policy going into the federal election, but once again we saw the Nationals absolutely tear them to pieces. When you listen to the member for Brighton’s contributions, you go, ‘Okay, well, there’s a bit of reason in there.’ He is standing up. Obviously he does not get along well with the Leader of the Nationals – dare we mention some the things early on around ducks and other things – but he has put forward a policy position. When you hear the member for Lowan, they might as well be in Queensland, they are so far apart on policy. They are not in any unison on that. So how do Victorians have that longer term confidence, and how does business, who they say they are trying to support into the future, have any confidence when they see the policy inertia still going on? It is why people back Labor’s policies. It is why they back our SEC policy to create 59,000 more jobs and to invest in renewable energy, our renewable energy target of net zero going forward, the work that we are doing and the actual infrastructure that we are putting in. It is not hope, as the former environment minister Josh Frydenberg used to say: ‘We hope the technology gets there at some stage. It’s making leaps and bounds and will get there itself.’ You need to incentivise the business community when you have smashed this market for so long.

What we have seen as well is that states have met the federal government’s renewable energy target from all the actions that they are taking. Those numbers that are quoted in various international forums are actually all the hard work of state jurisdictions that have come together in a policy sense and really made that investment. Victorians can trust and be proud of a government that is investing in that technology, investing in critical infrastructure and planning for the future. That is why I am really pleased to see this bill – the establishment of our transition planning objectives and supporting that framework for the planning of major electricity transmission infrastructure in Victoria. How do we do it if we do not have the freeways and networks to get the power there? We need to make that investment. That is a critical identified requirement of national energy reports, which have said, ‘If you’re not putting the investment into that critical infrastructure, there’s no way you’re going to be able to meet those renewable energy targets and ambitions.’

The establishment of VicGrid will support the delivery of these high-priority electricity transmission projects into the future, and some of the projects have been listed and discussed in this chamber. That is the challenge. For anyone serious about energy policy, do not come in here and do 9 minutes saying that everything is bad and the cost of living will go up, even though the heavy fossilised fuels are driving up the cost of living and the renewable energy sector is now becoming more affordable and cheaper and leading that transition. We see that in other jurisdictions. Come in with a policy alternative other than ‘We’ll light it on fire’ or ‘We’ll build nuclear reactors in the next two decades’. Have a serious go. The member for Polwarth is next. The challenge is there. I mean, front up and give us an alternative.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (11:59): Thank you to the 38-times-passed-over member for Mordialloc. I will take that challenge up, because the member for Mordialloc has often struck me as someone who pays attention and reads his notes. We worked a little bit together on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee. When he was not playing patience or something on his computer while he was he supposed to be asking ministerial questions, I thought he did actually read his notes. He got up today and disputed the claims made by this side –

Luba Grigorovitch: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I think the member is straying from the debate.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Wayne Farnham): I ask the member for Polwarth to come back to the debate.

Richard RIORDAN: Certainly back onto it, thank you, Acting Speaker. The member made a claim that he disputes the fact that 70 per cent of agricultural land will be required to meet the government’s renewable energy targets.

Tim Richardson interjected.

Richard RIORDAN: Well, member for Mordialloc, I can tell you it is on pages 18 and 19 in the Victorian government’s directions. What they talk about is that in Victoria, to achieve the goals the government wants, we are going to need to use 70 per cent of agricultural land to meet the targets for solar and wind. The member for Mordialloc probably will not know; he will probably know about dog-walking parks and things in his electorate. In my electorate that has solar and wind opportunities, my community knows very well the limitations of the current networks that we have. He would know that most parts of the existing infrastructure in transmission in Victoria is at capacity. We actually need to get more transition happening in this state if we are to get anywhere near the government’s ambitions.

But what they do wrong is that they do it so badly. We saw the transmission lines collapse near Anakie just recently. Well, the same thing happened a couple of years ago on existing infrastructure that has been overseen and managed by this government now for the last 10 years. There have been two collapses within two years of significant infrastructure. The one that collapsed at Anakie the other day may not have been a huge risk to nearby populations. However, the one that collapsed in my electorate fell across the very busy Colac-Ballarat Road. Those travelling on the Colac-Ballarat Road put their lives at risk very, very often because of the potholes, poor edges and complete and utter decay from this government. However, when a massive 500-kilowatt powerline collapses on the road in the middle of the day it is very dangerous, and that level of danger is of concern to my community. It was only sheer luck that it did not fall on a school bus, on a truck or on the numerous cars that travel up and down with people going to work. This government are big on the safety of people going to work, but they turn a blind eye when it comes to their own failings in infrastructure to keep people safe.

Communities not only in western Victoria but right across the state understand what is going to be required to get transmission infrastructure in place that will deliver what the community wants and what the broader state needs, but they also want to know that it is being done safely. What this government have shown time and time again is they fundamentally do not understand what these transmission lines do to communities where they go across. With the western transmission line, we have heard of this government’s complete disregard of the potato-growing communities and others along there that were going to be significantly affected. In my own patch, with the Portland 500-kilovolt line that runs through, time and time again the farmers and those underneath those transmission lines understand the impact on their business. For example, at harvest time, with dust and things, whether it is the dust from the crops when you have to burn off stubble – there are all sorts of jobs that occur in and around transmission lines that can greatly affect the productivity of the land and the farms and the communities involved. This government needs to have a process in place that listens and takes those things on board.

The other thing that has come up over recent years about the need for greater transmission lines right across the state is the other options for transmission. Once again the member for Mordialloc was quick to say, ‘Give us some more ideas; give us some more solutions,’ because the 29 people on this side of the house are supposed to solve their problems –

A member: You don’t have an idea.

Richard RIORDAN: No, I have got one. I am going to give it to you. But your 40,000 bureaucrats have been incapable of actually giving us a sensible look at high-voltage direct current options. What are they using in England? They have got the same problem, and, guess what, they have got even more confined spaces and regional land to use. They are going HVDC. Why should we be looking at HVDC? Because it means we can get the transmission lines around the state without the impact on farming communities and without the impact on public land, private land and into residential communities.

Why won’t this government look at it? Because it is just being pig-headed. This government has refused to respond to the communities from Tarneit through to Ballarat and beyond who have said to this government, ‘Okay, if you have to build a transmission line, if you want to reach your renewable targets, if you want to provide more renewable energy, why aren’t you also applying world’s best practice to the distribution and transmission of electricity and energy?’ That is a very fair question. So when the member for Mordialloc says there is not an alternative, there is an alternative. There is an alternative that this side of the house and communities have been giving this government, and for the last four or five years they have refused to look at that alternative.

We heard yesterday about the need to bring offshore energy sources into the grid to try and meet the government’s renewable targets. If we are going to not explore all options available in transmission, how are we planning to transmit that energy that is generated offshore across a sensitive national park such as the Otway Ranges? How are we going to transmit energy across our beautiful beaches? How are we going to transmit energy across a whole range of other communities that to date have not had to experience the need for large transmission lines? In fact to make a grid work, you are going to have to connect into what exists. In my electorate alone, if we are going to have offshore energy with transmission, the new transmission lines that this government seeks to build will have to go up to 150 ‍kilometres across country that is either national park, prime residential land or fairly heavily populated areas, such as that area between Torquay, Bellbrae, Winchelsea and across that part of the world, where there are lots of densely populated communities. Are they all to have transmission lines across those areas when there are alternatives? There are alternatives this government should look at.

Acting Speaker Farnham, you will be interested in this because this has probably become an issue in your own electorate. We see in this bill that the government is also seeing transmission lines as a big new tax for them. The transmission lines that we currently have in the state are generating some $250 million a year in land tax. If you were looking at a government that was going broke, had run out of money, was desperate to raise more income sneakily, then I would suggest to you the reason it is not looking at underground options or other more viable options like sharing existing transmission lines, as the member for Lowan pointed out, you might say, is that this is just another big tax grab by this government in insisting on a whole range of new airborne transmission lines. If it is currently generating $250 million a year in land tax from transmission lines, there is the very strong incentive that a broke government would be very keen to continue on its merry way putting up transmission lines across regional Victoria to once again have regional Victoria send more money into the coffers here in Spring Street.

What is worse about those land taxes is that of course they are not being paid by the companies as such; they get added on to our power bills. So it is mums and dads – it is cost of living – it is people at home trying to make ends meet, trying to pay their energy bills, who will in fact be just another cash cow for this government to raise revenue to pay for the Suburban Rail Loop tunnel in Melbourne. To think that for many people in regional Victoria, one of the reasons more transmission lines are going to be put across their valuable farmland, destroying their local communities, when there are other options is that they are just a tax in disguise that will hit the hip pockets and the cost-of-living nerve for so many people and families right across Victoria. This is a poorly thought out option for Victorians.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:09): I would like to dedicate the start of my contribution to debunking some of what we have heard from those opposite over the last few contributions. The member for Caulfield, the member for Lowan and the member for Polwarth all spoke about this magical plan B, the unicorn plan B. ‘Why won’t you get behind it?’ they said. ‘Why won’t you look at other alternatives? Why are you being pig-headed?’ they said. Well, there is a simple answer, and the answer is, with all respect to Professor Bruce Mountain, that plan B has been thoroughly debunked by the Australian Energy Market Operator – the market operator which, I might add, those opposite tell us is the expert in these matters. The body that they say is the expert in these matters has debunked plan B. One of the things that are wrong with plan B that may be of interest to those opposite based on their contributions so far is that it involves zero community consultation. The very thing they are in here calling for and the very thing this bill does has been absolutely bypassed by plan B. We know it is because those opposite are really just interested in plan N. They just want plan N for Victoria, and that is why they are ignoring the facts and ignoring the reality to take us down that path.

What I found troubling about the contributions from those opposite was their seeming willingness to use incorrect facts to scare their community, their incorrect claims about the use of agricultural land for renewable energy to make people worried – fearmongering. Those claims that they are making are simply untrue because those claims do not take account of offshore wind. They only look at onshore wind and solar, and we in this place just this very week have been debating a bill about offshore wind, because our government has aggressive targets in relation to offshore wind. The reason why offshore wind will make such a contribution to our renewable energy transition is that offshore wind is the strongest form of wind energy because, and forgive me if I am stating the obvious, it is windy out on the sea. In fact in your electorate, Acting Speaker Farnham, my husband went to take up the recommendation of a fishing expedition from Lakes Entrance that you gave, and that fishing expedition was cancelled due to high winds. So we know it is windy there, and offshore wind is more consistent and offshore wind blows strongest in the afternoons and evenings, which is when we have peak demand for electricity use. That is why offshore wind is such an important option for us.

The member for Polwarth makes the amazing claim that this whole process, this transition that we are talking about, is a tax grab, and I think by saying that he is revealing more about those opposite than he is about us – that their focus is on income and profit, and our focus is on bringing down power bills for consumers and transitioning to a renewable future. Those are the facts, so I thank you for allowing me the time to run through those.

But what we are here to discuss is the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024, and this bill is a reflection of our overarching approach to the transition to renewables. It is about bringing down the cost of power bills. It is community focused, it is about transparency and accountability and it is about energy reliability and security. Implementing the Victorian transmission investment framework will mean that we have guidance for the planning and development of our transmission infrastructure and the renewable energy zones, and these need to be planned and designed in concert. We have seen what happens when that does not happen. In Texas in the early 2000s they had developers building onshore wind farms all around the place, and then they struggled to gain permission to connect their wind farms to the statewide electricity grid. Because of that difficulty, then investors stopped developing wind farms. So by developing this in concert we are providing certainty for investors and developers, but more importantly we are providing certainty for communities around the location of renewable energy zones and transmission infrastructure.

The guiding principles that I spoke about that drive us more broadly also drive the Victorian transmission plan, and I just want to compare those principles to those opposite’s plan N. With their obsession over there with nuclear and flirting with nuclear, they are really not providing the transparency that we are providing under this plan. Where are they planning on putting nuclear power? Where are they putting the waste? Where is the transparency there? They should be open with the public. And where is the community focus? People do not want nuclear. It is not just the current community that will be impacted, it is future generations. Nuclear waste gets stored for 100,000 years, so they are very much expanding the community that needs to be consulted.

We know that, as opposed to our guiding principle of bringing down power bills, nuclear will not. The cost to build is unreal. Hinkley Point C started with a £26.6 billion estimate to build in 2022; fast-forward to 2024 and it is £46 billion – nearly double. Then the estimated cost of the energy to consumers from that power plant has gone up from £43 per kilowatt hour to £191. That is about five times, according to my left hand. Compare that to our plan. Victoria has the cheapest wholesale prices for energy at the moment because of our renewables. We saw that with the default offer most recently. If we are talking about cost, it cost Japan hundreds of billions of dollars to clean up after the Fukushima disaster, so I hope they are counting that in as well.

Quickly, on the guiding principle of energy reliability and security that this bill and our whole approach are based around, it takes a long time to build nuclear. They announced Hinkley Point C in 2008; the current estimate is 2031. In Finland and Sweden it has taken them 40 years to plan where to put the waste. They are burying it in copper in clay soil under 400 metres of bedrock. I mean, that is why I am worried about Mount Buller. It is not possible in Australia to have nuclear before around 2040 or later. Coal plants are going offline sooner than that. But by 2040 we are going to have already an almost fully emission-free system, so it just does not make sense to be looking for plan N. Get behind plan A, those opposite.

The former chief scientist of Australia has noted that the trajectory of power prices with renewable energy is down, down, down and that by the time 2040 rolls around those incredible costs of developing nuclear power will be sky-high compared to our renewable-produced electricity. So it just does not make sense for them to continue on with their plan N. Those massive capital costs simply do not produce cheaper renewable energy. I ask those opposite: please stop scaring your communities, stop ignoring the facts and stop coming in here with falsehoods. The reality is that we are transitioning to a renewable energy system for Victoria.

Brad ROWSWELL (Sandringham) (12:19): I also rise to address the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. It is another day in the life of the Allan Labor government and another false promise that Victoria’s power bills will be reduced as a result of this legislation, yet there is no evidentiary point that that will in fact be the case. In fact over the last 10 years this government has been pledging that power prices will be lower than they currently are, and every year that they have made that commitment power prices have not gone – to quote the Minister for Energy only a few weeks ago in this chamber – ‘down, down, down’, but they have been going up, up, up.

Do not believe me just for a moment, believe Victorians who are receiving their power bills in the mail at the moment: power prices are going up. The reason for that is because this government’s energy policy and energy focus have been driven purely by ideology and not driven by the practicalities of delivering renewable, reliable and affordable energy for Victorians, not just for Victorian households but also for Victorian businesses. In the last 12 months alone power prices have increased in the state by 25 per cent for households and 26 per cent for businesses. That is having an incredible impact on the bottom line of Victorians at this point in time in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It is in addition to cost increases on school fees, on mortgages and on grocery bills. Power prices going up, up, up, not down, down, down – to quote the minister again – is just making life all that more difficult for Victorians at this point in our history.

This particular bill deals with VicGrid. I am in one sense absolutely thrilled that finally this government is defining what the heck VicGrid actually does, because those of us with a longer memory than just this term will know that this government introduced or announced VicGrid earlier in a previous term of Parliament, which was a previous term of the then Andrews government. For a period of that time I had the privilege of serving as the opposition’s Shadow Minister for Energy and Renewables. It was a real mystery to me and to every Victorian what the purpose of VicGrid actually was. In the absence of that, as Shadow Minister For Energy and Renewables at the time I thought one of the major issues we had in Victoria in terms of energy in total was energy transmission. It made sense to me at the time that VicGrid should be responsible for energy transmission in this state, which is why at the time I took a policy to our shadow cabinet, which was approved, stating that the remit of VicGrid would be expanded to facilitate transmission changes in the state and that the Liberals and Nationals would invest VicGrid with the authority to carry out the work of transmission infrastructure in the state in addition to assuming the role of transmission planner in place of the Australian Energy Market Operator. Now, that was in August 2021. We are now in March 2024, some three years on, and lo and behold, the Allan Labor government has introduced a bill to effectively do just that. Here we go!

In fact the media release that I released at the time together with the Leader of the Opposition – which I am happy to provide to Hansard for their reference – stated that the Liberal–Nationals would:

… direct VicGrid to establish a Competitive Evaluation Process through which this transmission project and all future all transmission projects will be planned and costed. This Process will prioritise keeping power costs low for consumers whilst adopting best-practice procurement guidelines for major infrastructure projects – drawing upon private sector expertise and consulting in a detailed and meaningful way with the community.

To that point about community consultation, I fully support the textual amendment moved by the member for Brighton Mr Newbury, where he seeks to insert a new part 8 to this bill relating to a community advisory committee, specifically that the minister must establish a community advisory committee and the minister and CEO of VicGrid must consult community advisory committees.

Here is the thing: we all know that we have got six renewable energy zones around this state, but we also know that it is one thing to have a renewable energy zone in this state but another thing to get this power from where it is generated to work needs to be, and that is to the grid.

In order to solve that we need to have greater transmission infrastructure in this state, and I am pleased that this Parliament is finally talking about transmission infrastructure in this state, because for far too long it has been the elephant in the room. It has been the untouchable subject in terms of energy transition that this government and other people in power-making roles have not wanted to touch and have not wanted to talk about. I am thrilled that we are finally having this very important conversation. But as part of that conversation we must not just be talking about new transmission infrastructure; we must also be talking about the upgrading of existing transmission infrastructure if we are to do this correctly, and we must be talking about engagement with community along the way. We have a circumstance in Victoria at the moment where one option and only one option is being presented to communities in the west of Victoria – it is being imposed upon them – which they frankly do not agree with. That is the wrong way of going about transmission infrastructure in this state. The right way is to actually task VicGrid with the responsibility. As we proposed back in August 2021, it is directing VicGrid to have responsibility for transmission infrastructure in this state from go to whoa – from the inception of the idea, from the community consultation piece to the planning piece, to advising government on where transmission infrastructure is actually needed and where transmission infrastructure not only is needed but can be upgraded as well, using best practice major project procurement processes in order to let out the contracts, to assisting with the first turning of the sod on the project, to the delivery of the project, to the implementation of the project, to the certification of the project, right through to the final stages of delivery of the project. We think this is entirely sensible. We thought it back then in 2021, and I dare say it is for the government to consider that very worthwhile policy process and policy proposal in 2024.

Of course we are doing this because one of the driving factors behind this side of the house at the moment is keeping Victorians’ bills as low as possible. Acting Speaker Farnham, you and I both know that at the moment, because of the policy settings of this government, power bills are going up, up, up, not down, down, down. That must be a guiding principle of policy. That must be a guiding principle of governments. That must be the guiding principle of policymakers when it comes to our energy transition.

I refer to a media release from my colleague the Shadow Minister for Energy, Affordability and Security Mr Davis in the other place, who earlier this week suggested that:

Reports of a proposed belated decrease to the Victorian Default Offer (VDO) provide little comfort to Victorians who have endured years of double-digit percentage price increases.

Mr Davis said in this release:

Since 1 July 2022, Victorian households have suffered a VDO increase of 17 per cent, or $240 per household ‍–

$240 in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis actually makes a difference –

The proposed 6.4 per cent decrease will only apply to Victorians on VDO contracts – just 13 per cent of Victorian households and 20 per cent of small businesses.

My bottom line is this: I think we can all agree on both sides of the chamber that we want energy to be affordable, we want energy to be reliable and we want energy to be renewable, the difference being that the government have had 10 years to achieve that and frankly they have not. Their plan is flimsy at best, and it is not delivering the results for Victorians at this time. It is not delivering cheaper power, and that is the key difference between the opposition and the government.

Gary MAAS (Narre Warren South) (12:29): Goodness me, really. Look, it gives me tremendous pleasure to rise to speak to the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024, but of course it would be remiss of me not to pick up a few of the comments that have been made by the member for Sandringham. As has been noted in this place, when we do talk about prices going down, down, down, we actually mean that. You only have to look at the Victorian default offer, the draft determination of which came out only two days ago. That just continues to be the trusted safety net for Victorians. The draft VDO shows that bills will be going down for each and every household by $112 – and $266 for small businesses. So there is just a very, very recent example of prices going down, down, down.

We know that to achieve that and to achieve our renewable energy targets for a cleaner and more efficient energy future we have to keep moving this way. I know many MPs in this place have risen so many times in the term of this Parliament to speak to energy bills, and it is a great testament to our Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources and Minister for the State Electricity Commission for the power of work that her office and the department are doing so that we can reach those targets.

Just on something else from the member for Sandringham: I do not think any reasoned amendments have been put in this place. I understand they were being foreshadowed as being put in the upper house when they reach there.

The National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill introduces new arrangements for transmission planning in our state by implementing the Victorian transmission investment framework. The bill puts a new framework for planning and developing transmission infrastructure and renewable energy zones in Victoria. The Allan Labor government is making moves on its commitment to renewable energy, but to make this transaction orderly and efficient we need to ensure connecting transmission links are in place to get this renewable energy across Victoria’s grid. The bill will avoid Victoria experiencing reliability issues, importing electricity from neighbouring jurisdictions, pushing up electricity prices and losing investment to other states upon the exit of coal-fired power stations in Victoria. The bill is about moving forward in the state government’s pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 and ensure this necessary transition away from fossil fuels occurs smoothly.

We are, as I have said, in the process of one of the most rapid energy transitions in the world. The Allan Labor government has nearly quadrupled the share of renewable energy in power generation since 2014 after investment was halted unfortunately under the previous four years of a Liberal government. In contrast, the Allan Labor government is committed to moving forward on renewable energy legislation. Our goal of 65 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and 95 per cent by 2035 is ambitious, but as we know, you have got to have targets to be able to get there. We must be ambitious if we want to do what is right by the environment and transition to a cleaner, cheaper and renewable energy future. And they are the future. Renewables are the future and will create incredible opportunities for our state, including the creation of some 59,000 jobs by 2035 and billions in industry investment.

I know from speaking to constituents in my electorate of Narre Warren South that they are for renewable energy. They are very concerned about keeping their energy costs down and moving to efficient energy sources to help mitigate the burden on their wallets and the burden to the planet as well. To get renewable energy to our homes and businesses we need to modernise and to update Victoria’s grid. The current framework was simply never designed to keep up and accommodate such rapid transitions. The last major transmission line was built over 30 years ago, before energy assets were sold off to private companies by a previous Liberal government. These arrangements do not allow for the current planning and investments being made in renewable energy under the Allan Labor government. They fail to hold companies accountable for land use or engaging early enough with important stakeholders such as traditional owners in the planning of transmission infrastructure.

This bill will implement a new framework to develop these important transmission lines, which will keep the lights on in our homes and in our businesses. As I said, under the bill, what we will see is an updated plan in the development of transmission and renewable energy zones in Victoria. That will be known as the Victorian transmission investment framework and will be implemented by the new government body known as VicGrid. The main purpose of the bill is to establish a new electricity transmission planning objective and supporting framework, the VTIF, for planning of major electricity infrastructure in Victoria by the CEO of VicGrid to support Victoria’s energy transition. It will establish interim measures to enable VicGrid to support the delivery of high-priority electricity transmission projects. It will provide for cost recovery of VicGrid activities and electricity transmission infrastructure planning and project development. It will provide for reforms to be integrated into the existing national electricity transmission planning framework. It will also delay the review of the operation of division 7 of part 3 of the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 by one year, to 31 December 2026. Finally, it will provide for payments to landholders who host major electricity transmission infrastructure easements.

The current arrangements in the expansion of transmission lines occur under the Australian Energy Market Operator, who consult community and engage in environmental assessments too late after the identification of a new transmission line. Under the new Victorian transmission investment framework, the VTIF, engagement with local communities and traditional owners will occur not just at the beginning of the process but through ongoing consultation as well. Local communities and traditional owners, as I have said, are really important stakeholders in this process and should not be forgotten about when selecting and planning the work corridors for those transmission projects. This will also feed into the overall plan, the Victorian transmission plan, which will provide long-term certainty for investors and communities involved in transmission line infrastructure.

The bill will also allow VicGrid to develop renewable energy zones and continue working with energy market bodies on three major transmission projects: Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector, Marinus Link and Western Renewables Link too. VicGrid will be empowered to assist and cooperate with the Australian Energy Market Operator as it performs its functions. It will allow VicGrid to conduct early works and environmental surveys and facilitate investment in Victorian transmission projects.

The bill allows VicGrid to plan projects based on a long-term outlook, outlining the specific Victorian needs relating to our renewable energy targets. The first Victorian transmission plan will be published in 2025 after a period of consultation with communities, traditional owners and stakeholders and will be updated every four years in line with the various and inevitable changes to technology, demand and how land is utilised.

This legislation is an incredibly important piece of legislation. It connects with the full suite of other pieces of energy legislation as we move into the future under this Allan Labor government with cleaner, cheaper and renewable energy sources. I commend the bill to the house.

Tim READ (Brunswick) (12:39): I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. I have heard many of the other contributions, so I will not go into much detail on what the bill does other than to say that it gives VicGrid a transmission planning role for renewable energy zones; it sets out a process for ministerial declaration of the zones, including transmission hosting capacity; and it requires VicGrid to publish and regularly update a Victorian transmission plan for the zones.

As most members agree, the lack of adequate high-voltage transmission lines in Victoria puts much of Victoria out of reach of utility-scale renewable energy projects, and this is one of the important factors delaying Victoria’s transition from coal to renewable energy. It is important that we be up-front and accept that transmission lines are not pretty, and there is no point pretending otherwise. As the Leader of the Nationals said yesterday in the debate on the Energy and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Enabling Offshore Wind Energy) Bill 2024, they will destroy someone’s view. But they are necessary if we are to retire coal and still expect to draw power from the grid.

The World Meteorological Organization announced this week that last year, 2023, broke every single climate indicator, with their secretary-general Professor Celeste Saulo saying:

Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires and intense tropical cyclones wreaked havoc on every continent and caused huge socio-economic losses.

I do not need to remind members that that even included Victoria. We have already done so much damage to the climate by burning coal, petrol, diesel and gas, and there is plenty more to come before we retire these fossil fuels for good. Last year’s global temperature was 1.48 degrees above the pre-industrial average. Droughts, fires and floods will destroy the view and much more besides, so Victoria needs more high-voltage powerlines, despite their aesthetic drawbacks. That does not mean powerlines can go just anywhere, particularly if that means clearing forest or important habitat, for example. I made further comments about the balance between renewable energy infrastructure and nature in yesterday’s debate on the enabling offshore wind energy bill, so I will not repeat them here.

Properly conducted consultation with affected communities is important, however, when imposing infrastructure like high-voltage transmission lines needs to be built. It has not been done well in the past. The bill requires that consultation is done, and that should mean that it is done better in the future. A requirement to pay compensation to affected landholders at a rate, as I understand it, of $8000 per kilometre per year for 25 years should also make it easier for landholders to live with these powerlines. We should also look at how communities are compensated.

However, I am keen to see more grid-scale solar and wind projects under construction in Victoria. I am worried about the decline in new projects, and I suspect it will take much more than this week’s renewable energy bills to turn this around. The SEC does seem to be underfunded to tackle the task of building renewables on the scale we need to retire coal and charge electric vehicles, and I urge the government to increase its funding so that it can build more projects and transmission lines and speed up the retirement of brown coal, because many Victorians are deeply worried that both state and federal Labor governments are not moving fast enough on global heating. They have been marching in the streets over this, urging their governments to lift their ambition to aim to get off fossil fuels faster than the somewhat leisurely timetable that we have set.

On that note I would like to mention Brad Homewood and Violet Coco, whose jail sentences were increased from three weeks to two months the other day, despite the fact that their motives in their protest were entirely selfless, and there will be many more Brads and Violets arrested before long. In fact 27 Victorians were charged on Saturday for their participation in an Extinction Rebellion protest, and there will be many more to come. The best way Parliament can show them that we are lifting our ambition is to speed up our targets and to get rid of the barriers to connecting renewable energy so that we can retire coal and other fossil fuels faster than we already have. The Greens support this bill and encourage the government to lift its ambition so we can see more renewable energy connected to the grid sooner.

Ros SPENCE (Kalkallo – Minister for Agriculture, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Carers and Volunteers) (12:45): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.