Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (14:18): I am pleased to inform the house about how the SEC is creating thousands of jobs, backing Victorian workers and delivering energy bill relief. We know that our renewable energy vision is creating 67,000 jobs right here in Victoria by 2040. That is an increase of over 40 per cent on today. The SEC, which we will never cut, created 1200 jobs, including 70 apprentices, on the first project alone. The Victorian energy upgrades, which we will never cut, creates 2700 jobs for installers. We are backing workers and creating jobs for Victorians, building our state’s renewable energy future and delivering real cost-of-living relief to Victorians.

We have come a long way since between 2010 and 2014, when renewable energy jobs fell by 25 per cent, $4 billion of investment in renewables left Victoria for other states and retail power prices rose by a staggering 34.1 per cent. Those who have their energy policies co-written by One Nation will take us back to those dark days of job cuts and spiralling energy bills.

According to the Clean Energy Council, the new SEC is helping to build our state’s renewable energy future. We all know that to drive down energy bills you build more renewables, you build more transmission and you hold the privatised energy companies to account with tough consumer protections. Just today, the Clean Energy Council released their quarterly investment report. The report tells us that Victoria leads every other state in financial investment – in investment dollars – in renewable projects. With every investment dollar that is delivered, that is more jobs, that is more wages and that is lower energy bills for Victorians. No wonder Victoria continues to lead in having consistently the lowest wholesale prices in the country.