Wednesday, 18 February 2026

 Emma KEALY (Lowan) (19:04): (1531) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Energy and Resources, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately halt the VNI West transmission project, to undertake a full review of Victoria’s transmission plan to ensure it is reflective of modern and emerging energy technologies and to assess the value proposition and business case to understand the true cost of this project. It is well and truly clear, if you spend any time along the VNI West line, that this project has been horrendously managed. The people in those communities and the landholders have not been treated with any respect at all. This is a project that is going on to land which has certain agricultural practices that simply cannot operate under transmission lines, and yet there has been no information provided by VicGrid or the Victorian government or any insight into what the impacts are on communities. Communities are divided and farmers are angry, and they want to be heard. It is also impacting on really important environmental assets through that region. This is because it does not go through an existing easement, it is bulldozing its way through the west of Victoria. Local people have not been able to have their say. In fact Labor have taken away their say by legislating that if they say you cannot enter property, there will end up being a massive fine for farmers. That simply is not fair.

We also know this is a massively expensive project. It has gone from about $7 billion now up to $11 billion. It is expected to end up at about $20 billion, and this is before anybody has even signed up to this project. This will end up as a massive cost for everyday Victorians, because every single dollar ends up on an energy bill at the end of the day. It is not the government that pays; it is people who are struggling to keep on top of their everyday bills that will pay the price. And of course we know that there are existing grid issues that urgently need maintenance. The lines in the west of the state are aged and brittle and send energy in the wrong direction. This government should focus on upgrading those existing lines – use the existing easements as a first priority – to keep the cost down. But most important, this process of upgrading existing lines would unlock more renewables than VNI West. I urge the government to immediately halt VNI West, to listen to the communities and the people of western Victoria and to ensure that they upgrade the existing lines and deliver real value for everyday Victorians.