Tuesday, 3 March 2026

 Matthew GUY (Bulleen) (17:08): Strap yourselves in again; there is another energy discussion. It is a good one. You will be very entertained, and you will get a great lesson on gas policy for the ages. Gas policy, not the gas emitted from some of you when I am speaking. Come on, be fair, be reasonable. I do enjoy making some energy contributions. I have got a vast interest in energy policy and the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. I know the Shadow Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction David Davis has some amendments prepared. I will refer to them, but I will not move them. I will just tell the house about them in advance, clerks, but I will leave them for the shadow minister to move in the Legislative Council. I will refer to them and make some points, because there is a bit to go to. I will try and be succinct, or as succinct as you can be on gas policy – about 20 minutes. It will be riveting, and I am sure you will be most entertained.

A member interjected.

Matthew GUY: That is okay. You can look at your iPhone. You can do whatever you like, I am sure. I am sure you will be most entertained – all of you, everyone. Victoria has a great history of natural gas, both exploration and use, and post-war natural gas has driven our economy. It is no fluke what happened to our economy after World War II, particularly through the Latrobe Valley, where coal exploration obviously ramped up inexorably for use in our power stations. What was then Yallourn A closed, and Yallourn B, C and D came online through the 1970s, then Yallourn W as well, and Hazelwood in the 1960s, and the others started to close.

But it is not about coal; this is about gas, and of course Gippsland. When my mum’s family came to Australia they became Gippslanders, and my dad was a radio announcer at 3UL, which is now 3GG. They met down there, so we have got a family association with Gippsland. I enjoy going to Gippsland. I love Gippsland. It is primarily the member for Morwell’s electorate. That is where we are from; it is a great spot.

Further out in the member for Gippsland South’s electorate you get some of the onshore facilities which support our Bass Strait gas fields, which have been such rich contributors to Victoria’s economic success since World War II. It has to be remembered that our economic success since World War II was built off three things. It was built off the accessibility to new labour, which many of us in this state through European migration were part of. But not just Europe – people from many parts of the world came to work either in factories or in the industry which built the future in particularly Melbourne’s northern but also western suburbs and which was powered then off cheap electricity from the Latrobe Valley coalfields, and of course there were other industries which could support their development through natural gas. Natural gas has itself in many ways been the story of modern Victoria – through ingenuity, through risk, through prosperity and, yes, through debate, and increasingly through modern debate, which I will come to at the end of my presentation.

Melbourne has a longer history with gas than just those points. In fact Melbourne manufactured what was then called town gas way back in the 19th century –

A member: It was a hybrid of oil.

Matthew GUY: It certainly was. Town gas was produced from coal, and it supplied Melbourne with gas –

Richard Riordan interjected.

Matthew GUY: Colac was the last to have it, as the member for Polwarth laments. It was produced from coal supplied to Melbourne for lighting and heating. Melbourne was the first major city in the British Empire, but certainly obviously in Australia, that started to use gas on a larger scale. It was produced locally by municipal gasworks such as the Melbourne gas company and it is why you look around the city, in the northern suburbs in particular, and you come across places which are the gasworks. They are not named for gas storages as such but production in the past, and that is what they were there for. Many jobs and many families came about and developed and were employed through those gasworks which powered the earlier parts of the development of Melbourne, which at that time became Marvellous Melbourne for its development through industrialisation from the gold rush money, which then became civic buildings, such as where we are today et cetera. And then Melbourne of course became the second city in what was then the Empire – London, Melbourne, and for a third part, Montreal.

In the 19th century it was a big deal, and it was something that our city was certainly well used to, and it was certainly something that had powered our city up until the pre–World War II era, in the inner parts of it. Back in those periods – if I can segue into my other portfolio area of transport – gas was used in many ways through our cable trams, through the lighting. Melbourne had one of the largest cable tram networks in the world – it is easy to forget that. I mean, you look at San Francisco and people love the cable cars up there, but we had one of the largest cable tram networks in the world, and some of the cable car networks in Melbourne, or some of the facilities on them, were gas powered in the same way that town gas was powered. In fact if you walk up near the exhibition gardens – and I cannot think of it, it will come to me – off Nicholson Street, you will see one of the old power stations, which was actually used to power the Melbourne cable car network, which still exists today. I am not sure if the chimneys are in all of them, but they had boilers and they powered it, and they were part of the earlier part of Melbourne’s development.

Okay, enough of that. In the 1960s we started to look further afield, and the Menzies government had encouraged – and the Bolte government did too – the exploration of gas with Esso and BHP through Bass Strait. There is no doubt that that, through the Longford gas plant that was then established, had a profound effect on what was then the beginning of large-scale natural gas supply to Victoria. Once the first major find, the Barracouta gas field, was found in 1965, it did confirm that Victoria did possess vast offshore reserves, and soon after in the Marlin field, oil was also discovered, I note.

Certainly the Barracouta gas field in 1965 was world-class at the time and was exceptional in its size and indeed in its vastness. It was considered that there were many, many decades worth of supply that could be used for domestic supply. Ultimately, what happened from then on, from 1969, was that we as a city, as a community, particularly in metropolitan Melbourne, started laying a very large natural gas network into the metropolitan area through what were then growth areas, which were obviously different to some of the more established areas of Melbourne, because it was obviously more difficult to retrofit. You started to see a lot of gas cookers and gas supplies coming into the great boom of 1960s and 70s homes in Melbourne, and it became a natural part of life, from the ads I recall from the 1980s. And it was, particularly here in Melbourne. Then of course in the 1980s, at the end of the Hamer and Thomson governments, but also through the Cain Labor government, that natural gas supply was expanded into some of the bigger regional centres in Victoria. Within a few years, it is fair to say, within a decade or so, Victoria had completely reinvented its energy system.

We went from a system where people had, as one of my grandmothers did right up until almost her death, a wood-fired cooker where she would chop wood every morning and put it in.

A member interjected.

Matthew GUY: Well, it is the European spirit. She had that, and she would not give it up. We reinvented ourselves from effectively a city and a state of those to natural gas, particularly in the growth areas. Of course natural gas was much, much cleaner. In those days – and I use my grandmother as an example – they would use briquettes, and the cleanliness of briquettes compared to natural gas I will refer to later on. But it was much cleaner, it was much more efficient and, more than anything else, it was much cheaper. As I said, it led to the great economic development of Victoria through the 1950s onto the 70s.

The state undertook one of the most ambitious energy transitions in history. We converted homes and we converted businesses and industries from either wood or coal, or town gas as it was, to natural gas. Appliances were modified, they were replaced, entire networks were upgraded and, as I said, we reinvented our energy system for the better, for the cheaper, for the more accessible, and indeed for what would be great economic prosperity. It is very different to the current government’s attitude of phasing all that out, which is going to be for the more expensive, for the more complex, and is going to hinder development economically in Victoria. The natural gas expansions in Victoria, which were in my view – and I have said this many, many times at a number of elections now – a centrepiece of our economic development in the 1970s and 80s, were, frankly, to use a term of the day, misspoken about four years ago by the current government who said, ‘No, no, no. The chief scientist said there are no new gas fields’, when in fact that is not what they had said. There are in fact gas fields which we should be looking at, and there are gas opportunities for this state that we should be engaging in, that we should be utilising and that we should be again looking at for domestic supply rather than seeking to phase out natural gas with no real replacement in terms of energy supply replacement, or indeed without any studies which say what the then peaking situations might be on the Victorian energy system if you phase out all gas, particularly from homes or indeed your power generation facilities.

While we are at that point, let me just refer to the seven active facilities in Victoria at the moment that are natural gas, and most of them are in fact peaking facilities: Bairnsdale, which has two turbines and is a 92-megawatt facility; Jeeralang, which is a 432-megawatt facility with seven turbines; Laverton North, a 320-megawatt facility with two turbines; Longford, the one which had the accident in 1999, for those who can remember taking cold showers, that is of course coming off Bass Strait for the gas fields, about 32 megawatts and six turbines; and Mortlake, which is a peaking facility, quite large, 550 ‍megawatts. Mortlake, while it is not in her electorate, is close enough for the member for South-West Coast to drive past it a lot and has two turbines and is quite substantial in size, as I said, at 550 ‍megawatts. It is quite substantial. I will come to why they are important. Somerton has 160 ‍megawatts at four turbines; Valley Power has 12 turbines, 300 megawatts. Then there is the thermal gas facility at Newport, similar to Mortlake, with 500 megawatts.

The importance of a natural gas peaking facility cannot be underestimated. You cannot replace this with wind, with solar or even with coal. You cannot fire up a coal turbine as quickly – anywhere near it – as you can a gas peaking plant, which is why we use gas for peaking power. So the concept of, as the government is saying, domestically phasing it out by 2027 and then saying ‘We still want to get out of natural gas even for peaking power into the future’ is very short-sighted and in my view is very poor policy. It is poor policy because how on earth do you replace it? You must have a sensible and a realistic replacement. We have got gas water systems, gas stoves, ducted gas heaters, gas cooktops, gas air conditioners, gas pool heating and gas barbecues. I mean, what are we going to replace all of these things with in a very short period of time in an economically sustainable way if you phase all of that out? There really is not a sensible replacement. So the concept of acceding to minor parties on the left, whether it is the Greens or the socialist party and others who really want to demonise the concept of using gas with a replacement of nothing – and it is a replacement of nothing – is in my view exceptionally silly, considering we do have gas reserves and how important gas has been for our economic development.

Gas uses 486 CO₂ energy particles per kilowatt hour, if I get that right, versus 1001 for brown coal, so it is roughly half, or less than half, the CO₂ emission of a brown coal plant. It has half the CO₂ emissions. If you looked at retrofitting any of our major power stations to a gas unit – it might be what you consider a one step back for two steps forward or two steps back for one step forward, or whatever you want to look at in terms of managing our brown coal facilities – that then could transition you into the future but in a sensible way without compromising industry and without compromising household price, by putting downward pressure on household prices if you have actually got more supply.

As the coalition has said for a number of elections, if we have got the extra supply, looking at what Western Australia does – instituted, I might add, by Labor governments – which is by putting in domestic reserves and a cap on a reserve price, that then puts downward prices on people’s bills at home and actually allows people to use gas in the confidence and knowledge that they are not going to have this exponential price growth because it is linked to overseas price and export controls. The Western Australian government do not allow that to happen. They do not allow that under either a Labor government or a coalition government. If we had greater supply, and we do have great supply for potential domestic use in Victoria, with the concept of putting in domestic reserves in Victoria on that supply for household use, for instance, or industry use – quarantine one for the other, maybe at a different price – then the concept of using gas in a more efficient and cheaper way for households becomes real.

That is why on our side of the chamber we shudder at the concept of just saying, ‘We’re going to shut this off overnight.’ It was meant to be 2024 or something. It went to 2026, and now it is going to be 2027 or something a bit longer on, which is mad. I mean, it is mad. You do not replace something with nothing. You do not say, ‘I’ve got a Tarago which fits five or six of my family, but I’m going to move into a Mini Minor because it’s only got three seats.’ Well, none of this makes any sense, but that is what we are dealing with. That is the silliness of the government’s current attitudes toward gas, which have been, as I said, heavily influenced by left-wing parties.

I did say the shadow minister David Davis wanted to move some amendments, and he does. He does have some issues with the bill. He is looking at amendments. I will not move them. I will tell the clerks. I will let him do so. But the bill does require the minister to undertake a specified process of engagement and consultation before making orders. It could include a requirement to consult and engage with the Australian Energy Market Operator. This would add a requirement to consult with consumers impacted by industry segments. We are also proposing to require the publication of more detailed reasons for these orders, and we are looking at some amendments which will allow that to happen, which will allow shadow minister Davis to move that in the Legislative Council.

They are sensible amendments, and they are simply saying that if we are going to require the industry to upgrade these facilities at its own cost and tap into pipelines which are being put in place and if we are going to require industry to spend its private capital, then we had better have proper reasons for it and they should be well publicised. I do not think that is unreasonable. I do not think anyone spending tens and tens of millions of dollars would think that is unreasonable. I think most people would say, ‘Well, that is fair and reasonable.’ If the government want you to do it, they should at least have the rationale to go out and say, ‘Well, this is what we want you to spend the money for.’

I will put this on the record about the concept of the phasing out of natural gas and the people who are most aggrieved by this. I have heard in previous debates in this chamber today many members, particularly government members, talk about multicultural communities. My electorate in Bulleen is heavily multicultural, particularly with an East Asian background. I asked my colleague who is of a Vietnamese background, born in Vietnam, Trung Luu, who says they cannot fathom the concept of cooking East Asian food without natural gas. It is how you heat the wok to the temperature you want. I asked a number of my neighbours, one who runs a restaurant, and they all confirmed exactly the same thing. The concept of running an electrified wok the way they cook will not work. They do not think it is going to work, and they find it completely ridiculous.

I might add that some of my mates in the Indian community tell me exactly the same thing. If you look at some of the large pots when you go to Indian temples, you will see at the back of a gurdwara, a Sikh temple, or a mandir, a Hindu temple, the very large pots in which dhal and other dishes are being cooked. You will see they are large natural gas fired facilities. The government is planning to phase all that out. I have no concept of whether or not anyone from the bureaucracy, the ministerial offices or even the ministers themselves have been into a gurdwara, a Sikh temple. I will take one as an example. If you go to Craigieburn gurdwara, the kitchen is very large. I have paid for a langar up there a couple of times. It is a wonderful place, and they do a great job, a fabulous job, for the community. I do not know how on earth you would replace their kitchen with electricity. I mean, it just does not work, number one, culturally, but secondly, to provide the radiant heat that they need on those woks. It is not going to work. This is what the government say they want to do, and we find it quite strange.

I sometimes wonder what goes through people’s minds – like, who would eat blood sausage, who would vote for the Greens or what politicians would want to ban natural gas. It is cheap, it is reliable and we have lots of it, and Labor wants to replace it. It is like saying we want to replace it with sunshine. We do not have much sunshine for solar, but we have a lot of natural gas. I wonder if the government were consulting with the Legalise Cannabis Party when they decided they wanted to replace natural gas, which we have a lot of, with solar when we do not have much sunshine, and we are renowned for that. I will let the government explain.

I come from a family of tradies – I am the only one on my dad’s side who has been to uni – and again, they cannot understand the concept of saying, ‘Well, we have an issue here, but the way we are going to deal with it is to criminalise the work of tradies.’ Tradesmen who go to actually replace a gas cooker face fines and the loss of their licence. It is not a policy; it deliberately targets people who are making a living. You can put in place regulations, you can say it is not advisable or you can say we are not doing this anymore, but why would you criminalise the work of tradesmen, the blue-collar workers that you claim to be your party’s original base? It makes no sense. Again, this is not for me to explain, because I do not agree with doing that.

Our side have been fairly succinct and to the point in saying that we believe that natural gas has a future in this state. I would think that after 21 minutes or 21½ minutes I have said to the chamber that we have in this state a long history of the development and use of natural gas. It has been immensely good for our state’s economy. It has been one of the three key components of the post-war growth of the state of Victoria. It is why the state of Victoria developed so quickly, as opposed to even New South Wales, with an industrial base, because we had the access to new labour, primarily from Europe post war, we had the access to cheap electricity, primarily out of the Latrobe Valley, and we had the access for factories to avail themselves of natural gas in cheap and abundant supplies, which powered our economy forward.

The only message of confidence, building on from those 50, 60, 70 years since from the current state government, is to say, ‘All of those economic advantages’ – well, two of those key economic advantages – ‘we are seeking to shut down with no clear replacement. We are seeking to shut all that down and are not going to tell you what on earth we’re going to do to replace it or what comes next.’ What kind of government would then have no plan at the end of cheap power and at the end of cheap and reliable and abundant gas? To make us a net importer of electricity on certain occasions, which we never were for 70 or 80 years, and to make us, potentially, an importer of gas in a number of years because we have banned any exploration, which has never been the case since the 1960s – and that is called progressive politics. Well, it might be progressive, but it is going to progressively ruin our economy, and that is going to be the legacy of this government, sadly. I conclude my remarks and again thank the chamber for its indulgence. This bill, I might add, we are not opposing, and we will make some amendments in the upper house.

 Josh BULL (Sunbury) (17:31): I am pleased to be able to get up and follow on from that contribution. Certainly the first 10 minutes of the member for Bulleen’s contribution were actually quite an informative and measured history lesson about energy in this state. I think for the majority of us over this side of the house it was quite enjoyable. There were a few points made towards the back end of the contribution which were a little bit questionable, but I will go to those in terms of a policy sense as we move on through the next 9 minutes. I just wanted to make the observation of what the previous member spoke about in terms of transition. I think some of that history that the member spoke about is really important to our state – to a state that is of course experiencing growing population and a change in energy usage and energy needs.

As I spoke about last sitting week, the notion that as we move on and deal with the elements of climate change and as more severe weather events do occur, making sure we have a more resilient, robust and stronger network is something that is very important. It goes to what I think has been a comprehensive ‍– I will use the word ‘robust’ again – framework that has been really well shaped, led and driven by the Minister for Energy and Resources. Certainly through her work for a considerable period now, through both budget initiatives and all of the day-to-day work that has been done, we have seen in this state a significant transformation in energy and a significant transformation in the way that energy is supplied to local communities, to commercial operations and to industry. That is the result not of chance but of deliberate policy settings that have set us up for the future. Compare and contrast that to what we had for a decade from the federal coalition, where 24 of 28 coal-fired power stations over a decade closed, and there was a lack of drive, a lack of initiative and a lack of awareness of the impacts of climate change from the federal government. That has now changed, but we have got an opportunity both through the work that has been done at the state level and through the national partnership in national cabinet to be able to provide that certainty and that mix and that change in energy needs.

I spoke about population growth, more severe weather events and making a more robust, more resilient system. What we have remained focused on is ensuring that those developments continue to operate. This bill goes to providing for that certainty of supply and giving the minister those beefed-up powers to be able to pull the lever when needed for certainty. I certainly did not disagree with the member for Bulleen on a number of his comments around certainty and surety of the market, and that is exactly why this government has focused for a very long time on providing that certainty. Increasing supply and the driving down of prices are things that are very, very important. Many members of this chamber, on a number of opportunities when it comes to energy legislation, have spoken about the impact of solar, wind and battery. Having had the opportunity, as I know a number of members have, to meet with local communities about the importance of solar to their household, and battery storage, goes to that importance of security and certainty. There is a strong and consistent framework that has been enabled to be delivered by the minister and the government.

The most important aspect of the powers that are in the bill before us this evening is the preference for the measures to be able to be used as a last resort for those beefed-up powers, which I mentioned earlier, to introduce the opportunity to shore up supply and ensure that our Victorian declared transmission system has the transportation flexibility and capacity to meet demand. But before making an order, the minister will have to consult with the Premier, the Treasurer, AEMO and the DTS owner. In this way the orders are based on carefully considered advice to ensure that changes are made only when they are needed and that projects will be considered on efficiency, cost and value for Victorians. Effectively these changes go to those additional powers and make for certainty and surety as we move forward. From a management-of-the-grid perspective, having the opportunity to have additional supply and more control, more options, is something that the government supports, and it is for those reasons that I support this bill.

Making the opportunity for our state, and all states and territories across Australia, to be able to deal with challenges around supply, getting energy to and from places when and where you need it in peak demand and making sure that we are building a robust, resilient network that enables that energy to be used through those really severe weather events that I spoke about earlier – bushfires, floods, high wind events – makes for safer and better communities. You have only got to speak to some of the members in this house that deal with some of those severe weather events – certainly the member for Monbulk, who sits just behind me, speaks often about the impacts to her community when such instances occur – and the impacts on communities are of course devastating. It does not matter where you are, if you have a severe weather event or you have your energy needs taken away, the impacts are detrimental to what occurs for you and your local community. What this bill before us, the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025, looks to do is to provide for that certainty and that increased resilience.

I do think it is really important when it comes to these matters, though, to be able to deal with the practicality and the reality of the network, making the observation that the national grid is something that is indeed really, really important. I think some of the reflections – and I do not think these reflections were coming from the previous speaker, but they might come from other sides within the chamber – were making for a world where these practicalities are not considered, where we can just turn a switch on and turn a switch off and suddenly we have all the power and all the energy and no emissions, which is not the reality of the system that is before us. If you speak to environmental engineers, if you speak to those that work in science and those that work in energy, considering the government is delivering in bringing back the SEC and the delivery of the big battery, which is not too far from my electorate – about 20 minutes probably from my place – we are making those provisions and will deal with the practical realities of what is before us. We reserve the right to continue to work with those within the community that support the work that is being done.

I do want to take the opportunity to thank and acknowledge all of those people who work within our energy sector. Making a safer, more robust, more resilient system should of course be the aim of the government. What we remain committed to is delivering all of those targets that we set out in VRET and all of those targets that have been canvassed for the energy upgrades program and working with local communities as they do their very best to support their energy needs. Cost is something that we are acutely aware of, and in cost-of-living considerations we need to make sure we get that balance right. This bill and the provisions within this bill go to providing for that certainty and that increased resilience of the network. What is really important is that we continue to drive forward and continue to innovate and invest, both through the budget and through the programs and initiatives that have been really well delivered by the department and driven by the minister and the Premier. These are important considerations. Just in the last 5 seconds I have, I very happily would like to commend the bill to the house.

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (17:41): I am very happy to rise and speak about gas in Victoria through the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. I actually did not hear what the member for Sunbury was referring to, but when he said something was 20 minutes from where he lives it piqued my interest because 20 minutes from where I live is where all our gas comes from in Victoria, effectively, although not as much these days. Historically the Bass Strait oil and gas industry has been massive for my part of the world, particularly for Sale, with 95 per cent of Victoria’s gas coming from the Longford gas plant, obviously through Bass Strait. That has declined, and it has started to decline more seriously. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years the oil has stopped. About 2½ years ago, I think it was, the last oil was taken out of Bass Strait and sent to Long Island Point. We still have a significant amount of gas.

I always find gas an interesting topic of conversation in terms of supply reserves and what is left in Bass Strait, because it is very clear that it is winding down. The proponents – historically we just referred to Esso in my neck of the woods, but that consortium has now changed hands to Woodside. Woodside is taking on the actual production of the Bass Strait gas fields. But when I say Esso, and now meaning Woodside as well, it is always hard to know exactly what they know about what gas is left there. I am always bemused by the workers. Of course there are many that I interact with in the Sale area, whether it is through footy clubs or other groups and organisations. Many people will tell you there is heaps of gas in Bass Strait still, and I think that is actually true. The problem of course is that it is deeper, dirtier and more expensive to get out and in many cases completely uneconomic.

That has been the success story of the Bass Strait oil and gas industry. The gas in Bass Strait that has been processed for over 50 years now through the Longford plant is what they call ‘sweet gas’. It is one of the best gas reserves in the world because it has been so clean – I will not say pure methane but certainly very high levels of methane. The latter fields that have more recently been developed, like the Kipper Tuna Turrum fields, had a lot more impurities in them and made it more expensive. There is quite a bit of mercury that needs to be taken out of the Kipper Tuna Turrum gas, CO₂ and other bits and pieces that make it more expensive. But for literally 45 or 50 years there has been this pure natural gas methane coming through that was relatively shallow, relatively easy to get at, and it has been an absolute driving force for the economy of Victoria, not just in terms of household use, which has become extensive – Victoria is by far and away the biggest percentage user in terms of the percentage of the population using natural gas in the country – but also for industry and in the last couple of decades more and more for electricity generation.

Certainly all of that is one of the reasons I am still a very big supporter of gas. I think the notion that we get out of gas any time soon simply for environmental purposes is ridiculous. We will need this as a transition fuel for a number of decades to come, because we simply cannot rely on wind and solar. Until we get better technology in terms of electricity production that is going to be affordable and reliable, we are going to need to rely on gas. I might add that I think we will need to continue with coal-fired power stations for a period longer. I know the Labor government do not like to talk about that, but they are also in agreement with that because they have done deals with EnergyAustralia at Yallourn and with Loy Yang A in terms of keeping those plants open to ensure that we keep the lights on. I think that is going to be important.

Gas is actually an important part of our economy, and we on this side certainly support it continuing to be. We have the member for South-West Coast in the chamber at the moment. Whilst the Gippsland Bass Strait fields are reducing, in the Otways and the south-west there are great opportunities and more gas is being produced there, and I think we will need more. The evidence from Geoscience Australia indicates there is probably a good 25-year supply still in Victoria, offshore and onshore through conventional means. I emphasise through conventional means. We will need that because we need it for industry, we need it for power generation and more particularly we need it for our households and our industrial sector. I certainly support the gas industry and will continue to do so. It is something that is going to take a while to draw down in Gippsland.

As I said, the oil in Bass Strait has stopped. It has effectively dried up, and the companies are now putting very heavily into the decommissioning phase. I know the other place has got an inquiry into the decommissioning process, a process which I might say politically there has been some frankly deceitful and very bad discussion about. We saw a press release a year or two ago from Friends of the Earth saying that Esso wanted to dump radioactive material on pristine beaches of a Ramsar-listed wetland. That was literally what was in their media release. If you did not know anything, you might be alarmed about that. The radioactive material is, as I understand, about as radioactive as a banana. Yes, there is radioactivity in some of that material from offshore. To suggest that it is being dumped on a Ramsar-listed beach in this pristine wetland – it is being taken to Barry Beach, which has been an industrial port for 50 years. Yet we have those green organisations out there saying this rubbish about how it is being dumped on a beach, and scaring people, frankly.

Anyone who understands the industry knows that Barry Beach is where the oil rigs started; that is where they went from and that is where they were assembled. It is simply being taken back there over the next couple of years, and that will be a very big job. It will bring a lot of jobs to the Barry Beach area again in South Gippsland, in my neck of the woods. Yes, there will be some environmental concerns, and Esso and Woodside will absolutely have to deal with those and make sure that there is no contamination and no run-off of any of the hydrocarbons that may well be coming in with these. I was talking to one of the managers at Esso the other day, who showed me pictures of the ship that is coming in. I believe it is the largest ship in the world. It will come in and they will literally cut off the platforms undersea, lift them up onto this ship – it has two large arms that come out – and then transport them into Barry Beach. It is just an unbelievable undertaking. If you consider the size of some of these platforms, they are massive. It is thousands of tonnes lift that this ship can do. It is a big undertaking and it is going to cost a lot of money. That is up to the companies to do. But for some of these NGOs to suggest that there are massive environmental issues with it is just wrong, and they need to be held to account for it. There will be environmental matters that need to be managed. I am sure that both state and federal agencies will be ensuring that they are.

This legislation is more about pipelines, and certainly from our perspective we believe there needs to be more gas. As I said, the Nationals and Liberals are not on an ideological crusade, as the current minister in this place has been for some time. We know that Victorians want the flexibility to choose whether they use natural gas or electricity or other means of production, and we certainly support gas. As I said, it is very clear to me that we will need gas for some time, for some decades, as a transition fuel and also as a feedstock. That is often forgotten by those who campaign against fossil fuels, that it is actually important as a feedstock for things like fertiliser, for chemicals and for various other products that we rely on every day in our society.

We have got some suggestions for amendments to this legislation but are certainly not opposing it. I will stand here and continue to be a supporter of our gas industry here in Victoria, particularly for the jobs and economic development that it provides to my electorate.

 Bronwyn HALFPENNY (Thomastown) (17:51): I also rise to speak in support of this amendment to the National Gas (Victoria) Act 2008, which basically is about empowering the Minister for Energy and Resources with directive powers in urgent situations when gas is required or the shoring up and the continuity and guarantee of gas is required. This legislation has been prompted by privatisation, because we cannot really rely on or expect or enforce or think that private companies will actually act in the national interest rather than the profit motive. It has been widely established that there are expected to be gas shortfalls from, I think it is, 2029 along the eastern seaboard. So this legislation really is about acting proactively and making sure that we can take action in the event that there may be gas shortfalls. This of course is not only important for residents or Victorians in their homes that are still cooking with gas – I have still got a hot water service, an old one, that is gas, so of course we need gas for that – but also, and probably extremely importantly, we need to ensure that our economy and industry are protected. They of course are very heavily still relying on gas even though there has been quite a big shift with companies both small and large moving to renewable energies, which is great to see. I think it is pretty well established and employers know and company operators know that we actually do need to move to renewable energy. This is important for the climate and important for future generations.

I just want to have a little bit of a talk about some of the businesses in Thomastown, which is known as an industrial area. In the past, and this sort of continues, there has predominantly been manufacturing industry. There has been metal fabrication, structural steel companies and the food industry. Of course all of these industries use a lot of gas, and it is really difficult for them at the moment because of the price of gas and the fact that so much is being exported overseas. It is really frustrating to see the cost of gas and the cost of business in these areas. But there are a number of them that for the purpose of climate change are doing the right thing as well as looking to save some money. There have been a lot of really innovative projects and ideas, often supported and funded at least in part by the state Allan Labor government in order to move to different ways to source energy.

I will give you a couple of examples. We have got the deep hole drilling service, which does a lot of work in the mining industry, for example. Their home is in Thomastown, and they are actually using energy through the biochar process. I will not go into the big technicalities of it. Not only are they producing biochar that they are then on-selling for, in some cases, the agricultural industry, but they are also using this process as a form of energy to then operate some of their manufacturing processes.

Similarly, there is another company – the name escapes me – actually doing work in heat pumps, not for hot water services but much larger industrial-scale heat pumps, again to sell to businesses that cannot just rely on solar panels but maybe need even greater energy. These heat pumps have really innovative designs. They are really taking off, and they are seen as another way in which we can transition to renewable energy. So it is not just about solar panels; there are a whole lot of other technologies that are being developed or tested and have been shown to work. In fact they are being used in a number of companies in the electorate of Thomastown.

But just getting back to this legislation that we are debating today, I will just go through a couple of things. The legislation is about what is called the Victorian declared transmission system, or DTS. This is a definition for the key infrastructure that is required to move gas around the state or the country. It is a whole lot of infrastructure that, of course, is in private hands. It can be diverted to different places and streamlined into others. The idea of this legislation is that the minister – and there are some checks and balances, so the minister cannot just make the decision all by themselves – if required, and if it looks like there is going to be a shortfall in gas and we want to protect our industry as well as households, can make a directive as to where that flow of gas will go. It means that it is not the private company sending it to the most profitable area; it is actually the minister being able to nominate or provide a directive in order to ensure that that gas supply goes where it is needed for the national interest. This is really important and will not be used lightly. As I said, there are a number of checks and balances in this program.

We will not be working on this alone. Victoria has been a key advocate amongst the states to ensure that the market operator does get greater powers to intervene when there are shortfalls. This is one thing that the state can do, but of course only within the state. Hopefully other states will also come along in order to ensure that businesses across the country and households are protected in the event there are gas shortages. We hope that we will not have to use this and that there will be an even greater move to renewable energy such as electricity. It would be great to see even more development around heat pumps and biochar as other alternatives to energy supplies. But this legislation really is important in terms of protecting all of us when it comes to the future in gas supply as we move to renewable energy.

This is happening not just through government decisions but actually the way the world is going and the way finance is moving. We cannot rely on coal-fired power stations. That is why we are transitioning into electricity. It is recognised that gas will be used as a transitional fuel for some time to come, but if we look around, Hazelwood has closed. We have got Yallourn closing in a few years and even Loy Yang is slated to close. These are not things that governments can make decisions on. Since the privatisation of the electricity industry, these are the decisions of private businesses. And really they are not just private but international, overseas businesses that would not really have any interest in looking after what is best for Victoria or Australia. We really need to start making proactive and important choices about how we are going to deal with the transition, how we are going to make up the shortfall and how we are going to ensure that gas is used in the most effective way to protect us all, if necessary, into the future.

 Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (18:00): I am pleased to rise on the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. It was quite interesting listening to a number, only a couple at the moment, of contributions from the government members, but I have certainly got to wonder where their voices were when their minister was absolutely demonising gas and wanting to pretty well shut down the industry. We have a bill that is before us which is pretty well doing the opposite. We know that gas is an important part of our transition to renewables. The Liberals absolutely know and understand how important gas is and so do the Nationals, and now I see the government are beginning to wake up just a little bit.

First of all, I want to touch on the purposes of the bill that we have. It is interesting because it is about expanding the transmission system capacity and expediting things. From the minister being very keen to close down this important industry, now they are looking at having to make some infrastructure expansions and to put legislation around it because they know what we have is currently inadequate. With regard to that, the bill introduces a new power enabling the minister to make orders to direct the regulated transmission pipeline owners in the private sector to make augmentations to the deemed-to-satisfy framework. This is quite interesting in itself. It is a big change from the existing framework because these things are normally initiated by the pipeline owners through a regulatory process. I will talk a little bit more about this. This includes directing extensions or expansions to and of (1) the declared transmission system, (2) the connection of pipelines or pipeline equipment to the system and (3) the improvements or upgrades to the pipelines, pipe equipment and related facilities.

I want to mention how absolutely important gas is to Victoria. Ninety per cent of homes use gas, whether it is for heating, cooking, cooktops and ovens, the gas bottle in the barbie, the Bunnings sausages that people partake in or the democracy sausage. These all rely on gas. So many people have gas hot water. I live off grid, and I rely incredibly on gas cooktops and gas hot water. Industry relies very heavily on gas in manufacturing processes. I heard the member for Broadmeadows talking about all of the industry in Broadmeadows that relies on gas and how important that is. I wonder whether she stood up to the minister to say we need gas to remain viable at the moment, because I doubt very much that she did. I want to talk about how within the industry there are low-heat and high-heat industries. Low heat is in some of our food production, for example, such as pasteurisation. But with the high heat, there are the processes that we look at with smelting, plastics, the making of cement and the heating of kilns for bricks and ceramics.

It has been really, really sad that one of our major local glass manufacturers Oceania Glass collapsed virtually 12 months ago. On 27 February 2025 this architectural glass manufacturer based in Dandenong had to close its doors. I do not know that we heard anything from the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, the member for Dandenong, at the time about the loss of some 260 jobs that were associated with the closure of Oceania Glass. This closure happened because of the competition from cheap imports from China – there was not enough being done, and that was undermining the local industry significantly – but also the rising manufacturing costs. This was specifically related to the price of gas, and the South East Melbourne Manufacturers Alliance, SEMMA, their CEO Honi Walker came out and talked about the price of gas putting some of these major businesses out of business. Oceania made specialist glass – coated glass, laminated glass and float glass. They had stuff that was even in Parliament House in Canberra, and there would have been many, many organisations that relied on Oceania.

One of the things that is important with the manufacture of glass is the high heat that is required and the continuity of that high heat. It needs to continue so the molten glass does not cool down. It has to be kept molten. If it cools, it can crack and ruin the whole process. I was so disappointed to see that happen. They went from turning quite a healthy profit in the year ending March 2023 to having a substantial loss in the year ending March 2024, and that forced the closure. We understand that gas is such an important part of our manufacturing, and there we have seen an example of where it has caused a lot of problems to our industry. Those jobs were lost.

What I also want to talk about are the methane gas emissions from our waste management and organic waste in landfills. Whether they are closed or not, they continue to produce gas. They continue to produce methane in fact. If the government were smart, they could convert this gas. Some of this methane could be cleaned up – they do not need to clean the methane; they can just clean it up a little bit – and put straight into the pipelines, which we are now expanding through this bill, so that we could have additional gas supply. At the moment a lot of that gets flared off. I have been out and seen where that gets flared off. What that means is they burn the methane and it produces carbon dioxide. It means there are less emissions than with methane, but there are still emissions. I think this is something that government have really failed on and that they could do a lot more in this space. They could convert this methane or put it straight into the pipelines, because too much of it is let go into the atmosphere through our landfills. This is happening with landfills that are currently open and landfills that are closed, because they can continue producing gas for 30 to 40 years, so they are not solving an immediate problem environmentally there.

One of the things that I am concerned about with the bill are the ministerial orders. I mentioned earlier that one of the purposes is about the expansion, but there are ministerial orders that grant the relevant minister the capacity to force private enterprise into investing where the government says to. Now, there may be no business case. We have seen the government launch ahead without business cases in certain areas. There may be no certainty that costs may be recovered. We need these businesses to remain able to continue operating. It is no good if they start to lose money hand over fist and go belly up, because then the government will have to look at how they are going to do this. I think this is a big risk.

Section 58D refers to matters that the minister may have regard to in making an order. I am not sure that ‘may’ is strong enough, because I think that it really should be ‘must have regard to’. There are six or seven different areas outlined on page 7 of the bill that the government needs to be mindful of. I heard the member for Broadmeadows say there are checks and balances. I do know that the minister must consult with the Premier and the Treasurer. I wonder if they are the checks and balances or if that is just the government correcting their own homework. They do have to consult with the Australian Energy Market Operator and the declared transmission service providers, but I think they could do a lot more in consulting rather than having that flexibility that they may think about having regard to the costs to the end users of any of the options, for example. That is something that they should be looking at to make sure that we have a viable sector.

Gas is exceptionally important as we move towards renewables. The Liberals know that we must have gas as part of the mix in the coming years. It is essential to business operating. It is essential to homes operating as they are. We are not opposing this bill, but we certainly will be moving some amendments in the other place.

 Matt FREGON (Ashwood) (18:10): I am delighted to give a small contribution on the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025 and thank colleagues from both sides of the aisle for their contributions. If I refer to the member for Bulleen’s opening contribution, and I agree with my colleague sitting next to me, for the first 10 minutes I do not think we disagreed on anything, and then things started to get a bit different. I think we were living in a sort of bizarro world there for a moment where things are known or unknown. What was the Donald Rumsfeld line about unknowns and things?

Anyway, on gas, I would agree with the previous member’s statement: gas is important. It is a part of our system going forward and will be in the transition as we are moving to renewables, which, and I do not want to verbal the member for Eildon, it sounded like she appreciated – that that was part of where we are going – and that is good to hear. It is important that we upgrade the network and make sure that the providers are doing so, which is in the relevant part of the bill today. It is also important that we transition away from gas where we can if we acknowledge that fossil fuels in general are a part of climate change, which I think most of us in this house would, and that we want to decrease the effect of that, which I think most of us in this house would agree with. I think it is possible to have the two points in mind: that gas is important – we will have gas in the state of Victoria for many uses for a fairly long period of time – and at the same time we want to use less gas. We can hold those two opinions at the same time. I think the minister has stated in transition statements, in the policy areas and in planning decisions that this is exactly what the government is able to do. Sometimes the debate becomes a very binary argument of ‘Oh, well, you said X; therefore you must think Y, Z and alpha and beta and gamma and whatever’. That is not reality. That is a bit of bizarro world.

I note that our gas operators, the market operators, can effectively be instructed to augment their flexibility and capacity, as for this bill, and I think we have got to that point, because I would imagine from decreasing use that we are going to see that there may be, I guess, cost pressures on the providers. I had a meeting with the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group some years ago when they were talking to me about the importance of the business. They were spruiking their business as people who are employed will obviously do, and they made the point, rightly or wrongly or otherwise, that they were concerned that should the residential market move away from gas, which obviously we are putting forward – we have made strong arguments about that; we have got the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) programs, which I will come to again later – it would increase the price for business. I do not know if that is necessarily going to happen or not, but that was their argument. So I asked the question on that: well, does that mean that the residential users of gas are subsidising the business users? Isn’t that the logical placement of that previous statement? And they all said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, that’s not it at all.’ But then we look at a point: if you had two completely separate networks – this is the question I asked at the time – which one would be cheaper to run? I did not quite get an answer to that one, and I think I have a hunch which one that would be.

Notwithstanding all of that, I can tell you even from personal experience that moving away from gas in our household where possible saves people money. I have said in this place before that in my house, Bec and I have started that transition away from gas. First, we replaced our heating, which is the majority of the gas usage in our house, and went from a peak gas bill about three or four years ago of $450 a month, because we have kids who love to crank the heating up. Gas prices were lower than they are now because we are all on a wonderful eastern seaboard market. A gas reserve is a great idea for the federal government, and I will leave that to them. But the eastern seaboard market seems to be doing Japanese gas users better than Australian gas users and maybe they want to look at that. That said, that is the price and that is the system we are dealing with. So if you move away from gas and you go to electricity, from my personal experience and that of others I have talked to, you will save money.

There is obviously a cost of transitioning, so this is something that should happen at end-of-life time. When your appliance gets to the end of its life – again, I sound like a broken record – go and have a look at your options, because heat pumps are going to be cheaper than your old ducted system over time. As I said, if I go back three or four years ago to when I got a bill for 450 bucks a month for gas, which was hot water and cooking and mostly heating, and then I go now to the change in my electricity bill to heat the whole house through the same time of year, I am probably saving 150 to 200 bucks for that month, and I get the added bonus of having air conditioning in the summer that I did not used to have, so I am a convert in this.

We can talk about gas going forward. The member for Bulleen was talking about the history of gas in Victoria. It is a huge part of Victorian history and one that we had a lot of benefits from. We used those benefits, and we all moved that way. But I think it is fair enough to say that time was then, and now we have got to look forward to what we are setting ourselves up for for that next generation and those that follow. I would argue that the work that our Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources and Minister for the State Electricity Commission has done over the last 12 years – and her department and everyone else involved, obviously – is setting us up for a future where we will have lower energy costs.

We will still need gas; 100 per cent, we will still need gas. There will still be people cooking with gas, and there will still be people using it in industry. They will need gas for specific reasons. We will need gas for power. The member for Bulleen talked about the peak requirements of power and, yes, we are going to need gas power stations. So the gas that, as the Leader of the Nationals said, we are slowly running out of – economically viable gas in Bass Strait – we want to use for the best reason in this state. We want to use it where we need to use it. And I would argue, where we do not need to use it and there is a cheaper alternative – if electricity powered by renewables and backed up by gas, for instance, is going to be cheaper – we should do everything we can to assist Victorians in making that change. We not only get a benefit for the Victorian household that does that, but we get a benefit as a state as well because our reserves are slowly dwindling. I mean, there are exploration licences open; I believe a couple were granted in the last year or so, so who knows – they might find more. I do not know. But I do not hear that they are going to find significant levels like those found in Bass Strait. So programs like the VEU program helping people make that change when it is end of life are helping us all.

Coming back to the bill, though, we still need to have a gas network that is flexible, that is reliable and that we can count on. So this bill that gives the minister the powers to ensure that is very timely indeed, and I support it fully.

 Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (18:19): I rise to speak on the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. I find it fascinating: I have been sitting here listening to the debate, and Labor, who have been demonising gas for some time now, are suddenly talking about the importance of gas and the role it will play in the transition towards renewables, which is exactly what we have been saying as Liberals for the last few years at least.

It just makes me not surprised but amazed to hear how the members of the other side are pretending that they have not been demonising gas in the past. The minister was banning gas, and now they are talking about the importance of it as a transition, which is exactly, as I say, what we have been highlighting for some time now. Of course gas is important, because there is not the technology to go to renewables such as wind and solar without gas as part of that transition. It is also very important to recognise the need for consistent, reliable and affordable energy, because we cannot afford to be environmental custodians of the land if we do not have the economic capacity to do so. It is the first lesson in farming: if you do not look after the landscape and the soil and prioritise it, it just does not perform, so you actually have to put that as your number one priority. If we cannot have gas in the mix, we cannot have dairy manufacturing and we cannot get the economic benefit that we get from the south-west, for example, to actually benefit the environment by investing in it.

This bill is at its core basically a bill that hands the minister extraordinary sweeping powers to direct private pipeline operators to undertake capital works on Victoria’s declared gas transmission system. A lot of this is happening because the government have been in for 10 years and they have not done the work in the background to make sure we have got a reliable and affordable energy system, so the minister is having to make some rash changes. This particular bill allows the minister to compel expansions, extensions, upgrades and new connections and has powers that override the longstanding independent regulatory processes that have governed our gas market for many years.

The government claim these powers are necessary to expedite expansion and improve the framework, but really it is because they have not done the work they should have done for the last 10 years. When we examine this bill in detail what we see is not improvement but centralisation. We see a profound shift away from a transparent, consultative and independently assessed model towards one where decisions can be made behind closed doors at the discretion of a single minister. That is not unusual from this government. It is something I have been really concerned about for some time and what our communities are concerned about, because we are seeing this government give extraordinary powers to ministers and take away the ability for community consultation and community having a say.

We see that now in South-West Coast, where we had the government at a federal level come out a couple of years ago now and just make a decision that there will be offshore wind power. That decision was made without any community consultation. There were no environment effects studies undertaken, just an over overarching top-down approach that there will be offshore wind in the South-West Coast region. Whilst we do not have jurisdiction over federal waters where those wind towers will be if the government continue on their plan, I think it is important for us to recognise that the community and industry do deserve to be heard before decisions that affect their livelihoods are made. We believe, as Liberals, in the principle that gives that community the say. That is why we have been clear that Labor’s planning changes, where they have included planning amendment VC261, which centralises or gives the ultimate power to the minister, must be reversed. We as Liberals have actually stood by that by voting against it in the Parliament, and in government that is exactly what we will do as well. We will revoke that and reverse that, and we will stand by that. We have seen too many decisions being made in Spring Street, and that is not how it should be. There must be proper local oversight for decisions being made on projects and full environment effects statements for every project – no shortcuts, no exemptions – and that is not what we are seeing. Whilst this is not actually something that we can stop, like the policy we had as Liberals at the federal level, we can absolutely say that we will not be allowing poor process.

If I come back to the bill itself, what we are seeing is a typical Allan Labor government that sees consultation and scrutiny as impractical. Transparency and scrutiny exist precisely to prevent these poor decisions and to protect the public from unintended consequences. Democracy is messy, there is no doubt about that, but having processes in place and sticking to them and being able to trust those processes is important, because we must ensure corruption does not develop. We all know the Labor government’s record on that front: the $15 billion of taxpayer money that has been stolen from our communities that should have been paying for nurses, police, teachers and fixing our roads. We have the right to know where this $15 billion of taxpayer money has gone in being wasted on Big Build projects. But corruption is not just a law and order issue; it goes to the strength of our economy.

Anthony Carbines: On a point of order, Acting Speaker: relevance.

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): I bring the member back to the bill before the house.

Roma BRITNELL: The bill talks about the minister having sweeping powers and extraordinary powers to direct the private pipeline operators to undertake capital works, going away from the longstanding tradition of the regulatory process that has governed the market for a long time. On that basis, I am talking about the fact that we need to have trust in the process and make sure that corruption cannot occur, because that is what the bill is talking about: changing to giving the minister overarching power and being able to call in. On that basis, I absolutely see an opportunity for corruption to occur if we are not using the Parliament but just giving ministers all the power, which we have seen in other examples, which is what I was referring to with the wind farm.

We also see that in regional towns. Terang residents have been compromised in the past because they have had their autonomy cancelled. In Terang, in my electorate, the announced cancellation of the gas supply left households and small businesses facing enormous disruption and stress. Families who built homes only three years ago are now being told they have to replace appliances and convert from reticulated gas to bottled gas or full electrification at a cost of thousands of dollars, simply to meet basic needs. These are the things that happen when we do not plan in advance, and that is why this bill is concerning, because we have not got the oversight of consultation and communities being listened to. These costs are not abstract; they affect household budgets, business viability and community confidence. The Terang residents, for example, deserve answers. They deserve transparency about why this decision was made and what it means to their future. Instead they are left with uncertainty and a growing sense that regional communities are paying the price for poor planning and mismanagement.

This is a bill that we have consulted widely on with industry, including the APA Group, Lochard Energy and the Clean Energy Council, and the message is consistent: there may well be a need for additional capacity because there has been poor planning by this government for 10 years now, but industry is deeply concerned about the breadth of these ministerial powers. As I pointed out already, there are examples in South-West Coast where these powers for a minister to come in and make a decision without consultation do erode established regulatory processes and erode trust. It does leave opportunity for corruption, and that is what we are seeing with this government – a long history now that is proven, in black and white, in reports that are exposing $15 billion stolen from communities like South-West Coast, whose roads are poor, whose hospital is not getting funded now, as it should, to the scope it was promised, because this government has been corrupt. Covering up that corruption is not going to work, because the people can feel the stolen money that has disappeared out of the system and that is leaving Victorians in a worse off position.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (18:29): I just want to pick up on the matter of how the orders are made, because I did hear some concerns being raised about that. Before making an order, the minister will have to consult with the Premier, the Treasurer and AEMO – noting they are a pretty massive player in the energy market – and the declared transmission system owner. In this way the orders will be based on carefully considered advice to ensure the changes are made only when and where they are needed, when the projects will be at an efficient cost and when they will deliver value for Victorians. If we are talking about democratic processes and transparency, the responsible minister will also have to publish the order and why they made it in the Government Gazette and on the department’s website. So clearly it is not under cover of darkness, it is actually going to be made public, and that is via the Government Gazette and the department’s website. I just wanted to surmount that particular concern that was flagged just a few minutes ago. How the ministerial orders will work in practice – the orders may set out specific improvements on the declared transmission system and timeframes for these to be undertaken by the declared transmission system owner.

I do want to go back to a fundamental premise when it comes to energy in Victoria and our government. We are getting on with the transition to net zero and continuing to shift our energy use away from fossil fuels and onto renewable energy, noting that there are a number of great positives and imperatives when it comes to, one, obviously our planet and making sure that we mitigate the impacts of climate change. But also it is cheaper, and I have already had colleagues in the chamber reflecting on their own energy bills that renewable energy is definitely the way to go from an economic perspective but also from an environmental perspective.

We do note the role that gas is playing in the transition, hence the imperative for this bill and planning ahead, noting – and I will put a further caveat – that the most important aspect of these new powers, that is, with regard to this bill, will be that they act as a measure of last resort. The government would prefer that the market provides a solution to the forecast shortfall. If we are talking about those planning elements that were raised just before, that would be the desirable way that we would like to see energy into the future. However, if the market fails to find a timely solution, the government must be empowered to act in the best interests of Victorians. That is probably a fundamental tenet of the orders and this legislation, because I think there was a bit of a taint on it that was not particularly positive, trying to infer that somehow the government was just capriciously floating along with something as significant and as important as the energy market. We can see that it is exactly the opposite, and I do want to emphasize the fundamental tenet of this bill.

Coming back to that transition, which is so very important for our state, I know Victorians themselves have seen the wisdom of transitioning to cleaner energy, even though the opposition hate renewables. For instance, with the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) scheme we are making it easier for Victorians to move off gas and slash their bills. This has been extraordinarily popular. More than 2.4 million households in Victoria think this is a good thing – even though the opposition cannot stand it, they see the wisdom in it – and 180,000 businesses. Even the market wants to go with this. My goodness, 180,000 businesses have taken advantage of the program since 2009. You do not just have to listen to us as parliamentarians here, listen to Victorians. They are leading on this transition. Yes, we are providing mechanisms to help facilitate that change. We are backing them in, but they are going ahead full throttle, so good on them. In 2025 more than 147,000 homes – that is Victorian homes making these decisions; even if the opposition do not want them to, they are making these decisions – and 13,000 businesses received discounted energy-efficient products and services. They see the value in it. They see their bills every month. They can see the difference.

In 2025 alone the VEU program cut Victoria’s emissions by 6.9 million tonnes. That is really important. If we are thinking about not only current Victorians but future generations of Victorians, these are really important and practical steps supporting them in transitioning the way that they use energy and the mechanisms for their households. In 2024–25 the program provided over $590 million in discounts to businesses and households undertaking energy upgrades to buildings, appliances and equipment, so there is lots out there for Victorians to take advantage of, and we encourage them to do so.

Between 2021 and 2025 the VEU program has avoided $3.8 billion in energy system costs. Even after accessing appliance discounts and getting real bill savings, every single Victorian is also avoiding energy costs they would have had to pay if the VEU did not exist to help drive down electricity demand. I am really excited that this fantastic program is going to continue, because we have passed legislation to extend the program out to 2045 in line with our net zero targets. We are always going to back in Victorian families and businesses to save on their energy bills, and we are proud to say that the VEU is here to stay. This is what is really important: when we are talking about transition, we are not just talking about it. We are actually helping Victorians to be part of the implementation, to be part of the change and to really embrace it.

The Solar Homes program is also being lapped up by Victorians. The $1.3 billion Solar Homes program is helping hardworking Victorians slash their energy bills by getting solar on their roofs. It is nation leading. We have the largest household renewable energy program in the country. That is something to be really proud of, but I want to pat Victorians on the back because they are part of this transition – this revolution, if you like – in terms of our energy sector. Victorians are flocking to the program, with 435,000 installations supported. Yes, that is Victorians making these decisions. The program has surpassed an energy-generating capacity of 2 gigawatts – bigger than the Yallourn power station. That is a really important point as well, because when we are thinking about the transition, we are acknowledging the role that gas plays in the transition, but we are also acknowledging that coal-fired power is on its way out. And the market is part of that. It is not only the government; it is actually the market saying renewables are quicker and easier to set up and they do not have all the complexities and complications that you get with coal. We are charging forward with that as well. I am really pleased about this as well: over 7000 rental properties have received solar PV rebates. That is fantastic because we know that cost of living is a huge issue, so being able to assist those in rental properties to be able to mitigate their costs in terms of their energy bills is really, really important. We know that the program is helping them to slash their bills each and every day. Solar Homes will help Victorians save more than an estimated $500 million a year on their electricity bills once the program is complete. In anyone’s language, these are meaningful savings, and it is literally thousands and thousands of Victorians that are taking part.

The introduction of all-electric new homes – the Allan Labor government made the landmark decision to phase out gas in new homes from 1 January 2024. This has meant that new Victorian households will save up to $1000 off their annual energy bills, while reducing household emissions, and this includes social and affordable housing. It is great to see, like at Barak Beacon, induction cookers are all-electric. This is fantastic – great insulation, double glazing. It means that we are actually futureproofing the lives of people who are going to move into those homes and the people that have moved into the ones that have already been delivered. This is really a gift to them, if you like, for their future, but it also means that they can really track their energy use into the future or mitigate their energy use into the future. On that note, I think that we concede that there are certain controls that are being put in place. They are designed to be a last resort should the market fail. They are planning into the future, but meanwhile we are actively transitioning energy usage in Victoria and supporting Victorians on the way. They are lapping it up, and good on them.

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (18:39): I also rise to speak on the National Gas (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2025. The Greens will not be voting against this bill in the Legislative Assembly, as we do support the idea of the government planning our energy transition. There are some risks, though, within the details of the bill, which I will go through, and so we will have to look at those before deciding our position in the Council, until we can talk to the government about some of those risks and some commonsense amendments that we are putting forward.

As we have heard today, the bill gives the Minister for Energy and Resources new powers in relation to Victoria’s gas transmission pipeline network. Specifically, the minister would be able to make orders to direct the pipeline owner, the service provider and the Australian Energy Market Operator to make upgrades in order to maintain gas supply and gas quality. But really I want to talk about how much of a joke the gas situation is in Victoria.

Australia is one of the top gas exporters in the world. In fact we exported more gas in the past five years than our entire country uses in 20 years. It is the way the market was set up. The fact that politicians sold out our natural resources to mostly overseas-owned companies is the problem with gas, and it is really a joke. We are also blessed in this country with incredible solar, wind and hydro resources, and transitioning away from gas and onto renewables will not just be good for our climate, it will be good for our wallets and good for our health as well.

Right now gas is more expensive than ever. Gas prices in Victoria have tripled in the last decade. I think most people in this place remember when gas was cheap, but that is simply not the case anymore. The reason for that is because these companies, that politicians have essentially given our gas to for very little, export 80 per cent of that gas, pay next to nothing in tax and then sell what is left back to us at artificially inflated prices that are set on the global market. It is really no wonder that Victorians are ditching gas entirely for cheaper, cleaner electric products like split system air conditioners, heat pumps, electric hot water systems and induction cooktops.

In fact, for the first time ever, gas connections are actually falling across Australia. Over the last six months we saw more than 60,000 new electricity connections across the national energy market, but total gas connections fell by over 11,000. That is 60,000 new homes connecting to the electricity market. You would expect the same for gas, but no, they fell by 11,000. So the time of gas and needing to have gas is officially over. We have more than enough of it left to transition to cheap, clean, renewable energy, and any supply issues for gas – that the government often uses as justification for opening new gas fields and gas drilling – are down to one thing and one thing only: greedy, profit-driven fossil fuel companies who are selling our gas at incredibly high, inflated prices. These are companies that, as I said, take 80 per cent of our gas. They pay next to nothing in tax, they sell it back to us at artificially inflated prices – and still, after all of that, they will turn around to governments and say, boohooing, ‘We need more supply,’ and cry crocodile tears. It is a joke. They are taking us for an absolute ride, and they do not have the public’s interest at heart.

The Greens support more public control over our gas network, like we support making coal and gas giants pay for the climate crisis that they are creating, but the problem in this bill is that it does not properly address the seismic changes Victoria is about to see in our gas network. Remember that our own climate laws here in Victoria mean the state needs to hit net zero emissions by 2045. That gives us less than 20 years to get off almost all fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas. That target was set by this government. Some processes will be harder to decarbonise than others – in things like transport, agriculture and industrial processes like steelmaking, which requires intense heat. That means that Victoria will need to seize low-hanging fruit faster than ever. We need to shut down our coal-fired power plants. We need to supercharge our solar and wind resources and electrify our homes and businesses.

The transition away from household gas is inevitable – in fact it is already happening – but we need to prepare much more quickly to rapidly increase that transition. Realistically, Victoria has just 20 ‍years to equitably retire our household gas network, and it should be much faster than that. That is being conservative. In fact the ACT is planning for a phased decommissioning from 2035. Handing the minister the power to create new, expensive, polluting gas infrastructure does not fundamentally help that transition. We should not be building new gas infrastructure. As I mentioned, we do not need any new gas, and I am worried that the power could actually create the potential to be an accelerator for gas and gas infrastructure. What Victoria needs instead is a steering wheel to guide us away from the expensive, leaky gas networks of the past and towards a cheap, clean, renewable energy grid of the future, and the transition needs to be managed in a way that is good for communities, good for business and good for the climate – and it is possible – because the gas network in Victoria is headed towards a death spiral in the 2030s, if not sooner.

Think about the minor steps that we have already made to get off gas, and then think about what is coming. As more homes and businesses replace gas products with cheaper electric products, these products will become cheaper. We will see new and better electric options. More people will learn about those better, cheaper products, more workers will be trained to install them, and more and more Victorian homes and businesses will go all electric and that will accelerate. That is a very good thing for our climate and it is a good thing for homes and businesses saving money, but there is a catch to this death spiral, because as more Victorians go all electric the cost of maintaining the ageing, leaking gas network will fall to fewer and fewer Victorians. The Victorians who are the ones who cannot afford to get off gas, so renters, people in apartments, poorer households and regional communities, will be the ones left with the costs.

The government cannot let increasing network costs fall to those least able to afford them and certainly cannot let the market try and sort it out themselves, because they have shown that they will not do that, at least not equitably. As the gas companies experience this death spiral, they are going to see more and more stranded assets. Companies like Santos and Woodside gas companies exist for profit, not to help people and certainly not to help the planet. Right now these companies are lying to Victorians. They say gas will be around for decades. We have all seen the ads on our TVs. They say it is not bad for the climate, our hip pockets or our health, but they are deceiving wilfully the Victorian people, because the minute these companies cannot make money from something, they will cut and run, and they will leave the government and Victorian communities to pick up the pieces and the costs.

We saw the first concrete example of this last year, a canary in the coalmine. Back in August 2025, 10 ‍regional towns found out they had until the end of 2026 before the gas networks would be forcibly retired, and that decision was purely financial. The gas company Solstice Energy said it had become too expensive to run their isolated gas networks. These networks are a uniquely terrible holdover from the former coalition government’s Energy for the Regions program, launched in the 2010s. Basically, isolated gas networks required Solstice to compress the gas themselves, truck it into towns and then distribute it to homes and businesses through their own pipelines. At the time, communities were told it would be worth it because gas would be cheaper in the long run. Businesses were even paying to switch their systems over as recently as 2021 – just five years ago. The classic white elephant is estimated to have cost around $85 million. Now, barely a decade after being told to go one way, over a thousand households are now being told they have to go the other, and they have just 16 months to do it. They either have to renovate their entire homes – go all electric in a matter of months – or convert back to bottled gas. Solstice made a financial decision, but they are not the ones that are having to live with the costs. For the people in those 10 towns – Marong, Heathcote, Swan Hill, Maldon, Robinvale, Kerang, Nathalia, Terang, Lakes Entrance and Orbost – the entire process has sounded like an absolute nightmare. It has been plagued by anger, confusion and anxiety about a transition none of those communities were consulted on or had time to prepare for. We need our government to make sure that these towns are not left to fend for themselves and that other regional communities are not left in the same position when gas companies inevitably start pulling out of the system.

Just like we need a just transition for coal communities, Victoria needs a just transition for our gas network, and this bill could be the chance to make sure what just happened with Solstice never happens again. That means planning in decades, not months or years. To that effect, the Greens have developed three common-sense amendments that futureproof the bill to prepare for these inevitable decisions of gas companies. I want to stress that they are very commonsense, because they are three positive changes that align with the government’s existing climate targets and policy goals. These amendments would: (1) ensure that these new powers under the bill proactively align with Victoria’s existing climate targets, (2) empower the minister to start pre-planning as companies inevitably transition away from gas assets and (3) empower the minister to demand geospatial data from gas networks to create transparency for communities and help the SEC do its job better. We will be circulating those amendments in the upper house. Each of these amendments has been developed in consultation with a group called the Victorian Energy Future Network. VEFN are a team of energy experts leading this conversation, including some with personal experience in the gas industry themselves, and I want to thank them for advocating on what may seem like a concern that might be a little bit off into the future but could really become catastrophic in about a decade if Victoria does not plan for it.

Our first amendment is what we call a climate guardrail, which ensures that any upgrades ordered under the bill’s proposed power are at the very least consistent with Victoria’s existing climate targets. As it stands, the current bill allows the minister to order expansions or ‘specified improvements’ to the network based on security of supply. This creates a real climate and economic risk of gold plating the network. The minister would be able to order gas assets that will become stranded in five to 10 years ‍– for example, forcing a pipeline expansion that will not be paid off by 2045 – and neither the minister nor the company would need to examine perfectly good alternatives to an upgrade like electrification or energy efficiency. At a minimum, the bill needs to clearly require that any order actively demonstrate consistency with Victoria’s climate targets, and it needs to demonstrate whether the objective of the order could be achieved through demand-side measures instead. This is a small but critical legislative change which would actively align the bill with Labor’s existing climate targets.

Our second amendment would create a symmetrical power to the one proposed in the bill – the power to require gas transition plans under any order relating to a network improvement. As I explained earlier, the Greens’ primary concern with this bill is it only gives the minister the power to order expansions or upgrades to the gas network. This creates a legislative imbalance when the minister also needs to be able to plan for companies inevitably retiring their assets – a retirement that will happen one way or another. As the VEFN puts it, if the minister has the power to turn the tap on they must also have the power to plan for turning it off. Gas transition plans would create that reasonable symmetrical planning power. They would also mean that as part of the orders made under the bill the minister would be able to demand things like timelines for the decommissioning of specified gas infrastructure, strategies to manage the costs of stranded assets and coordination with electricity network distributors to facilitate electrification of specific zones. Transition plans could also require that companies demonstrate how any upgrades made under the bill will reduce gas emissions for the purposes of the long-term emissions reduction target. Effectively, this power futureproofs the bill. It does not force a shutdown tomorrow, but it creates the legal mechanism for the government to order a planned and just retirement, something that companies like Solstice will do anyway, just in a not very planned and not very just way.

Finally, the Greens are seeking a transparency clause to force gas networks to share geospatial data with the State Electricity Commission and communities. This information is currently held privately by those monopoly networks. It includes things like the location of certain pipelines, their age, their capacity and their usage. Currently this bill would enable the minister to demand this kind of information as part of orders issued for network improvements, but the minister has explicitly said these orders would only be made as a last resort if and when a private company has screwed up so badly the government is forced to intervene. The Greens want the minister, the SEC and the general public to have this information well before things go south, not after the effect. Our transparency clause would explicitly allow the minister to demand that information as part of their deliberations ahead of making an order and proactively share it with communities. That costs the government nothing – in fact it would actually help the government and communities. It would help the SEC by giving them the maps they need to do their job better, and it would help communities see what is coming and make choices themselves. Again, we cannot afford a repeat of what happened with Solstice, but the SEC and communities cannot plan for electrification if they do not have up-to-date information and data.

The Greens will circulate these amendments in the upper house this week in order to discuss them with the government. I look forward to those discussions, because these are really commonsense amendments that would help the government prepare for what is coming. There is nothing here that does not align with the government’s existing targets or policy objectives. Looking further down the track, Victoria will need to be genuinely ambitious. We will need a legislative retirement end date of the reticulated gas network – 2045 at a minimum, or earlier. That deadline will help homes and businesses prepare and provide investment certainty to companies. We will need a gas transition authority to start properly coordinating those transition plans and managing the death spiral of networks, and ultimately the government will probably need to purchase our gas network itself, through either the SEC or the gas transition authority that we are suggesting, because once the majority of Victorians have gone all electric, we cannot trust private companies to support those homes and businesses still stuck on gas. Governments need to ensure the cost of the inevitable death spiral is not borne by those least able to afford it.

Even if the government does purchase the transmission and distribution systems, it will be bound by outdated national energy rules. Actively managing a dying gas network will require changes to those rules which will have to be done at the federal level. So there is much more work that needs to be done here, and the Greens amendments simply get the ball rolling. We are pre-planning for an inevitable retirement of the gas network, and our hope is that this bill creates the tools to manage that retirement fairly before gas companies like Solstice do it for themselves and leave all of us high and dry.

 Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (18:55): I am very happy. I was not sure if I was going to get up or not. I am very grateful that the member for Melbourne left me a couple of minutes. I rise today in strong support of this bill, and I want to take a few minutes to explain why it matters right now and why getting this right is so important for every Victorian.

A member interjected.

Paul MERCURIO: Yes. Listening to the debate today, it sounds like everyone is on board with supporting the phase-out of gas. We just all probably have very different ideas of when that might happen and certainly how that might happen. I stand today saying we need gas at the moment and will into the future, but I also stand and say it is a finite resource. I have heard in this chamber today and read in different things that we are going to run out of gas in eight years or 16 years; I think the Leader of the Nationals said we might have 28 years left. But the fact of the matter is it is a finite resource. The other truth that I have heard today in the chamber is that we need renewables. We are moving towards renewables, and that is inevitable. The thing about renewables is that they are an infinite resource. We will not be running out of that unless of course some madman presses the red button and blows the world up. I am a bit worried about how that is going at the moment, but we have to have faith, and as I said, we have to have hope as well. But renewables, obviously, we will rely on moving into the future.

This government, the Labor government, has been doing an enormous amount of work on maintaining and developing renewables. Of course I am very excited that in my area, the electorate of Hastings, we have the Victorian renewable energy terminal, which is certainly going to contribute a great deal to renewable energy within Victoria. That is really important. Things keep changing; technology changes. It was not that long ago that we really did not have battery technology. We had solar technology, and people were selling their excess energy and their excess electricity back into the energy grid. Now of course everyone is complaining that they cannot do that, but we have the ability to store our energy in moments when the power goes out or whatever. So I am also quite confident about what is going to come over the years. When people say we will need gas into the future, I think our reliance on that will change as other technologies become available and people actually start to use them.

I do note that the SEC has partnered with various different organisations and companies, such as the Melbourne renewable energy hub. That is a partnership with a private company with 444 battery units, and that will provide a lot of energy into our system. It makes me feel, in terms of decommissioning coal and the fact that we are running out of gas, that there is absolutely a future for us, and I do not think we need to be overly concerned. But we certainly have got to work towards making sure that transition is safe and secure and that people understand that, and I think this bill does that. This is about making sure that people within the community can feel safe and secure in the transitioning process. Gas is not obviously our destination – we know that – but right now it plays a critical role in firming our electrical network. I do believe other things will come in and take the place of that, so I feel safe and confident. I am a little bit concerned about the lack of wok cooking, but I am sure I will get over that at the right time and right place.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.