Wednesday, 4 March 2020

Bills

National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Mr RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:02): I rise to express my community’s strong disappointment with this legislation proposed by the government, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. The government says this bill is seeking to try to make its rollout of renewable energy work better. It is essentially trying to retrofit a hydrogen motor to an old Holden Commodore or to an old Holden Kingswood or, if you want to go back further, to an old FJ. It is trying to solve problems by creating more problems, and that is not in the best interests of Victorians, and it is certainly not in the best interests of country and regional Victorians.

The energy supply disaster that we are seeing in Victoria has somewhat been mitigated in the last half of this summer by cooler than expected weather. We know that because in my electorate, in the seat of Polwarth, the largest transmission lines in the state collapsed in late January due to a windstorm. That had great potential to bring the whole state to its knees as some of our additional renewable and our gas backup energy supplies were to the west of that near disaster. Thankfully when it happened it did not kill anybody and it did not cause too much chaos, and with this rather benign end to summer we have not seen the temperature really go over 30 degrees to really test the resilience of the system.

This legislation has been designed by the government to continue its ad hoc approach to the renewable energy situation in Victoria. We have heard endlessly this summer the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change claim that we have unreliable coal-fired generators, and they are operating on an electrical system that was actually designed for them. Just today I did a download from the national electricity market. What do we know about today? We know that if we were relying on this government’s renewable energy rollout that they claim delivers more reliable energy and at a lower cost, this is what we would see today. The Bald Hills wind farm has a plate capacity of 106 megawatts. It is producing 61—that is 57 per cent of its capacity. That is the highest performing renewable energy supplier that we have in the state today. That compares to those terribly unreliable coal-fired generators that are sitting there today at 78 per cent of capacity. That is looking at the last week; they have consistently run at 78 to 80 per cent of capacity.

What else have we got in renewable energy? We have got the Macarthur wind farm, the largest in the state, with a nameplate of 440 megawatts. Guess for me, members on the front bench, how many of the 440 megawatts it has produced today. Zero. Today at 11 o’clock, at the height of industry, commerce and production in the state of Victoria, zero per cent was being fed into the grid. The Mount Mercer wind farm, with a nameplate of 131 megawatts—guess how many that was. Zero per cent today. Right in the middle of the day, when industry, business, schools and hospitals need their energy, this government’s rollout was providing zero.

The great Mount Gellibrand wind farm is one I can see from my own bedroom window as I wake up each morning, unlike many of our Green and other members of Parliament who advocate strongly for the rollout for renewable energy. They do not ever see it; they just imagine it works. The wonderful Mount Gellibrand wind farm with its panoramic views over Lake Colac—what is it doing today? It has a nameplate of 132 megawatts. It is 12 megawatts, a massive 9 per cent of production. This government comes out every day and says, ‘Those terribly unreliable coal generators that average 80 per cent efficiency—oh, no, we’ll go this way down to Colac and we’ll get our power at 9 per cent production today’. Right when businesses, schools and hospitals need energy, that is what they are producing.

The Oaklands Hill wind farm, with a nameplate of 63 megawatts—zero per cent produced in the middle of the day. The Portland wind farm, with 195 megawatts—9 per cent today, 18 megawatts out of a potential 195. The Salt Creek wind farm, one of our smallest wind farms, has more money invested in the most unsightly and dangerous transmission lines that zigzag across the landscape. What have we got at Salt Creek? At 54 megawatts it is producing zero per cent again today in the middle of the day. Finally, to round out the hugely successful average of about 9 per cent of the state’s renewable output going into the grid today, we have got the Yambuk wind farm, one of the oldest ones in the state. It has a 30-megawatt capacity, and it is producing 3—a massive 10 per cent of its capacity is feeding into the grid. This is where the government is heading with its renewables.

We all love renewables. The community wants us to go down this road, but this government has not put anything in place to make this system work. They have spent a lot of time demonising the baseload energy that Gippsland has produced very successfully for the last 100 years, but they have done nothing to realise the reality of what intermittent renewable energy means to our grid, to our economy and to our society. There is nothing operating in the state of Victoria that will back up, that will support and that will work constructively with renewable energy. If anyone raises this point or dares to criticise the government’s fervent clamour for renewable energy, the first thing it says is, ‘You’re a climate denier; you don’t believe in renewable energy’. This government fails to understand, and it is possibly because not one of them has a view of a wind farm when they wake up in the morning, or it might be something as simple as their lack of understanding of basic engineering and basic electronics. It might be something as simple as that that means they could wake up thinking that a modern, First World, industrial state like Victoria can possibly operate on a day when only 9 per cent of its potential production is being produced.

This legislation claims that it is going to try and solve those problems by opening up more networks, but what do we know happens when we leave this government to go it alone on projects? We certainly saw with the West Gate Tunnel—a fantastic deal for the state of Victoria, whereby we will pay, as taxpayers and road users, about $45 billion for something that is going to cost about $6 billion. That is a direct hit to the pockets of mums and dads, families and businesses right across the state. Well, guess what, folks? This legislation is going to provide the same economic robustness to our energy system that that has provided. What this government proposes to do with this legislation is walk away from a coordinated national approach, which is the only way renewable energy that produces as little as 9 per cent on any given workday can operate. It cannot operate alone, because in Victoria we do not have massive hydro. We do not have massive storage units. We do not have anything in place that can leverage that, apart from access to natural gas, which this government still refuses to put in place to fully harness the transition opportunities there. But there is nothing in place. Allowing projects and individuals and companies to lay plans out in front of this government that will benefit those organisations above the best interests of the state is absolute recklessness of the highest order.

What do we know about its effects and how fragile the Victorian electrical system is? We know, for example, that on the distribution side this government has had report after report saying that the basic distribution networks in the state of Victoria are severely lacking, are not up to speed and are putting great risk on communities both of fire and for reliability. We have seen over this summer many days where people have been cut from the system because we do not have enough electricity in the system. We also know that one windstorm at Cressy, knocking out six transmission towers, almost brought this state to its knees. It almost saw the largest producer of aluminium end up closing permanently. We saw that with the largest user of electricity, the Portland smelter. Had it not been for the potential of gas backup at Mortlake and for the ability to turn off all the renewable energy in western Victoria, its intermittentness and lack of reliability would have caused too many headaches in the system.

This system in Victoria—the electrical transmission system—is very fragile. It is highly complex, and we are retrofitting renewable energy to a system that was not designed for it. This government continues to ignore that reality. It continues to set about investing in and supporting individual projects without looking at the system over the whole. That great man, Sir John Monash, who did so much to develop such a wonderful, reliable and strategic advantage for the state of Victoria in a wonderful electrical system, would turn in his grave to see how in only a short amount of time this government has brought our reliable energy to its knees.

Mr FREGON (Mount Waverley) (16:13): I rise with delight once again to speak on another very exciting bill, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. What can I say about following on from the member for Polwarth? It is great to see him up at the back there. It was a good contribution. I do not agree with anything you said, but I like the fact that you argued our case. I thought that was really special. I want to thank the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change. I will come back to why I say that.

Mr Fowles interjected.

Mr FREGON: The member may not be a fan of wind, but there was a lot of it going on right then. There is a little wind farm coming over in Polwarth at Mortlake, which I will come back to in a bit, because it is a bit exciting for my area. I want to thank the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change for significant work that is taking our state in the right direction and transforming our energy generation and, in this case, our transmission network and giving us options. I would like to also thank the other members for their contributions on this bill. There are a couple on the other side I will probably come back to later, whose contributions again, as I said, sort of confused me.

The member for Macedon made a very good contribution before, because she explained that our federal counterparts have denied certainty to the market. I thought that was a very good phrase, because that is exactly what they have done. They have had six years of sitting on their hands—something that the opposition seem to do quite well. As a result the industry does not know where to go. They are not going to invest money. Business is not going to use good money on investing in renewables, which is what most of the world is doing. They not going to do that if there is no clear national policy. So I would encourage you: please, let your federal counterparts know. Please, let us have a policy. Even if it is a bad one, just have one, and then we can work from there.

Of course the member for Lara, who was in here before, was discussing the benefits of our renewable energy program for manufacturing in Geelong at the old Ford plant. Who would have thought that would happen? But it did because of the Andrews Labor government. Our renewables, our energy sector and our work on climate change is not just pie in the sky, going to happen some day; it is happening now, and it is happening now and providing jobs for the people of Victoria.

Our Andrews Labor government is known for its commitment to providing reliable, affordable and clean energy for Victorians, and it is delivering on this goal for all of our Victorians. We have introduced reform after reform which make our state’s energy system fairer for our communities. I can remember when the Energy Compare program was rolled out. We had gone through a process at our place already of changing our downlights over from the old halogen ones to the LEDs, and that saved us a fair whack just by itself. If anyone has not done that, you should do that. There is still a program going for that. But by going through Energy Compare, I think I probably saved about $500 or $600 a year—for about 10 minutes on the web. It is a fantastic program, and I believe the $50 is still available. If people have not done that yet, they should really get into that.

To that point, the President in the other place and I are going to be hosting some information assistance sessions coming up for the Energy Compare process in my district of Mount Waverley. I encourage all of my constituents to contact my office for details. We will book you in a time. We will take you through the process. These sessions are especially helpful for some of our senior or CALD community members by giving them access to the savings that, as I said, I myself became aware of thanks to this program a couple of years ago.

But it is not just Energy Compare that our Andrews government is known for in the energy sector. Last year I was, like others here, very happy to vote on our Victorian renewable energy target (VRET) legislation. It was a cracker. The bill we debated then has slashed the standing offers and made the process of understanding our energy bills a lot easier. In fact I have seen that a lot of the major energy companies used to have side deals where they said, ‘Well, you can save 35 per cent on the cost, but the cost won’t be the same necessarily next year, and then we’ll give you another discount if you pay early’. You needed to be Einstein to understand your bill. One benefit of the VRET is that now a lot of that confusion has gone, and it is a lot easier for people, when they get their bill, to understand where they are and therefore compare it to something else.

We have worked with our private electricity providers and will continue to do so. They need to have electricity available when we need it most. Now we will encourage the national energy market operator to find cheaper, more reliable sources of supply. It is worth saying that this bill will not replace the national rules, and we will continue to advocate strongly to improve the national framework, but the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill—this bill—will provide Victoria with a backup option where the national rules let us down. Again, that goes back to the certainty that we get from our federal counterparts. It just takes so long; it can take over two years for them to work out whether something is going to work or not. We have got projects that are online now. We need a grid that can move the electricity around instead of just the one way.

The member for Polwarth was talking about a lot of percentages and about wind farms that are this percentage and this percentage. I will take him at his word. The question is: are the lights on? Surely that is the important part here. He did not talk about that. I am going to presume they are. So as long as the transmission network can get the power to where it needs to at the time that it is needed, then the rest of what was said over there does not really make much difference to everyday people at home who just want to make sure their fridges are running 24 hours a day.

If we take a step back to early 2014, our renewable energy sector had stalled. The industry had no confidence in the Baillieu-Napthine governments of the day. Since being elected in 2014 we have allowed this industry to thrive. Today we have new renewable generators pumping out clean energy across our state, with many more developers eager to build. We also have major investments in grid-scale batteries, energy efficiency and household solar power that are transforming the way people use power in Victoria. We have got a strong renewables supply chain flourishing in regional Victoria. For example, for the first time in a decade, as I said before and the member for Lara mentioned, we have wind turbines being assembled in Geelong—local manufacturing, local jobs.

Wilson Transformers in my district of Mount Waverley are part of this future and part of the present. So I was very happy to see a 125-tonne massive transformer get on the truck and go to Mortlake, in the member for Polwarth’s area, I believe. This is local jobs turning manufacturing in my district into the energy of our future, and I am very, very proud to be a part of that, even if it is just representing them.

Here is the rub. The progress, this transformation to our energy future, relies on a robust transmission grid. We need a grid that is evolving to meet the demands of the energy system and has the ability and the efficiency to move electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. That is what this bill goes to.

As I get close to the finish here I just want to go to the member for Warrandyte, who started us off. I thought his first 10 minutes were very good. I mean, he is always up and he gets about, and good on him. He said that the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) admits that the transmission network that is under their control is not keeping up. I agree. He also said that upgrades are important. Yep. He also went to, ‘We do need to invest in the transmission network’. Right again—three out of three. He then said that our government’s, the Andrews Labor government’s, record is here for all to see. Well, four out of four, member for Warrandyte. He is exactly right. That is why our energy system, our energy network, is on the right track. Our minister for energy is doing more in a weekend than, say, previous ministers might have done in their term.

There were others on the other side that, again, seemed to reiterate why we need this bill in their business of saying they oppose the bill. That was a little bit confusing. The member for Eildon did a very good effort—I mean that; she argued her case—but she did get caught out at the end laughing at her own lines. That is never a good look. I try not to do it myself, although I am sure I am guilty of it sometimes. I think the thing that took me the most is that the member for Ripon seemed to be happy with the inaction that we have seen from AEMO. That has got to stop, and that is why we need this bill. I commend it to the house.

Mr ANGUS (Forest Hill) (16:23): I am pleased to rise this afternoon just to make a brief contribution in relation to the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. I note that there have been a number of very significant and important contributions from members on this side, particularly the member for Warrandyte in his initial contribution, and then just more recently the member for Polwarth, with his very informative and comprehensive contribution, particularly in relation to some of the renewable generation of electricity down in his own electorate that he has got firsthand experience with, and extensive experience at that.

I just want to make a couple of comments in relation to the Essential Services Commission (ESC) 2018–19 energy market report, because that is obviously referred to in this bill and is a key proponent in relation to it, particularly in relation to some of the pricing issues. We can note that for residential prices the annual average price increase for electricity and gas over the last four years has been 7.5 per cent. That is based on the standard contract. Since 2014–15 the standard contract increase for electricity has gone from $1522 to $1881, or 23.6 per cent, and gas from $1316 to $1792, or 36.2 per cent. So we can see major significant increases in the costs of gas and electricity there.

The business prices, similarly, over the last three years on the standard contract have increased 18 per cent for electricity and 12 per cent for gas, and the discounted market rates when conditions are met have also gone up—15 per cent for electricity and 10 per cent for gas. So the point I am making there is the fact that what we are seeing now is just continuing pressure on cost of living, and they are matters that I am sure, if most members in this place were honest, they would say that they are hearing through their office front door. It is certainly the case for me, with constituents coming in facing difficulties paying their utility bills because of the mismanagement of the energy market here in Victoria by this government. That has got significant flow-on effects, not the least of which of course are the numbers of people experiencing difficulty paying their bills.

Part of the Essential Services Commission information, again from their 2018–19 energy market report, is that they have observed another increase in customers on hardship programs. There are 111 483 customers experiencing difficulty; 48 530 customers on average are in hardship programs at any one time, and that is a record level. Almost two out of three customers exiting hardship programs are doing so because they have in fact failed. Last year, the 2018–19 year, 15 794 customers exited hardship programs unsuccessfully. Five years ago this figure was 11 819 customers. Thankfully that figure itself is down from the record level last year of 37 616 customers. They are real people that we are talking about there, in terms of more than 100 000 customers facing those difficulties. I hate to say this, in one sense, but I would expect that that would be going up because, as we have heard, we have got budget cuts coming in here in Victoria—$4 billion worth—and we have got the bin tax that is going to be going up exponentially, and that will be a direct hit on all Victorians in various guises. As a result of that and the just incessant pressure on cost of living through the mismanagement of the state budget by the current government, it manifests in these ways. That is why we are seeing so many people hurting so badly.

In terms of disconnections, the ESC report says 36 729 residential and 4764 small business customers were disconnected for non-payment. That is a staggering number as you consider that nearly 40 000 people—or more than 40 000 in total if you count the residents and the small businesses—were disconnected for non-payment. That just really to me epitomises the very difficult situation that Victorians are in.

In terms of complaints to the energy and water ombudsman, in 2018–19 they actually went down a little bit. There were 24 053 cases and 4031 investigations compared with 26 946 cases and 4805 investigations in the year prior. So that is down slightly.

But the reality is that the mismanagement of the budget has got consequences. When you blow $25 billion in cost overruns and mismanagement on major projects, that is $25 billion that has got to be replaced some other way, and that is what this government is doing. It is taxing people almost to death. It is putting its hand deeper and deeper into people’s pockets on such a regular basis. As I said before, with the $4 billion in cuts coming in the budget in a month or two, in May, and the fact that we have got a bin tax going up astronomically, that is going to hurt ordinary people.

That coupled with all the other pressures—cost of living and everything else that this government is driving up through their mismanagement—is hurting people. The figures I have just cited are the real figures and they represent individuals, they represent families and they represent small businesses that are hurting because of the mismanagement of this government.

Certainly not the least area of mismanagement is the whole electricity area. We heard, as I said before, eloquently from the member for Polwarth, who quoted the figures in relation to renewable energy today and what it is actually contributing to the grid, and the consequences of that, particularly for Alcoa down there in Portland and for other people that are reliant on a very efficient and reliable supply of electricity.

That is just a brief contribution in relation to the bill, and as the member for Warrandyte said at the outset, we will not be supporting it.

Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (16:29): It gives me great pleasure to speak on this bill to amend the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005. It is a bill that enables Victoria to continue delivering and indeed ramp-up our delivery of reliable, affordable and clean energy for our state. I have been very amused listening to the debate in the house so far at the sheer existential fright displayed by those opposite in relation to renewable energy.

That aside, what we know is that when it comes to energy and Victoria’s energy mix only Labor governments do the hard work to get the mix right. Labor governments drive investment, drive infrastructure, drive vital policy reform and drive an energy sector for the future—not one stuck in the past. Before Labor was elected, investment in renewable energy sources had ground to a standstill. Companies had vacated the space, because without the policy will and the political will, and without the investment to back it up, it was virtually impossible to build a new wind farm or solar farm in Victoria.

Today we have renewables generating more clean energy for Victorians than ever before. Renewable energy now runs our entire tram network. Major investments in grid-scale batteries are building up our capacity, and household solar is growing and growing, giving families more control over their power bills. The transition to a cleaner energy future is driving jobs in new economies right across the state. From the furthest reaches of the state the evidence is visible across our landscape. There is evidence of a transition to a sustainable energy future—a transition backed up by our legislated commitment to draw 50 per cent of Victoria’s electricity from renewable energy by 2030.

When it comes to the impact being made at a household level, there is one very obvious program that tens of thousands of Victorians have accessed, and indeed hundreds of residents from my electorate have accessed—and what an incredible success the Solar Homes program has been. I look across the chamber and it occurs to me that I cannot think of a single example of a policy that those opposite have put forward—certainly not in my lifetime, certainly not from anyone who still sits in this or the other place—not a single example of a program like the Solar Homes program.

The best the opposition and the Greens can do is accuse the government of creating a program that is too popular—so popular that Victorians wanted to take it up too rapidly. Imagine that. Imagine being that bereft of ideas that all you can do is complain that something is too good. Imagine being in that much of a struggle against relevance deprivation.

But the Solar Homes program is not just about our energy mix. I spoke last week about the transition that my electorate has undergone and how important it has been to transition the skills and jobs from the tanneries and textiles industries. What better example of this is there than the amazing work of EnviroGroup in Thornbury. Founded in 2004, EnviroGroup is a leading authority in sustainable technology, with a team of expert engineers and installers delivering solar projects Australia-wide. EnviroGroup is working in renewable energy, large battery storage, sustainability consulting and the delivery of major renewable projects. It knows how important the Solar Homes program is, and I know that when the Premier visited the home of EnviroGroup in June last year with the Minister for Solar Homes you could not have had more excitement in the room about the program.

But we know that solar panels on household rooftops is not the only form of renewable energy. It may get the most attention around the kitchen table, but there is so much more going on in renewable energy. I have mentioned before the Kiamal solar farm on the Calder Highway that is under construction near Mildura, one of many solar farms operating or under construction in the state’s north. We know that wind turbines dot the landscape across the state, from Portland on the south-west coast to Toora in the east—and I have raised in the past the lost opportunity at Bald Hills.

What we know is that we are getting it done. Since the Andrews Labor government was elected in 2014, 18 different projects providing over 1000 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity have become operational. Right now there are 14 renewable energy projects currently under construction or undergoing commissioning, which will total more than 2700 megawatts of renewable energy once they are complete. And on top of this there are 4000 megawatts of new projects receiving planning approval under this government. We have this strong pipeline of projects because unlike those opposite we recognise the impact of climate change on our environment, our economy and our communities, and unlike the Greens we are willing to go beyond slogans to do something about it. As the member for Essendon rightly noted in his contribution to this bill, we have a global responsibility to act to reduce our carbon emissions. The federal coalition might want to bury its head in the sand, but we will not.

Over the last 20 years here in Victoria we have seen successive Labor governments create the policy and regulatory framework, as well as making strategic investments, to support the establishment of a flourishing renewable energy sector. These investments saw the opening of the Vestas wind turbine facility at Portland in 2005 and of course the Keppel Prince factory, which manufactures the towers to fit these turbines. These companies did not set up shop down in that area on a whim, nor did they set up because they liked the ocean views, and nor did they set up because of likes on a Facebook page or a cut-paste email campaign from the Greens political party. They are there because of Labor government action—and I will say it again, Labor government action—that delivered renewable energy infrastructure, engineering jobs and manufacturing work that brought skills to the area and a genuine boost for that part of Victoria and a genuine boost for the Victorian economy.

I want to emphasise that the transition to renewables is not a new thing; we have been doing it for many, many years. Imagine where we would be now if not for the four dark years from 2010 to 2014. The work to develop these industries had Victoria ahead of the curve. We were leading the nation. We had a flourishing wind and solar industry, and we even had hybrid vehicles being built right here in Australia. When those opposite took the Treasury bench, just like their party room, they took the Victorian economy and the energy sector back in time, back into the dark. Fortunately for Victoria we have switched the lights back on, and we will not slow our roll.

So what we need now is for the transmission network to keep pace with the electricity being generated, and that is what this bill is aimed at. The national regulatory framework for transmission upgrades is not fit for purpose. It is complex and outdated and it has put a handbrake on our transition to renewables. It is a handbrake on our action to reduce emissions. The failure of the national regime to keep up with changing circumstances is also adding to the cost of energy and greater reliability risks. It can cause excessive delays in delivering transmission projects, and it is too clunky to see us through the next phase as we ramp up our vital shift to renewables. Right now the application process—just the application process—for new transmission projects can take more than two years. It has been two years since the Council of Australian Governments tasked the Energy Security Board with developing a package of amendments to the National Electricity Rules, and it has been three years since the COAG energy council first tasked the market operator to develop a whole-of-system plan for development of the national electricity market. How is that going? We need to be able to keep building renewable infrastructure and we need to be able to get the full benefits of our generators, and that cannot happen unless the transmission network is improved.

We know that we are not the only state that is fed up with this approach. Even the Liberal-Nationals government in New South Wales are having to rewrite their legislation to be able to get on with the job. We know that initially the Victorian energy network was largely created to push energy in one direction—generate it in the Latrobe Valley and the Snowy and push it across the state from there. We know that Labor governments over the last 20 years have been acting to change our energy mix, and that means facilitating and investing in projects right across Victoria and changing the way the network operates. We know that in certain parts of Victoria we are now seeing the grid reach capacity. In recent months we have seen the Australian Energy Market Operator constrain the output of five large-scale solar generators by 50 per cent, and we know that waiting for the federal coalition government to deliver anything relating to energy policy is an exercise in futility.

What we also know is what the Greens will do. We know that they will not support what the government is doing to deliver more renewable energy for Victoria. The Greens will obstruct and rail against it with classic hits like, ‘It’s too late’, ‘You should have done it years ago’ and my personal favourite, ‘Transition now!’, which, let us be clear, is not a coherent statement.

This bill provides reasonable powers for the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to fast-track urgent transmission investments and ensures we can continue to act to change our energy mix, create more jobs, drive down power prices and protect our environment. For that reason I commend the bill to the house.

Ms SANDELL (Melbourne) (16:38): I rise today to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. As I have discovered over my five years here, legislation that has anything to do with our energy system tends to get very technical very quickly, so in speaking on this bill I will try to keep what I say as clear as possible for anyone following along at home who might be interested in what is going on in here. I do not know if there is anyone who follows along at home any more, but there might be.

This bill is about the network that provides electricity for Australia’s eastern states. As we know, electricity is made in different ways: at coal power stations—70 per cent of our energy in Victoria is made this way; at gas power stations; at large wind and solar farms; and also at the micro scale, such as solar on peoples’ roofs like I have on my house. To transport this electricity where it is needed we have this complex system of larger and smaller wires and connectors that join the networks in different states. That is obviously a vast oversimplification, but hopefully it still paints a useful picture for people.

The whole network is coordinated at a federal level by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). But of course a lot has changed since our electricity network was first designed. We have gone from the vast majority of our electricity being produced in a very contained area, like the Latrobe Valley coal power stations, to having a much more diverse mix, with renewables and storage—like batteries and renewables on people’s houses—all coming online, and these are becoming a bigger and bigger part of the system. Of course to tackle the climate crisis we need to get coal and gas out of our energy system, so a lot more needs to be done to change it even further.

But instead of planning for a clean, 21st century energy system, the network has been allowed by the federal government and AEMO to become a real hindrance to Australia’s transition to clean energy. Right now there are solar farms that cannot connect to our network because it is either not there or it is not good enough, and our old run-down energy network is also struggling to cope on hotter days, which of course are becoming more frequent due to climate change.

Where does this bill come in? AEMO has the job of planning upgrades to our electricity network, but they are painfully slow and states are understandably getting very frustrated. So what this bill does is allow Victoria’s energy minister to essentially override AEMO and push ahead with projects that Victoria needs to make our part of the electricity network better.

This kind of reform at a state level is not unprecedented; we are not the first to do this. The South Australian government did the same thing so they could build the Tesla battery to make their own electricity more reliable. The New South Wales government, as I understand, is looking at doing the same thing.

This bill gives Victoria the flexibility to fix up parts of our network, and we will be supporting it. We absolutely support that. We know that it is vital to update our grid if we are going to transition away from coal.

There are a few things I want to put on the record in supporting this bill. Firstly, I am genuinely concerned about our electricity network at a national level. Clearly it is absolutely not fit for tackling climate change or for providing cheap and reliable power to Australians. At one level I can absolutely understand why states are having to take the piecemeal type of action that this bill allows and go it alone—they are really left with no choice because of the inaction of the coalition government at the federal level. But of course a better fix would be a proper, coordinated and national overhaul of the network, and I hope that the energy minister in the Andrews government is strongly advocating for this in COAG meetings and other forums. This bill will not fix everything. We cannot let it make Victoria complacent in advocating for the full-scale fix that our energy system needs in this country, because it really is just a bandaid to fix a broken system. We need to apply the bandaid absolutely, but let us also solve the root problem of an energy system that is just no longer fit for purpose.

Secondly, while the Liberal and Labor governments at the federal level of government are mostly to blame for the failure to transform our electricity network, the Victorian government does need to take some responsibility for this too. Before the 1990s coal power stations and the network were owned by the state—they were in public hands—but then of course they were privatised by the Kennett Liberal government. Since then private owners have exploited them for vast profits while failing to even maintain them properly, let alone update them for a fossil fuel-free future.

In 2018 the Victorian Greens announced our comprehensive and costed plan to overhaul energy in Victoria. It included phasing out our three coal power stations, building new renewables to replace them, building big batteries and other storage solutions, and of course upgrading our grid.

Mr Pearson: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, I have been listening to the member for Melbourne’s contribution. This is an environmental bill and this is a bill that relates to electricity. Can the member for Melbourne inform us whether she will be the only member of the Greens political party speaking on this bill today?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not a point of order.

Ms SANDELL: Thank you, Deputy Speaker.

Importantly our plan also begins the process of bringing our energy network back into public hands—hands that it never should have left. Energy is an essential service. All Victorians should have access to clean, reliable and cheap energy, managed in the public interest for all of us. Instead it has been left to profiteering overseas energy corporations, so it would be good to see this bill do more than give private operators more ways to rort customers in supplying our energy.

I am concerned that the cost of upgrades that may get made because of this bill will be passed on to Victorian customers. We already pay too much for our power. Instead I would like to see the state government fund and own our energy network upgrades themselves. The government in South Australia paid for the Tesla battery, for example, and it is time Victoria started taking ownership here too. Prior to the last election the Greens released our costed plan for how the government could start to bring the grid back into public hands, and we would be happy to talk with the government about cooperating to make it happen.

One final comment I would like to make while speaking to this bill is about the need to unlock renewable energy potential in Victoria’s west and north-west. There have been a number of reports that a lack of network capacity is blocking significant investment in new wind and solar projects that could build the energy equivalent of the old Hazelwood power station but with renewables. Given this, I will take this chance to ask the government whether they intend to use the new powers created by this bill to upgrade the network to unlock renewables in Victoria’s north and west, creating a jobs boom and an energy boom, and whether they will be investing the money to make this happen. It is a very commonsense solution that the government should look at and one that the Greens-initiated inquiry that has just passed through the other place will hopefully look at as well.

So I will leave my remarks there and reiterate that the Greens will be supporting this bill. I very much look forward to supporting more action in Victoria to fix our broken energy grid system.

Mr RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:46): I thought the Greens were going to give me at least a little bit more than 7 minutes and 58 seconds. We are interested in whether any more members will be speaking on this bill. We will see. Maybe the member for Melbourne, who gave a good account of the Greens position, might get the member for Brunswick and the member for Prahran in here to maybe also make a contribution. We will see. Maybe that was a triple-signed speech.

But this is a really important bit of legislation. It is part of a network of reforms to make sure that Victoria has energy security into the years ahead and decades to come, because we are in a changing landscape in energy policy. It would be remiss of me not to give a big shout-out to the member for Tarneit, who gave a great summation of the complexities in policy given her experience in a previous life of just how complex this policy area is. But I tell you what is not complex: what is not complex with this bill debate is to take some sort of position on whether you are for renewable energy and you invest in renewable energy or whether you are standing on the sidelines and still in old industries where transition is absolutely integral.

Those opposite each have a consistent speech theme. It is a similar theme to what we see from the Greens political party. You do not really see them wanting to solve the issue of debate, because then that would undermine their anti campaign or their campaign into the never-never. What the Liberal and National parties are putting forward are all the complaints about the energy sector and all the particular issues and struggles, but they are failing in their last comprehension: ‘What would we do?’.

And what would they do differently? What they took to the Victorian people about new coal-fired power stations, a very interesting interventionist policy about more funding for coal-fired power stations, goes against their values and the values they put forward as a movement and an organisation. But you cannot have a position that says, ‘Well, these are the challenges that we’ve got’, and then stop dead on the edge and not actually provide the solutions for the Victorian people. We see again that the energy policy and, I guess, the policies that have taken down two Liberal prime ministers nationally in Canberra are also plaguing the Liberal Party and National Party policy rooms as well.

We need to invest in renewable energy. We need to give certainty to industry. A solar expert out my way said a little while ago that this is like dog years in its advancement; one year is like the equivalent of seven. In the solar industry what we see in advancement of technology is really exciting. Victoria has to be forward thinking in this space. But hearing the contributions of those opposite around challenges and then their opposition to a renewable energy target in Victoria stands as a fundamental reason why they were unfit to govern and why Victorians said that they were unelectable at the last election—because you need to have a coherent policy. Maybe they have taken their lead from the Prime Minister in thinking that bringing a lump of coal into this place might give them a policy differential.

At the moment we have pressure on the system. We have catastrophic fire events undermining energy security in our state, and it is not getting better. We cannot put our head in the sand and hope for a better time. We need to act now. We need to make the bold decisions now. And of the contributions from those opposite, going through all their bill speeches, the opposition bill speeches all sound the same: ‘Oh, Labor government this, Labor government that’—it is a consistent narrative. They do not provide any alternatives other than ‘Let’s wait and see’ and ‘Let’s hope for something better’. That is all that it is; it is prayer and whims here.

It is just like the Greens political party, and I was shocked that the member for Melbourne put forward that there was a costed comprehensive plan from the Greens political party. Strewth, where is it? I should have asked for it to be tabled if it was in the chamber because, I tell you, if a job-smashing policy that eradicates industries in transition is their policy, goodness me, no Victorian will want that. The way they have talked about timber workers, the way they have talked about coal workers—those are not the values of the Victorian people. We do not smash industries and leave them behind. We support them and envelop them.

Mr Walsh: What about the timber industry?

Mr RICHARDSON: The member for Murray Plains is the king of kings at putting his head in the sand. You cannot sit on the sidelines and just hope and wait, and that is why this generation of Liberal-Nationals is best placed for opposition. It is all good to have a whinge and a whine; give us some policies, give us something of substance, not just ‘Get back in control’—a double-sided page saying, ‘We’ve got 100 costed policies, but we’ll only tell you 20’. If you do not put the ‘au’ on there, you get an incontinence message. That was the level that was dished up coming into the 59th Parliament. I mean, give me a spell. We need to look at this through a bipartisan lens. We need to both commit; both major parties need to commit to the Victorian renewable energy target because it provides that certainty.

And guess what? We had a little bit of a flurry recently. Who saw the Leader of the Opposition? He got there and said, ‘The Prime Minister has to act. The Prime Minister has to show more leadership on climate change and renewable energy’. I thought, ‘Hang on, this is like The Twilight Zone here. What’s going on?’. It was the Leader of the Opposition standing up for climate change action, standing up for action on renewable energy. Well, come in here, Leader of the Opposition, support this bill, support the transition of industries and support renewable energy. That is the challenge. That is the challenge of leadership. Admit your mistakes. We were promised, coming into the 59th Parliament, that the new way of the Liberal Party was coming forward. Well, let us do it on renewable energy policy and let us have true bipartisanship and, as Victorians, let us provide a shining example to the rest of the nation that we can get an energy policy right in a bipartisan frame, not have the risk to the industry of some harebrained idea that the state was going to fund another coal-fired power station. That was the what the former Leader of the Opposition put forward in policies.

Remember that infamous interview with the Liberal candidate for Frankston, the infamous interview about, ‘Oh, well, David Speers, we might fund it, we might not. We’re going to leave it to the market’. Well, guess what? The market is not providing a line of credit to new coal-fired power stations. But that was a symptom, one, of probably the talking points not being right that day and, two, of the absolute policy inertia of those opposite in that space.

So when Victorians consider some of the challenges that they face in cost of living and in energy security, and when we have more unprecedented weather events—be they in extremes of flood, be they in extremes of fire and heatwaves—the stress on our network and the stress from natural disasters will continue to play out. This is why we have this legislation and this is why we need to act to provide security for Victorians going forward, because we have seen that policy inertia will cost jobs. While we talk about job losses in the industry in terms of the closing of coal-fired power stations and the need to support those communities, on the flip side we are missing the opportunity of not being first movers in climate change policy and in renewable energy investment. That is what the renewable energy target is about. At the grassroots level there is excitement in our local community about solar on homes and putting a power station in every person’s household. It signs up 700 000 households with solar panels across the next decade.

That is the vision and leadership that we need to lower people’s power bills, because inaction is a cost in itself. And when you quantify that over the next five years, over the next 10 years, we see that communities will be put back further and communities will suffer into the future. That is the challenge for those opposite to confront. We have answered that policy question. We had fully costed policies in renewable energy and climate change going through to that election. That provided a signal to the industry going forward. And it should not be up for debate. As Victorians, and indeed across the Parliament, maybe we can show leadership like we have in economic policy, where we are the engine room of the nation’s economy. Maybe it is time that this Parliament, the 59th Parliament of Victoria, showed true leadership and said to the Prime Minister and the opposition leader, ‘This is how Victoria runs their show. This is how we get through on bipartisan policy and set up our future for our kids and generations to come’.

We know the problems of the past. The privatisation of the system are the cards that we have been dealt right now, but we cannot allow policy inertia, just hope that it might get better and do minor tweaks around the network. We also need to make sure that, with the exciting abundance of job creation and renewable energy that we see and the extreme amount of megawatts coming on—I will say the numbers, I am not too sure how many households they all power, but the extreme amount of over 1000 megawatts coming online in renewable energy, that is extraordinary excitement as well—plugs into the grids and powers households, communities and businesses into the future.

This is part of a suite of policies that the Andrews Labor government has put forward. This bill is really important when we think of the more than 200 000 kilometres of network interconnected. It is truly remarkable infrastructure in its complexity, but also in its prosperity for our nation and where it has seen us get to now. But we cannot, as Victorians, look backwards. We need to look forwards, and this is what this bill is all about. It will provide that prosperity going forward, and allow us to make those investments and not be tied up in the federal bureaucracy that we have seen plague bureaucracy, statutory authorities and the federal commonwealth government for many years.

Mr DIMOPOULOS (Oakleigh) (16:56): It gives me great pleasure to speak on this very, very important bill. I want to pick up on the member for Essendon’s contribution, when he said we have run out of time. That is not me as a layperson saying it. We have run out of time in terms of not tipping the balance even further against the livability of the planet. I think the member for Essendon said it well when he talked about—I do not want to verbal him—something to the effect of a whole bunch of people like us feeling that we were doing a significant amount of work in relation to cleaning up the environment, in investing in alternative clean energy sources and trying to reduce carbon emissions or keep to a limit, set globally, of 1.5 per cent or 2 per cent at the upper end, and that that would be in some way sufficient.

After the bushfires there was a very visceral response from all of us, and a very tragic situation for many, many Victorians. I had a few meetings with constituents in my office after the bushfires, and there was a different tone. They were good people who were always concerned about the environmental challenges and always advocating for more and better environmental investment in clean energy and environmental issues, but the tone of those conversations at the bushfires, or in the midst of them in fact, was quite different.

This is, for me, a different tone also in terms of the debate here today, unfortunately. It is disappointing that the opposition look for any fig leaf they can get their hands on to use to resist supporting legislation or initiatives that shine a path to a clean energy future. This is yet another example of where they have done this, and on really, really flimsy grounds. So what I say to the broader Victorian community, and what the government says to the broader Victorian community, is that this is one element of a suite of measures—legislative, regulatory and in terms of budget-funding decisions—from across the board. Whether it is the reverse auction scheme, the solar panels on roofs of Victorian homes or the embellishment of the act that the EPA, the Environment Protection Authority Victoria, works under—in fact two acts I think I have spoken to in relation to the EPA embellishing its powers and functions as well as its budget—this is yet another element or a suite of elements that shows the Andrews Labor government is very, very concerned and very serious in its commitment to address these global challenges. We can only do it for the state of Victoria, but by doing it for the state of Victoria we hope to show leadership and give a bit of hope to future generations of Victorians that they are in, as far as possible, safe hands under this government in terms of the environment and further environmental degradation.

In relation to the member for Ripon and one of the comments that she made in this debate on this bill and the hyperbole that we have come to expect from people in the opposition, I think she said something to the effect that this bill throws out the entire regulatory regime—I think she used those words—in relation to the national energy market. Then she said, ‘This is what you get when you rush headlong into clean energy’. I found that very, very odd. There would be many critics out there saying we have not rushed—no government, not just our government—enough. The rush should have been 50 years ago, let alone 20 years ago. But the criticism about rushing headlong, I do not know where she has been in the last few years and in the last few months in terms of the environmental concern expressed globally by leaders and community members alike. But also, in terms of throwing out the regulatory framework, the minister was clear in her second-reading speech that what this does is provide a second option for the Victorian community and for the Victorian government should the national system as it exists—through Australian Energy Market Operator and the national grid—not work in our favour, in embellishing the infrastructure that we rely on to get energy from where it is created to the end user. So far there have been examples of where it is not keeping up with our investments and the needs of our community.

Our investments are enormous in this space. Since we were elected in 2014 we have been resolutely focused on providing reliable, affordable and clean energy. A key word is ‘affordable’. The other side comment again, and they fearmonger, whether it be on crime or a whole bunch of other things, such as the cost of living. They fearmonger on the price of energy without looking at what we are trying to do, which is not only to help the environment but to deepen supply so energy prices come down.

We deepen supply by creating more energy through different industries and in different forms. We deepen supply by creating further competition in the market, and one of the key aspects of competition is that the consumer is knowledgeable and understands where the bargains are. Hence the Victorian Energy Compare website, which the Victorian government set up to help the consumer navigate the complex energy market, providing the default offer initiative and driving the $50 refund or bonus for people who use the Victorian Energy Compare website—a whole range of initiatives that are aimed at providing more affordable and competitive energy and energy that is also provided through a clean energy source.

We have supercharged the deployment of renewable energy across Victoria, as the minister has said many times in this Parliament. I recall when the member for Bulleen was the Minister for Planning and the planning restrictions that he placed across regional Victoria which effectively did most of the state out of wind farms. We have got rid of those. We have renewable generators pumping out clean energy across our state, with many more developers eager to build clean energy infrastructure and a strong renewables supply chain flourishing in regional Victoria. For example, for the first time in a decade we had wind turbines being assembled in Australia, and I think that was, from memory, in an old factory where automobiles had been produced. So isn’t that a change for industry and for society, where the plant previously dedicated to emissions-producing vehicles is now turned over to wind turbine creation.

We have done a whole range of work, for example, in relation to this. I think the previous speaker touched on this, but since our election in 2014, 18 different projects providing 1200 megawatts of renewable energy capacity have become operational. We have got 14 renewable energy projects currently under construction or undergoing commissioning, which will provide over 2600 megawatts of renewable energy once they are complete, and a whole range of other initiatives.

But what is perhaps more important in my view is the leadership shown not just in this state, in Victoria, through statutes like the Climate Change Act 2017—the first ever act of its kind in any Australian jurisdiction, setting targets in statute, hopefully going further post the Combet report and the staged targets we have to come up with next month—there is the leadership we have shown and particularly that the minister has shown nationally. I remember commenting on this, and I think it is still the case now, but at some point she was the only female energy minister in the country when they had the council of energy ministers. What an emblematic vision that is for this government, both progressive in terms of gender and public and social policy issues and progressive in terms of energy, clean energy and the national energy market.

As the member for Mordialloc said, what we are saying to the national government and to the Victorian community with this bill is that we are taking some control over something that is too important for a national system that has failed us on some accounts, as has been laid out previously by the minister in this chamber in question time and in other responses and also in her second-reading speech. We are not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We are keeping the national grid, and we are keeping the national energy system. But we are saying because it has not kept up the pace of Victorian community demands and needs, the growth in the Victorian community and the growth in renewable energy we will provide another option—a lawful, legal option through a change in statute in the Victorian Parliament—to provide our government, through consultation with the minister, the Premier and the Treasurer, with the option to expedite major infrastructure improvements for transmission of energy, and particularly clean energy, from its source to its user. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr FOWLES (Burwood) (17:06): It is my very great pleasure to rise to make a contribution on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. This is a bill that speaks to the seriousness of this government’s agenda when it comes to addressing dangerous climate change, when it comes to deploying renewables as quickly and as effectively as we can and when it comes to reducing the very heavy reliance we have had historically as a state on brown coal-fired electricity. These are not insignificant challenges—far from insignificant challenges. But only Labor has the wherewithal to take them up, because Labor is the only party that is absolutely united around the very simple premise that climate change is real, that it is human induced and that it warrants a serious public policy response.

For those reasons we are quite sensibly seeking to address all of the blocks, all of the matters that might contribute to not being able to deploy renewables as fast as humanly possible. When it comes to the blocks to new renewable projects entering the system, there are a number. There is the way in which businesses broadly are incentivised to reduce their carbon use. We had a very sensible carbon pollution reduction scheme once in this country. That of course was a Labor government’s response to climate change, and during the period that the CPRS was in place our national carbon emissions went down. The only period in the past 60 years where carbon pollution has come down year on year was when the CPRS was in place. It is no accident; that was the design of the scheme. That was its intended purpose, and it worked. It worked because it used a market-based mechanism to price the disutility of carbon entering the atmosphere. That is a sensible way of going about it, and it is a very great shame that the reactionary, right-wing Abbott government saw fit to dismantle what was very, very good public policy.

This bill seeks to address another block to the uptake of renewables. I have spoken about the pricing of carbon. Regrettably as a state government we cannot control carbon pricing. That is a matter that is best handled—that really can only be handled—by the federal Parliament. But what we can do is make sure that there are no structural issues in the grid regarding adapting, adopting and bringing forward new renewables projects. This bill moves Victoria in the right direction because we are at an important fork in the road on our pathway to renewables. This is a government that has looked forward. We have got a target of 50 per cent renewables by 2030. That is in just 10 years time. We will achieve it. It is an ambitious target but we will achieve it, consistent with our record of achievement in this space since we were voted into office.

We have some incredible clean energy projects underway in the state of Victoria at the moment. Some of these projects themselves are being constrained at a project level, and some of the potential new projects are being constrained from being brought to market, and that is because the energy grid is no longer fit for purpose. It is a grid that was designed as hub and spoke—that is, a grid where all the generation happened in the Latrobe Valley and was transmitted to Melbourne and onwards to Alcoa in Portland—which I think is about a 15 per cent consumer of the entire state’s energy—and then via less intensive power infrastructure to the north of our state. Whilst the development of wind power in the west is relatively well serviced by transmission infrastructure, Sunraysia, the Mildura area, north-central Victoria, the Central Highlands—these areas are not well serviced by transmission infrastructure. They are not set up to be bringing power back down from those areas into Melbourne. The risk of not having the right infrastructure in place is that the industry renewables investment, particularly solar investment, comes to a grinding halt.

I want to share a specific example of how the Victorian transmission system is currently failing to accommodate renewable energy projects. The Environment and Planning Committee, of which I am a member along with a number of other members of this place, is currently conducting an inquiry into community responses to climate change. We had public hearings in Shepparton a few weeks ago—or Mooroopna, more specifically. We heard from Geoff Lodge, who is the CEO of GV Community Energy. Mr Lodge told us that GV Community Energy is a not-for-profit social enterprise and started out as a volunteer organisation aiming to broker bulk purchase agreements for solar systems for families, particularly for low-income families. This was a response to the prohibitive cost of those solar systems, a difficulty facing low-income families that this government has recognised by introducing the Solar Homes program.

That was how GV Community Energy started their life, but they have evolved to take on utility-scale projects within their local government area, including a 21-megawatt project on council land in Mooroopna, and even outside of their own LGA a 50-megawatt project in Moira shire. Fifty megawatts is pretty significant. When it comes to community-scale renewable projects, once you are into 50 megawatts to 100 megawatts these are pretty significant projects. But in their case they have hit a roadblock, and that roadblock is the Victorian transmission network. The grid is constrained. Some of these projects are only operating at about 50 per cent capacity—that is, they are generating, let us say, 50 megawatts of electricity but are only able to get 25 of it out and into the grid.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has instructed that these projects be redesigned and recommissioned. So it is not actually just the theoretical pipeline of projects that is coming down the pipe, it is the projects that are physically in the ground that are being told to restructure the way they transmit energy and restructure the way they interface with the grid because of deficiencies in the grid itself. That is going to have a profound impact on those projects and on the investors in those projects. It is a very costly process to be redesigning and redeveloping a utility-scale project, and that is going to hammer confidence in the sector.

So what do we need to do in response to that? AEMO arguably have a governance structure that is a bit challenging when it comes to innovation. There is an Australian energy market commissioner, who makes the rules, there is the Australian Energy Regulator, who enforces the rules, and then there is the Australian Energy Market Operator, who runs all that interface with the grid. It will surprise you not at all that that is not exactly a recipe for bureaucratic ease, shall I say. For that reason there are enormous difficulties in getting these projects up and getting them up in an efficient way.

What we see at the moment is that AEMO is structurally bound to apply a network efficiency test and only to respond to market pressure for particular things. What they are unable to do at the moment is actually plan. So if we as a government can recognise that Sunraysia—and the clue is in the name—is going to deliver a whole lot of solar energy ultimately back to Melbourne, then we can plan a network system and a series of network upgrades to Sunraysia in anticipation of the projects, rather than the AEMO model, which is to only build transmission capacity in response to projects. This is the difference between proactivity and reactivity, and as members to my right well know, when reactivity is the name of the game you just end up in a mire of spinelessness and a lack of policy ambition, I will say. So it is very important then that we move to a model that allows the government to set a set of priorities to make sure that the grid adapts in advance of these new transmission capabilities coming onstream.

Can I conclude by thanking the member for Polwarth for his weather update earlier. Once again the coalition are confusing weather with climate and confusing dispatchable power with transient power sources and just what you need to run an effective grid. The reality is this: if we do not make the transition to renewable energy, if we do not seize this opportunity, if we do not take seriously the challenges of climate change, we will be grossly abdicating our responsibilities as parliamentarians and as a government, and that is not something that is going to happen on the Andrews Labor government’s watch.

Mr CHEESEMAN (South Barwon) (17:16): It is with some pleasure that today I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. In reflecting on this particular bill and particularly the contribution made by the member for Ripon I started recalling the approach adopted by Tony Abbott when he was the Prime Minister and Joe Hockey when he was the federal Treasurer of this country when they set out to actively push the car industry out of our country and indeed out of our state. It occurred to me in listening to the member for Ripon’s contribution that I suspect deep down she actually wants to achieve the exact same thing; she wants to see renewable energy chased out of this country. In understanding, as I do very clearly, western Victoria, that will have a profound consequence in terms of the jobs within her electorate.

I was also reflecting on further federal government policy, particularly the four different sets of energy policy that they have had within this country over the last three or four years. I listened very intently to my colleague the member for Burwood in respect of how the national energy market is run and the bureaucratic mess that it is, and it occurred to me that it is no wonder the national energy market operator is so risk averse. It is not surprising, really, particularly given that the national government has had four sets of energy policy over that time and it would make it almost impossible for the national energy market regulator to be able to properly set up government-led investment to ensure the opportunity to generate renewable energy and to deploy it through a modern network.

It also occurred to me in reading this bill that, as many have reflected, we have had a very centralised energy generation system where effectively we have generated electricity in East Gippsland and through our network pushed that energy supply to the west, picking up Victoria’s population. For many years we were very, very fortunate that we had a network that effectively ran from about Cressy, just out of Geelong and Ballarat, almost all of the way down to Portland, and that was put in place as a consequence of a Labor government supporting Alcoa. Through innovative Labor governments we have encouraged the deployment of renewable energy across that ‘pleurisy plain’ down towards Alcoa in far south-west Victoria.

Over particularly the last five years there has been a massive uptake in renewable energy throughout the whole of the state, and as a consequence of that and as a consequence of a network that was built with the realities that energy would largely be generated in Gippsland and pushed to the west, it is unsurprising that we have discovered all sorts of different challenges with the grid. In fact right now there is renewable energy that investors want to generate, they want to contribute to that transition to renewable energy, but the grid as we currently know it is not designed to enable that.

As a consequence of that mess that has been energy policy out of Canberra our very innovative energy minister has decided that legislative intervention is required to provide that certainty to the market operator that appropriate investments into building a modern network will enable us to deploy renewable energy to the extent that we have sought to do. It is important that we continue this particular journey. It is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, this government of course accepts the science of climate change, but we also accept the realities of the market. From the Labor government’s perspective I am sure absolutely everyone within the government is absolutely keen to put downward pressure on energy prices, and we are absolutely keen to put in place a modern grid that is able to deploy that renewable energy throughout the whole of the state of Victoria.

When we reflect on the profound journey we have been on over the last 10 years and the profound reality that the old coal-fired power stations have been in place for a long time—they are experiencing significant challenges for those that own them in terms of being able to maintain those particular assets and they are all, over the next decade or two, coming to the end of their lives—we need to continue on the path that has been laid out by the Andrews government to generate that additional supply, because it is great for our climate, it is great for our environment, it is great for household energy costs, but also it is a reflection that we are moving to renewable technologies and that means a much, much more decentralised grid.

As I said, I listened quite intently to the contribution made by the member for Ripon. Anyone who has travelled west of Ballarat through Ararat and Stawell and places like that well knows that that part of the state is generating today, and has been generating for the last decade or so, a significant volume of renewable energy. It just reminded me, her contribution, of those aspirations and views of the Abbott government and of course of Joe Hockey when he was the federal Treasurer, when they actively sought to drive out of this country and particularly this state the car industry. I think the member for Ripon has that very same ambition for the renewable energy sector, and I think that is an absolute reality.

We are not going to allow that to happen. We are going to put in place the appropriate regulation to give certainty to the Australian Market Energy Operator to ensure that we can derisk renewable energy in this state so that we can see a massive take-up of it over the next few decades. The Andrews Labor government I think has shown in very powerful and direct ways the opportunities that very clearly exist across the whole of Australia. I am sure that as a consequence of the approach that we have adopted, in the next few decades we will see far, far cheaper energy prices in this state in comparison to other states that have not commenced the journey to the extent that we have. I commend the minister and this bill to the house.

Mr HAMER (Box Hill) (17:26): It is also a pleasure for me to rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. I am particularly pleased to follow two of my colleagues from the Environment and Planning Committee. As the member for Burwood noted, we are currently conducting an inquiry into community responses to climate change where this issue is front and centre.

In terms of the particulars of the bill, the amendments contained in the bill are intended to facilitate and expedite transmission system augmentation to deal with an issue that has cropped up in terms of the national regulation of the transmission system and getting some of those augmentations to the existing transmission system through at a national level.

The reason this is important is, I guess at a global level for me, it is what we are doing in the state on renewable energy. You look at the huge investment that the Andrews government has made in the Solar Homes program: $1.3 billion, 770 000 households at the end of the program that will benefit from solar panels, solar batteries or solar hot water systems. Of course last year we legislated the Victorian renewable energy target, a 50 per cent target by 2030. As the member for South Barwon said, there has been enormous investment in the technology and the manufacture of the equipment required for renewable energy projects, particularly down at the former Ford factory site in Geelong but also down in Portland where the wind turbines are being manufactured.

All of this is occurring as a result of the investment signals that the government is giving to the market and to the industry about our support for the renewable energy industry and the direction that we need to go in order to not only deal with the significant issue of climate change but also deal with the cost of electricity. To make all of these renewable energy initiatives occur we need to have a framework in place that actually allows them to happen.

If we look at the current transmission network, the power stations in the Latrobe Valley were set up around about 100 years ago, and for many years they provided the vast majority of power to the state with the key transmission lines coming into Melbourne. In the 1980s that 500-kilovolt line was extended through to Portland with an arrangement with the Alcoa aluminium smelter down there.

But since the 1980s there has been substantial change. In the 1990s the network was privatised, and the legislation that we are seeking to amend, the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005, was introduced in 2005. Even in these last 15 years there has been an enormous change to the structure of the industry. At that time the amount of renewable energy in the state was very small. It would have still been dominated by the hydro-electric schemes in north-east Victoria. Certainly the solar industry was nowhere near as developed as it is today. So we did have a steady state system, a largely single-source system that was coming from one pocket of the state and distributing electricity widely.

One of the changes that we have noticed is not just that the distribution system has changed but that the Latrobe Valley, the traditional source of power in this state, is a great source of neither wind nor solar. It actually has one of the lowest solar exposure rates across the country. This is why when you look at the Australian Energy Market Operator investment map—I am not sure if I have got the exact terminology correct—they identify all of the energy plants at various stages: are they at an inquiry stage, are they at an application stage, are they at an operation stage? The vast majority at the inquiry or application stages are in the northern region—the Sunraysia region and north-central Victoria—where the solar exposure is much greater.

As was mentioned by the member for Burwood, when we were up in the Goulburn Valley a few weeks ago this was specifically raised as an issue. There are a number of solar energy plants that have been built and are operational but are not generating the power that they could generate simply because of issues with the grid. Fundamentally we need to be able to unlock those barriers to make sure that we can not only meet and exceed the renewable energy targets that the state has set but drive investment further because this is where developers and investors want to head. We have got the solar resource in northern Victoria, and we should be maximising the use of that through allowing the transmission system to be upgraded as soon as reasonably practical and not have unnecessary barriers in the way.

During 2019 Victoria had between 1000 and 1650 megawatts offline almost 30 per cent of the time. That is an enormous amount of generating capacity that we are not using. We need to look to a reliable system and offer that flexibility. If the transmission network is not available, then we are not using our assets to the fullest advantage.

I know I have got some time left, but I think really, to summarise my contribution to the debate on this bill, the transmission system in this state does need to be built and does need to be maintained to actually suit a changing market. That changing market is going to be a more distributed network, a more agile network, a more nimble network. That will require investment, but it requires investment in the most appropriate and most timely fashion. We cannot be putting in barriers at this stage to prevent that investment, because we need to unlock that resource that we have. On that I commend the bill to the house.

Ms EDWARDS (Bendigo West) (17:36): I am really pleased to speak on this very important bill before the house today, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. I was reflecting on why I would say it is an important bill. It is an important bill because this is something we actually have to do to make sure that we are no longer encumbered by federal regulations that hinder progress when it comes to renewable energy investment. But there is another reason for it, and that of course is that climate change is upon us. It is upon us right now, and it is increasing the frequency, severity and length of our summer heatwaves and the intensity of our fire conditions, and that is putting pressure on the energy systems in this state and indeed in New South Wales as well.

As people might recall, just recently the Bureau of Meteorology said 2019 was the hottest and driest year on record with the mean maximum temperature for Australia being more than 2 degrees Celsius above the average. Of course that produced some of the worst fire conditions we have ever seen in this state. And of course as the temperature rises so too does the electricity demand, and that places more pressure on the electricity system to deliver reliable electricity supplies. However, Victoria’s ageing coal-fired generators have repeatedly let Victoria down. This means that during high-demand periods interconnectors to neighbouring states are also of increased importance.

These reforms are about allowing the government to override the very complex and very outdated national regulatory regime, which causes excessive delays in delivering transmission projects and fails to properly account for the full benefits of the investments. When you think about the level of business and investment here in Victoria, it is unprecedented. The Victorian renewable energy target (VRET) will ensure that 25 per cent of the state’s electricity generation comes from renewable resources by this year, with 40 per cent by 2025 and 50 per cent by 2030. Australia is also forecast to attract $36 billion in renewable energy investment by 2020—that is this year. People may remember that the Victorian renewable energy auction scheme, the results of which were announced last year in September, brought forward 928 megawatts of projects—almost 45 per cent more power than originally anticipated. Added to this of course is the number of new private-sector-led developments, creating exciting supply chains and opportunities for our Victorian industries.

The VRET auction projects were estimated to deliver $1.1 billion of economic investment in regional Victoria, which is exciting for me as a regional member because I have always said, ever since I was elected to this place, that regional Victoria will be the powerhouse of renewable investment. And this has played out very much so over the last five years in particular since the Labor Party came to government. It has created more than 900 jobs, including 270 apprenticeships and traineeships. The Victorian industry is in a really strong position right now, in particular to advance the delivery of wind and solar energy facilities and to support their operations by drawing on the state’s already extensive renewable energy resources, pivotal positioning within the national electricity market, an experienced and advanced manufacturing industry and a highly skilled workforce. So we are well placed to continue to deliver and to invest in renewable energy.

However, the reason for this bill of course is that this progress relies on a robust transmission grid that is evolving to meet the demands of the energy system and is able to efficiently move electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. Unfortunately the national electricity laws indeed have let us down, and investment in the transmission grid is way too slow. The process is too narrow, and the best interests of Victorians are too often forgotten. We are already seeing the impact of this lack of investment on Victoria’s reliability and our capacity to continue to bring online much-needed investments in renewable energy. Timely transmission investments are vital if we are to increase the supply of low-cost renewables to Victorians, raise the storage capacity and utilise available imported energy from other states to help meet the diverse demand, particularly during peak periods.

We are not willing to sit on our hands while we face some of these challenges. Victorians elected us to act, and that is exactly what we are going to do to keep building on our renewable investment, to continue to deliver a reliable energy supply and to make sure that we are making the long-term investments that will safeguard our state’s economic future. That is exactly why we have introduced this bill.

In Victoria a transformation to a renewable energy economy, realised by clean energy technology and future-aware policies, is gathering pace. But it cannot continue at pace unless these changes are made. We have very easy access in this state to world-class renewable energy resources. We have got wind, we have got solar, we have got marine and biofuels, and we have got an advanced manufacturing base, with everything from wind turbines and wind towers to solar hot water systems—systems made locally, I might add. That is all supported by a state with a world-class infrastructure and leading research capability—all thanks to the Andrews Labor government.

Regional Victoria, as I said, is home to the state’s major areas of renewable energy generation, and it plays and will continue to play into the future an important role in adding momentum to the clean energy trend. For example, two regional Victorian projects have won the right to build 100 megawatts of wind farms to indirectly supply Canberra, the nation’s capital, with renewable energy. By this year Canberra plans to meet 90 per cent of its energy needs with renewables. Victoria’s highly skilled workforce and its capable, advanced manufacturing sector are well placed to meet the challenges of these and other new renewable energy investment opportunities.

What some people might not know is that the government released the Wind and Solar Facilities: Victorian Business Supply Chain Directory, which details the breadth of companies currently operating in Victoria or companies who have the capability to establish or operate renewable energy sector facilities. This has come about as a consequence of responding to the demand for clean energy. The government has implemented an energy efficiency scheme to improve the energy efficiency of homes, of businesses and of public buildings. Energy consumers across the state can receive discounts and special offers on selected energy-saving products and appliances installed at homes, businesses and other non-residential premises. The bigger the greenhouse gas reduction the bigger the consumer’s potential savings. The government has also established a $20 million New Energy Jobs Fund, which offers grants to firms specialising in new energy technology.

Of course here in Victoria we have world-class universities producing more graduates than any other state in fields such as engineering and ICT, and investors will find it easy to engage the skilled workforce they need to support their new energy technology products. This bill is about ensuring that Victoria has the capacity well into the future to get on with what we started. What we started was generating renewable energies across the state, whether it be our solar-powered trams here in Melbourne—a great initiative—our fantastic wind farms or our community energy projects. Of course in my electorate in Bendigo we have had some fantastic community energy projects. In particular, with the help of the Bendigo Sustainability Group we installed solar panels on the badminton stadium, and we also ensured that there were a number of social houses that were able to install solar panels.

This just makes so much sense. We cannot allow the slowness of the regulations that are currently happening at the federal level to delay what we know has to happen for two reasons, as I said at the beginning of this contribution. One, because we need to get on with renewable investment, which brings more jobs and generates an economy that is strong and robust; and also because climate change is here and we need to act on it now. For years this cumbersome federal regulatory framework has caused excessive delays. It has caused excessive delays in delivering modern, clean energy transmission projects. Right now the whole process can take up to two years. We cannot wait that long. In another two years who knows how many degrees global warming will have increased by? We need to get on with it now.

I congratulate the minister for bringing this bill before the house and taking this initiative to go it alone. If we have to, we will go it alone outside of the federal government regulations, where we need to, to make sure that we invest in renewable energies into the future.

Mr STAIKOS (Bentleigh) (17:46): While it gives me great pleasure to rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020, I do grieve that we still do not have bipartisanship in this space. It is certainly regrettable that the opposition will not be supporting this important bill. It is regrettable, but it is not surprising because this is just a continuation of their ideologically driven crusade against renewable energy, against investing in renewable energy, against tackling climate change.

To quote the great PJ Keating, they are a bunch of ‘pre-Copernican obscurantists’. Now, of course Paul Keating made that reference to Tony Abbott, and in my view there has been no-one in this country who has set tackling climate change in Australia back, who has set investment in renewable energy back, more than that anti-science Prime Minister that we had for around two years. The fact of the matter is that in opposing this government’s ambitious renewable energy targets, in opposing this government’s tackling of climate change, in opposing all of this government’s environmental initiatives—including their friends in the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) recently calling our four bins policy ‘conscription’ of all things—what we are seeing again is those opposite, for base ideological reasons, for their obsession with coal, not doing the right thing by supporting a bill that will actually unlock the massive investment in renewable energy in this state.

Their charge against renewables, we know, is that renewables are unreliable. Well, here we have a bill that will make renewables more reliable because it will go around the national process that we know to be outdated—and here they are opposing it again. I listened to a few of their contributions. I listened to the member for Warrandyte, their lead speaker. The member for Warrandyte said, ‘Why are we taking our own path?’. We are taking our own path because the national framework has proven time and time again to be deficient. We are a government that is leading Australia when it comes to renewable energy, like no other state and certainly not like the federal government. Therefore we sometimes will need to go around that process and to expedite the upgrading of our transmission infrastructure to make sure that our renewable energy gets to where it needs to go and to make sure that we can continue to import power and to send it interstate in times of need.

I would have thought that after the recent terrible bushfires that we have had, not only in our state but across Australia, not only wiping out billions of animals but also threatening our power supply, that perhaps the Liberals and their friends in the National Party would have had a change of heart. But of course that was not to be. Again, for base ideological reasons, they have come in here and they have opposed a bill that was going to increase reliability, upgrade our antiquated transmission system and make sure that we harness this historic investment in renewable energy—in wind power, in solar power. Unfortunately the opposition did not see fit to support this bill.

Then we heard from the member for Ripon, who said that this bill will push up the cost of power in this state. This is a bill that will actually increase supply in this state. It will mean we will be able to get this renewable energy across the grid. It will increase supply. How on earth will it then push up prices?

They have thrown everything against this. As I said, it is like their friends in the IPA, who are ideologically driven, like the Prime Minister of Australia, who took a lump of coal into the House of Representatives. There are still people in this world who believe that the earth is flat. In fact they meet; they are quite active in London, as I understand it.

Ms Ryan: Speaker, I just want to take the opportunity to draw your attention to the state of the house.

Quorum formed.

Mr STAIKOS: I thank the member for Euroa for bringing my colleagues in to hear this absolutely amazing oration. Thank you so much, member for Euroa. I was a bit worried because the member for Ripon did not have anyone from her side of the house listening to her speech. She cut a lonely figure in here for 10 minutes, unfortunately.

This bill is so important because, as I said, it will unlock the potential of our substantial renewable energy investment since this government has been in power.

A member interjected.

Mr STAIKOS: I was talking about the flat-earthers because they meet now and again. They still believe the earth is flat, and they also believe that everything that NASA says and does is a hoax. In many years to come there will be another society. It will be the Climate Change is a Hoax Society, and it will be attended by members of the IPA and it will be attended by members opposite who think that the jury is still out on these things.

So I do mean it when I say that I do grieve that the opposition are not supporting this bill, because climate change is so important. I know that Australians and Victorians are increasingly of that view. You cannot go through one of the worst bushfire seasons we have ever been through and think that there is not something unusual that is happening here and that it is business as usual. Whether or not you believe that humans contribute to climate change—which they absolutely do; the science is settled on that—you would submit, to yourself at least, that the climate is changing, that bushfire seasons are going to be longer and more severe, and you would want to do something about it.

I am going to use the last couple of minutes that I have available to me to demonstrate exactly how incoherent the Liberal Party’s energy policy is. Do we remember the Liberal candidate for Frankston? This is an interview between Michael Lamb and David Speers:

SPEERS: … there’d be a new power station paid for by the state—

LAMB: By the private sector, yep.

SPEERS: Oh, by the private sector.

LAMB: We’ll tender to the sector, whatever the market decides, we’ll tender out.

SPEERS: They can do that already, can’t they?

LAMB: Who’s that?

SPEERS: The private sector can build a power station if they want.

LAMB: Well, they haven’t been allowed to under this government.

SPEERS: Haven’t been allowed to—

LAMB: Build a power station.

SPEERS: Well, there’s all sorts of renewables and wind power. What are you saying?

LAMB: Whatever is the most reliable and affordable—the market will determine that.

SPEERS: But that’s what I’m saying, the market determines that every day, don’t they? What are you saying you’d do differently?

LAMB: The tender process will be building a power station.

SPEERS: A tender process for what? For the government—

LAMB: The lowest base power, yeah.

SPEERS: So, the taxpayer would fund—

LAMB: No, no, it’s private industry.

SPEERS: But they can do that already.

LAMB: Well, they haven’t.

SPEERS: What would the government do?

LAMB: We will allow them to do it.

SPEERS: But with their own money?

LAMB: Yes.

SPEERS: They’re allowed to do that now.

LAMB: Well, they’re not, are they?

SPEERS: Why not?

LAMB: I don’t know.

SPEERS: Hang on, I’m just confused. What changes?

LAMB: What changes is we will tender to get the lowest base power we can get and we will get a power station built.

SPEERS: Sorry, tender to purchase the power itself?

LAMB: No, to build the power station.

SPEERS: But you’re not building it.

LAMB: No, the private sector will.

SPEERS: Okay, so the private sector can go and build a power station today.

LAMB: Well, they haven’t, though, have they? Haven’t been allowed to under this government.

SPEERS: I’m a little confused.

LAMB: Well they’ve closed power stations in this government.

SPEERS: Well, Hazelwood closed.

LAMB: They tripled the brown coal tax. Any wonder …

SPEERS: I’m just trying to establish what the Liberals would change to see a new coal-fired power station opened?

LAMB: I’m not saying it is going to be—

SPEERS: Or a new power station.

LAMB: You’re putting words in my mouth … It may well be renewable energy. Whatever the market determines.

He ends with:

LAMB: Sorry.

Mr BRAYNE (Nepean) (17:56): Today I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. It is good to follow the member for Bentleigh. I remember that interview, and I knew at the time that the member for Frankston was coming home after that one. It was a great interview.

A member interjected.

Mr BRAYNE: Yes, that is right.

I am proud to be a member of a government that is focused on providing reliable, affordable and clean energy for Victorians. We have introduced major reforms to make energy fairer. This includes slashing standing offers through the Victorian default offer and making it easier to find a better deal through Victorian Energy Compare. We have also worked to make sure private generators are available when we need them most and pushed for new rules to allow the energy market operator to find cheaper, more reliable sources of emergency supply.

But the measure I am most proud of is the fact that the Andrews Labor government has supercharged the deployment of renewable energy across Victoria. In fact my electorate of Nepean has had one of the highest uptakes of solar panels across the state. Again, I am proud that we have made investments in grid-scale batteries, energy efficiency and household solar, which is transforming the way that people use power in Victoria.

A strong renewable supply chain relies on a robust transmission grid that is evolving to meet the demands of the energy system and is able to efficiently move electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. This bill will bring online more timely upgrades to Victoria’s transmission system. This will mean Victoria will have an alternative pathway to bring forward the investment we need in the transmission system, cut through red tape and fast-track urgent investment like grid-scale batteries. The transmission network allows us to share power with other states. This is vitally important as both demand and supply for Victoria can vary greatly between states. These links sit at the heart of the national electricity market.

As much as this bill is about energy reliability, it is another reminder, not that we need one, of how important it is for governments at all levels—federal, state and council—to take action on climate change and invest in renewables. The Andrews Labor government has delivered unprecedented investment in Victoria’s renewable energy sector and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation. Since the Andrews government was elected in 2014, 18 different projects providing over 1000 megawatts of new renewable energy capacity have become operational. We also have 14 renewable energy projects currently under construction or undergoing commissioning. They will provide a further 2600 megawatts of renewable energy once they are completed.

Sadly, the failure of the national government to keep up with changing circumstances is imposing its own costs on consumers. That is why investments in renewables are so important. We have a strong pipeline of projects being developed across our state, with over 4000 megawatts of new projects receiving planning approval under our government. This renewables boom has been driven by our stronger renewable energy targets, which we recently increased to 50 per cent by 2030.

A member interjected.

Mr BRAYNE: An incredible policy, one that we went to the election with. It is one that the Liberals promised to scrap. They promised to scrap the renewable energy target at the 2018 state election, a promise that swung seats like Nepean because people in Nepean care about the environment. They care about climate change.

Ms Addison: They certainly do.

Mr BRAYNE: I am glad to hear some support from my colleague the member for Wendouree. This new target will create over 24 400 jobs in Victoria. These projects have delivered significant benefits across Victoria.

The government is also putting power stations on the roofs of Victorian homes through the Solar Homes program, which will see solar panels, solar hot water or solar batteries rolled out to 770 000 Victorian households over the next 10 years. But all of this investment will be undermined if we cannot connect these new renewable generators to the grid.

The story from those opposite on renewables is really appalling. I certainly concur with the member for Bentleigh’s comment that he wishes this was a bipartisan effort. If the opposition had its way, we would not have any new solar farms or new wind farms in Victoria, and we would be missing out on all those incredible benefits delivered by renewables. As I said, they went to the last election promising to scrap the renewable energy target.

I am pleased that the Leader of the Opposition has called on his federal counterparts to do more on climate change, but I do not believe that that is what his team wants. I really, really wish that this was not the case, but the default Liberal position is not to act on climate change, not to want to act on climate change and, for some—probably the member for Warrandyte—not to believe in climate change. I wish this issue was bipartisan. The devastating bushfires are estimated to have cost our economy approximately $5 billion this year. Can we afford $5 billion each and every year?

The Morrison government has failed Australians on taking action on climate change and investing in renewables. The key point of this is it destroys investor confidence, puts a halt to creating clean energy jobs and investment, and ultimately hampers the economy. It also means that we are missing out on new sources of reliable, affordable supply that can help reduce emissions.

This bill is a long one and it is complex, but it is vital to securing the strong leadership that we need for the future reliability of energy in our state so that we can provide for the future. We believe that the responsible transition to a clean energy future is central to this need, and the Victorian government is committed to act on delivering a clean and modern energy network. Our step to amend the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 is proof that we are serious about accelerating this change. We need projects that will increase our capacity to transmit energy, that will mitigate against the impacts of unplanned outages and that will futureproof us against the inevitable closure of our brown coal-fired generators—projects that will drive investment in our state, create jobs, decarbonise our energy sector and deliver a clean, modern, reliable and more affordable energy future. I well and truly commend this bill to the house, and I trust that it will be supported by the Liberals opposite.

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (18:04): I take great pleasure in joining the debate on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. Wouldn’t we all be happy if this bill was not necessary? But sadly it is because the current arrangements for increasing generation and improving transmission are just not able to occur under the current national guidelines. So, yes, Victoria is going it alone. We are not going to remain, like others, blind to the opportunities of alternate energy and of adding to our capacity.

I am a member of the parliamentary Environment and Planning Committee, and each of my member colleagues—the chair, the member for South Barwon; and other members, the member for Burwood, and the member for Box Hill—have contributed on this bill. We have had numerous hearings in the current inquiry before the committee on climate change and how communities are tackling climate change, and we have seen numerous examples of where the current guidelines are not fit for purpose and are stifling investment, and they are also exposing regional communities to danger.

Through my work as Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Victoria during this term and during the last term, all nine of our regional partnerships have put forward ideas for alternate energy, harnessing the opportunities here in Victoria and identifying them as job opportunities.

I have seen in my own electorate that the current arrangements are stifling investment in Yan Yean too. The fabulous investment in Hidden Valley, in Wallan, just had to wait months and months and months. A build was being completed for a large range of townhouses and also what is basically a new convention centre—it is servicing the golf course there; it has got restaurants, it has got a day spa—and there were huge, huge delays in being able to get power connected to it. If the coalition is not concerned about the stifling of investment and the economy, surely it is concerned about reliable power during bushfire emergencies on code-red days. But sadly, they have indicated that they are not supporting this bill. It just beggars belief.

We have seen the impact of this fire season in Victoria. When the parliamentary committee did a field trip to Yackandandah we heard from a CFA volunteer in the Yackandandah brigade who said that during the Baranduda fire that threatened that township and that area, the availability of battery storage and 55 per cent of buildings in Yackandandah having solar panels on their roofs—and they also have a community-run petrol station—meant they actually had some power when the grid failed so that the service station operators were able to continue putting diesel in the CFA trucks to protect communities. That same CFA volunteer told the story of volunteering in Corryong when that town was under threat and the fuel station there blew up four generators. Fortunately the fifth generator continued working, so the CFA trucks were able to continue to be fuelled so that they could do their work of protecting that township. It just beggars belief that the coalition does not think that this is important and why we need this reliable power.

It is not just about actual fire emergencies; code-red days mean that many communities are going to not have access to power when distributors shut down local networks, which not only impacts the day-to-day things people might be doing around their jobs but could also impact in particular older people, who are at much greater risk of heat stress. And it could impact particularly the economies of townships that are dependent on the visitor economy, which will just not be able to trade, because if they do not have power to keep their food, beer and wine cold, they are going to have losses from those. It just means that we need to change the way things are done with electricity in Victoria.

The bill facilitates approval of urgent transmission system upgrades to improve the reliability of electricity here in Victoria by enabling the Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change to make orders to bypass the cumbersome processes under national energy laws for approval of transmission projects.

I mentioned the parliamentary committee. We actually had before us only in the last week or so three representatives of the Australian Energy Market Operator. They were great in responding to the questions that were asked by the committee, but it was quite clear to us that the rules in the guidelines that AEMO is operating under are archaic—they are way behind where they need to be. They are stifling investment, but they also do not have any allowance for the impact of climate change.

The transition upgrades enabled by the bill are expected to reduce the likelihood of rolling blackouts in times of peak demand. We have had some narrow escapes with that this summer, and last summer there were numerous blackouts and brownouts. We do not want that into the future. We want Victoria to continue to be seen to be a reliable place to invest, whether it is in traditional industries or in new energy industries. We are not the flat earth society, unlike those opposite. Under their watch they completely crippled the expansion of the wind industry and indeed even the wind turbine industry at Keppel Prince in Portland, in the then Premier’s electorate. That was how lacking in interest they were in growing new energy jobs. In fact they wanted to turn the clock back and ensure that new energy jobs would go backwards.

I think one of the things, in the time remaining to me, is that this bill does leave the door open, because there is a sunset and a review in the provisions of this bill. Hopefully in the future we will have a government at a national level again that will take an interest in these issues and actually support renewables, support the addition to the grid from all types of generation and ensure that there are not such long lead times as we have right now.

Of those few members of the opposition who have spoken on this bill, in particular I would single out the member for Ripon, running the Institute of Public Affairs line, talking down alternative energy and trying to make out that none of these things operate in her electorate when in fact they do. I would commend those neighbouring MPs around her that have actually recognised this and do recognise, particularly on the energy mix in the west of Victoria, what a difference renewables are making.

One of my colleagues who spoke before me—I believe it was the member for Bendigo West—mentioned that Canberra itself, the ACT, is buying renewable power from Victoria. How deeply ironic that the seat of our national government will be powered by alternative energy but we have a national government that still does not believe in this or believe in investing in it and supporting it. I commend the bill to the house.

The SPEAKER: Order! Before calling the member for Bayswater, now is the time for me to interrupt business. The time has arrived for the joint sitting to choose a person to hold the seat in the Legislative Council, a position rendered vacant by the resignation of the Honourable Mary Wooldridge. I will now ask the Clerk to ring the bells to call members to the joint sitting. Importantly, the Assembly will resume after the joint sitting has concluded and the bells will ring again at that time.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended 6.15 pm until 6.23 pm.

Debate resumed.

Mr TAYLOR (Bayswater) (18:23): It is fantastic to rise in this place today to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment Bill 2020. It is a significant piece of legislation that continues the fantastic work of the Andrews Labor government. I will have plenty of time to talk about that, and of course it would be very remiss of me not to thank the hardworking Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change and her staff, who have done a significant amount of work with this piece of legislation that will forever change for the better and for good the energy sector and the price point that consumers see in Victoria and will help to continue our push for renewable energies right throughout Victoria.

I am a little bit confused. I am very impressed at the work of the minister and her staff on this bill. I do not know where they found the time, because of course this continues the fantastic work in terms of the work that we do in supporting better policy mechanisms to move forward on renewables but also to make sure we have got cleaner energy, which is all good for the environment.

And of course when we talk about the minister’s office being busy, we know of the recent announcements that we saw in the last week, and those are absolutely significant. They will transform Victoria’s recycling and will introduce a container deposit scheme, and we know that will reduce waste to landfill by up to 80 per cent over the next 10 years, which is significant. And importantly it once again—as this bill does—backs in local jobs. The recycling announcement from the minister, who has done significant work on this piece of legislation, will back in around 3900 local jobs. And we also saw in that reform that will be rolling out across Victoria—including in one of my municipalities in 2021, Knox—the Teletubbies of bins. We know that we have got the glass bin, which has a purple lid; the food and organics, which has the green lid; the plastics, metal and paper, which has the yellow; and the household waste, which has the red. This is a significant piece of reform on top of the container deposit scheme—the $129 million into the recycling industry with the container deposit scheme—as well as an extra almost $100 million into extra investment into recycling. So it is phenomenal work.

And of course, since we were elected in 2014 we have been absolutely focused on making sure we provide reliable, affordable and clean energy for Victorians. We have introduced major reforms, which I have been proud to speak on in this place, one of which was the reform we made to introduce the Victorian default offer which has put some $200 to $300 back into the average Victorian person’s pocket. And of course that is on top of the other work that we have done in terms of the Victorian Energy Compare scheme, which I myself benefited from to the tune of $50, a nice cheque, and also saving money on my power bills. So it was hundreds of dollars back in my pocket and $50 to boot from the state government to make sure I got off my backside and got into making sure that I saved money—as hundreds of other Victorians have done right in my electorate.

And of course we have worked tirelessly with Victoria’s private generators to make sure that they are available when we need them most. And we pushed them for new rules to allow the Australian Energy Market Operator to find cheaper and more reliable sources of emergency supply.

I talk about how excited I get at some projects that this Andrews government in its second term is delivering. One of those is the North East Link, but I tell you what, not far behind as a close second if not competing for my favourability is our work in renewable energy. That is significantly having a huge impact in the electorate of Bayswater. Hundreds of people have signed up to our Solar Homes scheme. That is 700 000 panels going onto roofs, which is driving down the price of power and which is putting money back into the pockets of consumers and locals in the heart of my electorate. And that is another significant piece of work we have done. We have also got hot water solar systems, and I know that the minister has got some exciting news. I have seen on solar.vic.gov.au two new postcodes pop up for the solar battery rebates, and I am very excited to say that the good suburbs of Kilsyth South and the postcode of Bayswater, covering Baysie and Baysie North, will be coming onto that scheme as well.

Mr Dimopoulos: Baysie!

Mr TAYLOR: And that is exciting, the member for Oakleigh. I can only hope that your electorate is just as lucky. And I tell you what, member for Oakleigh, this piece of reform that we are doing here today will make that even easier. I thought the minister’s office was busy, but this is just significant, this piece of legislation. Of course, when we were elected—

Ms Hutchins interjected.

Mr TAYLOR: It is awesome. It is absolutely awesome, member for Sydenham. You are right there, absolutely. Because when we were elected we talked about how the investment in renewables had stalled, project developers had fled and planning changes had made it virtually impossible to build a new wind farm. And not only have we turned that around, we are continuing to build Victoria as the state of renewable energy. We have got some significant competition, some really envious states——South Australia and New South Wales are also following our lead—but we are, have no doubt, the leaders in this space. We are kicking goals. We are fields above everybody else in the market, and I am proud to live in this state and I am proud to be part of an Andrews government which invests in renewable energy, because it is good for us and it is good for the environment.

We talk about how we are now not just investing in renewables but creating jobs through it as well, because we are not scared of renewable energy like some of those opposite. We are not scared of renewable energy. We know that it creates jobs and we know the benefit it provides back to the end consumer, because it pushes down power prices.

Mr Dimopoulos: What about flat-earthers?

Mr TAYLOR: What about the flat-earthers? Thank you, member for Oakleigh; I appreciate that. You have forced me to put that into Hansard now—a comment which deserves no response, member for Oakleigh. And apparently the member for Bentleigh has played a hand in this as well.

Now we talk about where we are, and unfortunately we face significant headwinds in terms of the opposition. It appears that the opposition, for what I believe are very insignificant reasons, will be voting against this legislation—very similar to some of their friends in Canberra. The context of this is that Victoria has, as have other states, had to lead the way in terms of change, in terms of making sure that we can have that capacity there when we need it to bring more renewable energy online.

We know the history. Moving back into federal politics, we know the history in the 2000s when the emissions trading scheme was voted down because the Greens said it did not go far enough. What a different space we would be in today. We would have an emissions trading scheme. We would have a much sooner end goal when it comes to our zero net emissions, to our renewable energies. But do you know what? Victoria is getting on with the hard slog of leading the nation when it comes to this, despite a lack of policy when it comes to the national government. We are driving this space, and this legislation continues on with that.

This legislation goes to the heart of that. It relies on a robust transmission grid that is evolving to meet the demands of the energy system and is able to efficiently move electricity from where it is produced to where it is needed. Of course we have seen the national electricity laws have let us down. Not only have we been left with a void of policy when it comes to renewable energies, but we know that the electricity laws from a national perspective have let us down. Investment in the transmission grid is too damn slow. The process is too narrow, and the best interests of Victorians are too often forgotten. That is where we are coming in to make sure that we change it, because we know the jobs it provides, that it drives down power prices and that it is the right thing to do.

Already we are seeing the impact of this lack of investment on Victoria’s reliability and our capacity to continue to bring online much-needed investments in renewable energy, and we know that those opposite did nothing. So we are correcting that, and in our second term we are kicking on with the hard work. It is hard, but just because it is hard does not mean that you do not get on with it. That is exactly why we are in this place today talking about this significant piece of legislation.

We see timely transmission investment as vital if we are to increase the supply of low-cost renewables to Victorians. It raises storage capacity, and it utilises available energy imported from other states to help meet diverse demand in peaks. And of course Victorians expect us to act. We have a massive track record. I can tell you now, our track record, as I said previously, is 700 000 solar panels, including hundreds in my electorate.

One of those good consumers, one of those locals in my area, is named Sutherson, and I went out there—he has got a wife, he has got a young fella and I believe another one on the way—and I talked to him. I spoke to him not just about the solar panels he put onto his roof under our Solar Homes scheme; I talked to him more broadly about the investment of the Andrews government. I think it is important to get out into your community and listen to them. He told me that he is now saving on average around $900 a year, but he also understands it is not just about money back into his pocket, which is equally critical in the work that we are doing, and it is not just about local jobs. He knows the reforms that we are undertaking, including this one here which will build more capacity in the transmission lines to allow more renewable energies to come online, are about the environment.

We here in the Labor Party know that, and we have listened to it. There are no ifs, buts or maybes. There is no, ‘Oh, I don’t understand the science of climate change’ or, ‘Renewable energies don’t drive down prices’. We here in the Labor Party know that, and that is exactly why we are getting on with it. We have boosted the Solar Homes program this year, and we are absolutely on track to deliver over 700 000 solar panels over the next 10 years, and that program has already started.

On this legislation, I am extremely proud to speak here, because whilst it may seem slightly technical to some and whilst it may seem a small part of the equation, it really is building the future capacity to make sure we can keep rolling out what we have done and expanding to suburbs solar battery capacity, including places like Kilsyth South in the Bayswater electorate. I know they are absolutely overexcited because they know it will put hundreds of dollars back in their pocket. I tell you what, Acting Speaker, I have witnessed it through the government’s work on Victorian Energy Compare, and we are going to keep kicking on delivering more renewable energies and delivering Solar Homes because it is the right thing to do. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Equality, Minister for Creative Industries) (18:33): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.