Thursday, 26 May 2022

Committees

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into Renewable Energy in Victoria

Ms TERPSTRA (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:06): Pursuant to standing order 23.29, I lay on the table a report from the Environment and Planning Committee on the inquiry into renewable energy in Victoria, including an appendix, extracts of proceedings and minority reports. I further present transcripts of evidence, and I move:

That the transcripts of evidence lay on the table and the report be published.

Motion agreed to.

Ms TERPSTRA: I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

There has been a substantial workload undertaken by the Environment and Planning Committee during this term of Parliament, and this latest inquiry adds to that long list referred by this house. In regard to this inquiry, it was not the committee’s intention to undertake a far-reaching and detailed analysis of renewable energy. Firstly, by the time the inquiry was able to be commenced there was not time to undertake such a complex inquiry, and secondly, and more significantly, there have been a number of such inquiries into the area of renewables that have already been completed and that are already accessible to the public.

The committee commenced the inquiry by writing to a number of stakeholders in October 2021, and at the same time the committee advertised a call for submissions via the usual processes. By the time submissions closed the committee had received 90 submissions from a range of individuals and organisations. The committee held only two days of public hearings, on 16 and 17 March 2022. At these hearings the committee heard from a range of organisations and individuals with expertise in renewable energies. The report is therefore intended to provide the Victorian context for renewable energy transition and to canvass some of these issues that were raised during the inquiry.

There are a number of themes that are highlighted in this report, and of course they emerge from the terms of reference. In broad terms they are: measures to enable Victoria to transition its energy supply to 100 per cent renewable energy, benefits of transitioning to renewable energy, other opportunities to reduce emissions, and ensuring a just transition for workers and communities.

The transition to renewable energy in Victoria is already well underway. The Victorian government has put in place the structures and policy framework for the transition to renewable energy. It has designated renewable energy zones across the state with the best wind, sun and hydro-electric sources. The renewable energy zones are located in areas that take advantage of existing electricity transmission networks, and work is already underway in constructing wind and solar farms in many areas of Victorian renewable energy options.

Whilst renewable energy generators can be sensitive to unfavourable weather—for example, if the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow, they do not produce energy—there are a number of strategies the Victorian government and the Australian Energy Market Operator are putting in place to mitigate this, and these include: construction of firming tools, such as big batteries and pumped hydro; ensuring a geographic spread of renewable energy generators and a diversity of generator types as well as strengthening Victoria’s transmission network; and of course rooftop solar and batteries will also play a vital role in Victoria’s energy security. This is one of the success stories of Victoria’s renewable energy transition.

Victoria also has one of the world’s highest take-up rates of rooftop solar, and the committee has made recommendations in relation to variable pricing and virtual power plants as well. More transition infrastructure will be needed to transport electricity from solar and wind farms across the state, but also Victoria’s renewable energy revolution will deliver job opportunities for regional Victorians as well. Also, as I mentioned earlier, one of the important aspects of this inquiry was to look at the transition to renewable energy and that it must be a just transition for workers and communities who have worked in these industries previously.

The Victorian government has already put forward $266 million for the Latrobe Valley support package. It has also created the Latrobe Valley Authority, which has supported retiring coal-fired power station workers into other jobs. It has also helped to grow new industries that will provide Gippsland’s jobs of the future, and the transition to renewable energy will lead to the creation of many jobs in the construction, operation and ongoing maintenance of renewable energy infrastructure.

Really pleasingly, the Victorian Skills Authority will map out renewable energy workforce needs so that our vocational and tertiary institutions can provide the necessary training to ensure that people successfully work in this new and emerging industry for many years to come. The committee also examined other opportunities to reduce carbon emissions in Victoria, and these included zero-emission vehicle policies, substituting gas with electric appliances and energy-efficient buildings.

Just a note on the commonwealth government: the committee also examined the lack of commonwealth coordination in this space under the previous Morrison government. This is a space where the Victorian government stepped in and provided strong leadership and strong policy certainty to the market, and this has meant that Victoria is well on the path to reaching its renewable energy targets. So recommendation 17 of the report is that the Victorian government continue to advocate to the commonwealth for policies that will speed up the uptake of zero-emission vehicles as well as national vehicle emissions standards.

Finally, I would also like to thank the people who made submissions—both the groups of and individual experts—and the scientists and academics who presented evidence. Thank you so much for your time and insights. They were truly valuable and appreciated by the committee. I would also like to thank Michael Baker, the committee manager, for his consistently invaluable help in managing the workload for our committee. I would like to thank Kieran Crowe, Hong Tran and Justine Donohue for their assistance in researching and supporting us on this inquiry, and I would also like to thank my parliamentary colleagues, who conducted themselves in such a professional manner throughout this inquiry. Thank you.

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (10:12): I welcome the tabling of this report. I think it is a landmark report, in that we have got to transition to renewables as fast as possible, and I do congratulate the government on providing strong leadership in this area. I think the report and what we are hearing in the report is good news for transitioning to renewables.

My only problem is it is probably not going fast enough. We worry about workers transitioning too, but I think that there are going to be amazing employment opportunities. It is great to see what is happening down in the Latrobe Valley and the work that is going into it. The government really has to take the lead on providing transmission lines and working that out as quickly as possible. There is a lot of conflict and angst about how that is going to be implemented, so that is work to be done.

There are some areas I feel the report did not go to—electric cars, electric vehicles and construction machinery. This is all something that should be progressed a lot faster. There should not be a tax on electric cars, either. Also, the brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley being used for the production of hydrogen, and the potential for enormous greenhouse gas emissions there, is something that we should be avoiding altogether or transitioning away from as quickly as possible. Leave the brown coal there for our grandchildren.

Anyway, that is all. I want to congratulate the committee and especially the staff and all the people that submitted to our committee—and our secretary for his work, Michael Baker. Thank you.

Dr RATNAM (Northern Metropolitan) (10:14): I am so pleased to be speaking about the renewable energy inquiry report that has been tabled today. Firstly, my thanks to the secretariat staff, all the members of the committee and of course all the submitters and witnesses who gave us a breadth of evidence that clearly points to the fact that Victoria can be going much further and faster on renewable energy. The science tells us that we have to move to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030, because the climate demands it. Over the weekend Victorians overwhelmingly voted for much stronger, faster action on climate change, and the time to act is now.

The report also identifies that we need to talk about gas and Victoria’s reliance on this fossil fuel. Now is not the time to be drilling and mining for more and more gas. The government has already approved 12 new onshore gas licences and the licence near the Twelve Apostles. We should also be talking about demand side for gas in households and industry. We heard really strongly evidence that there is so much more that we can be doing to improve energy efficiency and drive down the demand from and reliance by households for gas; for example, by introducing minimum standards for rental properties and social housing and improving our energy efficiency rating and disclosure schemes.

We had very strong evidence that one of the biggest barriers at the moment to accelerating our transition to 100 per cent renewable energy is the transmission and distribution networks. We should be doing more. We should be planning and coordinating and investing in those distribution networks much more strongly if we are going to get the renewables that are planned, which the market is delivering at a rapid pace, into households, into businesses, into the wider Victorian community. The report overwhelmingly highlights that we can be doing so much more, that we can get to 100 per cent renewable energy in Victoria. Now is not the time for low ambition and low aspiration. Let us aim big and let us move Victoria to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Ms BATH (Eastern Victoria) (10:16): I support the tabling of the renewable energy report. In doing so I present the Liberals’ and Nationals’ minority report to provide some balance on a pro-Labor committee. When we want to move to renewable energies and be an exemplary environmental citizen we must pave the way with practical solutions. We reiterate in the report our commitment to net zero emissions by 2050. Constituents want us to do more on climate action, but we need to do so in a sensible and structured way that keeps the lights on and does not destroy communities as we progress. We want there to be more manufacturing of renewable energy components, replacing imports. Only 11 per cent of energy components are manufactured in Australia. We must organise ourselves to lead by cradle-to-grave management, with recycling of spent components so that we do not have any overtones of environmental impacts. We need dedicated recycling for discarded solar panels.

We see that the former federal government funded energy from waste in a circular economy at Opal Australia and supported offshore wind development through legislation, not through a virtue signalling target by the Premier coming late to the offshore table. We support blue and green hydrogen. We support deep storage with a light environmental footprint. We call for bonds for large-scale solar energy facilities so that they can be remediated at end of life. We also support electric vehicles, but not bans and not to disadvantage rural and regional Victorians—we believe consumers will change their purchasing patterns without a government mandate. If the government is to be a holistic citizen, it must not be powered by rhetoric; it must be powered by science and sense.

I thank the committee members for their respectful attitude, and I wholeheartedly thank all the secretariat—Michael Baker, Kieran Crowe, Hong Tran, Sylvette Bassy and Justine Donohue—because they do an absolutely awesome job in a very tight time frame.

Ms SHING (Eastern Victoria) (10:18): This is a really significant report, and I want to echo the sentiments around this chamber of gratitude to members of the committee and the secretariat for all of this work to provide an update on the complex and interlinking components of a transition to renewable energy.

One of the things, though, that I want to put on the record is that this government has done more to achieve renewable energy, despite vocal opposition on the renewable energy targets, despite all sorts of objections after those opposite have talked at length about how they support a transition and then consistently blocked efforts in this place and in this Parliament to achieve those ends.

What we have delivered, and this is borne out in the recommendations and the findings of this particular report, is a transition which is not only grounded in a practical realisation of need over time—and therefore at odds with Ms Bath’s characterisation of the work to transition to renewable energy—but a practically grounded recognition of the failures of the former federal government to effect the necessary changes to the national energy grid, not the Victorian energy grid but the national energy grid, to provide certainty and security in a vacuum as far as energy policy is concerned. We have seen the Australian Energy Market Operator repeatedly request clarity. We have seen operators and producers, consumers and those who provide retail products to the market repeatedly call for certainty in the market.

This former coalition government has repeatedly failed Victorians. It is our record investment in renewables that in fact eclipses in reality the last-minute calls of those who joined the support of the band after they were famous and who are now saying from coalition benches that in fact they have always supported renewables. Be under no doubt whatsoever—the Liberals and The Nationals have consistently opposed any move to renewables. This report speaks volumes to the work that this government has undertaken.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:20): It is good to rise to make a brief contribution on this report, and I also want to thank other committee members. It was an excellent exercise, and all members, despite some differing views, I thought engaged in that exercise very well. We were supported by a fantastic secretariat. The chair, in my view, did an absolutely fantastic job, and just when there was a rare outbreak of bipartisanship in this place, well, along came Ms Shing with her contribution. I was rather thinking after Saturday’s result that we might be able to move away from the constant blame of the Morrison government for anything and everything that goes wrong. However, given that Jeffrey Kennett continues to get much of the blame for things that go wrong in this state and he was voted out, what, 23 years ago, maybe we should expect the blame-shifting to the Morrison government will stop in, what, about 2045. The fact of the matter is of course that those of us on this side of the house, as articulated in a minority report that bears my name and yet I must say was predominantly completed by Ms Bath—

A member: You have not read it.

Dr BACH: I have read it, but I did not personally make a great contribution to it. It is a fantastic document by Ms Bath and articulates our strong views. We do not seek to create division on these issues on this side of the house. We have some different proposals, and Ms Bath put forward those different proposals in her normal constructive way. I would urge the government to have a look at those proposals. They are put forward in good faith.

Motion agreed to.