Thursday, 2 May 2024

Bills

National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:10): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to this bill, the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. I should say at the start that the opposition is troubled by many of the aspects of the way VicGrid is operating; we are troubled by the way AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, is operating; and we are troubled by the impact of a number of the current projects and proposed projects on Victorian communities. This is obviously a time when there are real challenges in our electricity market. The national architecture has not managed these changes well, nor has the state architecture.

I want to be clear here: at the end of the day energy and this type of distribution and delivery of energy to consumers, households and businesses are ultimately the responsibility of the Victorian state government. Labor has been in power now for 10 years and has overseen the difficulties we have faced over the recent period, the massive surge in prices that we have seen. I have quoted in the chamber this week the St Vincent’s survey data. In one sense it is very precise and very reliable data because it adds up actual bills paid and calculates what it costs families and businesses. That data, released late last year, showed that electricity costs went up 28 per cent in Victoria last year, and 22 per cent in terms of gas. So these are huge imposts on Victorian families and on Victorian businesses.

The issues with gas have been well documented. The state government’s Gas Substitution Roadmap lays out the challenges ahead, but also some perverse and bizarre solutions are proposed by the state government in terms of banning gas completely. This has to be seen in the context of the whole national electricity market, because gas is not only a domestic fuel, it is a feedstock for industry and it is an important energy source for many industrial processes, so it is important in itself. But also, importantly – and this is the linkage I wish to make – gas is an important backup, a firming capacity, in the electricity market to have the ability to turn gas on and off very quickly and to backfill where the electricity market is not able to supply what is needed. Importantly, the state government has laid out its targets. We have had discussions in the chamber this week about offshore wind and the various ambitious targets that the state government has set itself with respect to offshore wind. We know that those targets are in real trouble. Even today in the Australian the articles lay out the difficulties the state government is facing with achieving its offshore wind targets. These stand in stark contrast to some of the commentary by Minister Stitt in this chamber on Tuesday night, which reinforced the state government’s commitments to its targets and indicated there was no risk and no slippage. At the same time we see, just two days later, articles indicating that there may well be significant issues for the state government in delivering its offshore wind energy requirements.

The state government is going to have to bring together the complex arrangements on the grid, and that is what this bill in part seeks to do. There are some aspects of this bill that we do not disagree with, but there are other aspects that we have considerable concerns about. It does not seem to us – let us be quite clear – that this deals with the social licence issue and the aggressive approach that the state government has adopted to long-distance transmission wires, and VicGrid does not seem to me to be actually coming to grips with these issues either. Certainly people I have talked to across the state have very negative views about VicGrid, they have very negative views about AEMO, so I am not arguing –

A member: You need to talk to more people.

David DAVIS: Well, I am talking to a lot of people on this, actually. You ought to get out and talk to a few more and you would actually learn something. You would learn that there are real problems.

If I can just continue, what I am saying here is that there is little confidence in VicGrid’s ability to do these tasks. We are conscious that the tasks need to be done. We need to bring renewables into the market – that is important. There are obviously massive subsidies being provided for renewables. Do not let us kid ourselves that renewables are cheaper, because there are massive subsidies to make them happen. Maybe that is as it has to be, but nonetheless there are massive subsidies, and there are obviously massive challenges in bringing the electricity connections. Whether it is offshore wind and the need to bring the power onshore – to bring the cables within the 3-mile radius of state responsibility up onto the shore and then, whether it is above or below, bring it a significant distance to join the trunk transmission lines – is one part of the equation. Another part of the equation is the long-distance connections to other states and to the renewable projects elsewhere in the state, right across the state, whether it is the two main projects that have been discussed at length and have elicited such a negative response to VicGrid and to AEMO or whether it is other projects that are being undertaken or will be undertaken under the regime that is being established here, and building on the existing arrangements.

I have a number of significant concerns about this bill, but I will first outline roughly what the bill does. It amends the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005. It confers transmission planning functions for renewable energy zones to the chief executive officer of VicGrid. We do not think AEMO has done a good job, and we do not think VicGrid is doing a particularly good job either. I would rather see it close to home, and I would rather see it with VicGrid in Victoria rather than with a national body which almost no-one has any control over. The truth is that the AEMO people will not even meet with non-government MPs. They are absolutely unapproachable. We certainly are unable to get a meeting with AEMO. That is how distant and arrogant that body is. In the sense that this brings some of the responsibilities home to the department – that is, VicGrid – we are not opposed to that principle in itself. It introduces the Victorian transmission planning objective to guide the CEO of VicGrid with deliberations required in relation to the Victorian transmission plan. It introduces the requirement to publish the Victorian transmission plan and the VicGrid analysis of transmission infrastructure required to accommodate new renewable generation in renewable energy zones, it provides a process for the direct declaration of an area within Victoria to be a renewable energy zone, it requires the CEO of VicGrid to co-operate with the Australian Energy Market Operator in performing respective functions, it provides for payments to landholders to host new transmission infrastructure through a scheme of annual payments for 25 years and it enables recovery by the CEO of VicGrid’s costs from end users through transmission use of system charges. I will come back to that point.

The declaration of renewable energy zones, again – this is an important function but a function that needs to be exercised in conjunction with local communities rather than overriding them. We saw the planning amendment VC261 yesterday in this chamber. I sought to disallow that. The revocation motion was defeated 20–17, so that should give the government pause that there is not broad acceptance or support for the planning amendment. It is a narrow acceptance in this chamber of that planning amendment, and some of those who voted for it, I note, are privately very critical of the government’s behaviour and the unbridled powers that are in VC261. But, again, the government has additional powers – greater powers – now to declare renewable energy zones. They have the power to do what they need, they say, with the transmission infrastructure to accommodate new renewable energy generation in renewable energy zones.

I for one am very cautious about how these powers are applied. This needs to be an exemplary approach by the government in terms of community consultation and engagement, and we do not think the government has done that. We do not think the government is doing it, and we actually do not think the government has any deep commitment to it either. We think there is an overweening arrogance in this government. They have been there for 10 years; actually Labor has been in power since 1999, save for four years. So you have got this long-term, established government that expect to be in government, expect that it is a right of theirs to be ministers, expect that the bureaucracy will do precisely what they say and expect that they can impose their will on the Victorian community. They are an out of touch, long-term, arrogant government, and that is a very poor mix in avoiding corruption on the one hand and avoiding the politicisation of the public service on the other. In the case of engagement with communities and listening to communities, the distant, unconcerned nature of the government, the arrogant nature of the government, is a concern.

One of the amendments that we will seek to move relates to the establishment of a community advisory committee. We think there needs to be a very strong community advisory committee. We think the membership needs to be stipulated; we do not in any way trust the government to do that otherwise. And we need to make sure that the minister and the CEO of VicGrid are forced to listen to the advisory committee. In doing so we need to try and be as strong as we can be in ensuring that the outcomes are achieved, which means that community information is filtered through, that there is a proper listening process and that options are actually put to the community and considered. That is not what has been happening now. At the moment it is all a ‘take it or leave it’ thing. The government is crunching through: ‘You’ll take this, and you’ll stick it in your pipe and smoke it.’ That is the way it is at the moment, and it is quite unfortunate that the state government has descended into this arrogant approach with local communities.

I want to say something too about the enormous collections of money. This will add massively to it. There is an ability for the state to scoop back additional money. The amount collected in 2005 when the land tax put on AusNet on the transmission wires was introduced was $500,000. The estimated collection this year is $246.7 million. Note that all of these costs are passed straight through to consumers, passed straight through to small business electricity consumers, passed straight through to business consumers. The money meanwhile is collected and scooped back and goes into state revenue – consolidated revenue. That is where it goes and that is concerning. There is no guarantee that it will be spent on any useful project. It may be scooped up by the state government and utilised in that way.

The new arrangements in this bill are meant to be cost recovery arrangements. That is different and separate from the land tax but related to the scoop-out and collections out of the industry that add to the cost for consumers, whether they be businesses or families. Businesses and families are paying both of these taxes. They are being clobbered on both counts, and these are very significant impacts on the Victorian community.

The $246.7 million is almost $70 per consumer in the state. That is the average. That is actually the land tax collections. These are huge collections, massive collections, across the system. This bill will add further collections, and I have no doubt that the state government will impose land tax on every single one of the long-distance wires. They will do that in addition to any other collections that are made for renewable zones. They will do that to pump up their own revenue to deal with the state government’s revenue problems. As land values have gone up, the tax collections have gone up because the scales have not been adjusted properly to reflect those changes.

I think I have covered most of the issues that I think are the critical points here. The key points I think in this bill are that whilst it brings some of these responsibilities closer to Victorians, we have little faith in the way the state government will discharge this and little faith in the way it is currently discharging it. We think that part of the problem begins with the minister. She has been in that role for too long. She has lost touch with the community, and I think that the Victorian community should be very concerned about her performance and the fact that the state is now facing blackouts into the future. The predictions for Victoria with respect to gas are entirely the state government’s fault and its failing to deal with this over the last 10 years. There are issues with electricity generation as we head into a zone where some of the brown coal operators will come off, and we will need to have in place very significant additional, and hopefully reliable, power. Reliable power is going to be very important, and part of that in my view will have to be gas. There may be other options, but part of it will have to be that peaking gas capacity that can fill in the shortfall on urgent occasions.

Our amendments, which I will get to be circulated, make the point that we are concerned about the additional costs generated by payments to traditional owners, and we will seek to block those changes. If somebody would distribute that set of amendments, that would be helpful.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

David DAVIS: Talking of the traditional owner matter, amendment 5 to clause 9 lays out that:

Regulations made for the purposes of section 75(1) must not provide that a traditional owner right within the meaning of the Traditional Owner Settlement Act 2010 is a prescribed interest in public land.”.’.

These wires are going across public land, and this should not generate additional payments, which will be paid for by households and businesses. Let us be clear: this will be paid for by households and businesses in a time of a cost-of-living crisis, where already communities are facing huge increases. As we have said, 22 per cent for gas and 28 per cent for electricity last year. I have to say, we are not happy to see additional charges loaded up for families and businesses.

The community advisory committee would be promulgated by these amendments. They seek to establish that community advisory committee and lay out its functions to advise the minister:

(1) The Minister must appoint the following persons to be members of the Community Advisory Committee –

(a) after consulting the Victorian Farmers Federation, 2 persons to represent the interests of Victorian farmers;

(b) after consulting the Australian Industry Group, one person to represent the interests of the Victorian manufacturing industry;

(c) after consulting the Municipal Association of Victoria, one person to represent the interests of Victorian rural councils;

(d) after consulting the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2 persons to represent the interests of Victorian small business owners;

(e) after consulting Seafood Industry Victoria, one person to represent the interests of the Victorian seafood industry;

(f) 2 persons to represent the interests of electricity consumers in Victoria.

And the minister and the CEO of VicGrid must consult with the community advisory committee, because we think this will force them to actually listen rather than to arrogantly override local communities, as they have been doing in recent times. We think this is a practical step, a step that will rein in the minister, rein in the CEO of VicGrid and force VicGrid and the minister to listen to what the Victorian community and local communities have to say as VicGrid seeks to declare renewable energy zones and seeks to lay out the traverse of large new wires and new renewable energy projects.

This is all about getting better projects. It is all about getting a smoother and more streamlined system, and it is also about getting better quality input from communities that hitherto have been overridden and bypassed by the state government, AEMO and VicGrid. These are very simple steps that we are proposing here. These are steps that will seek to ensure that there is that consultation.

The other point I want to make is that the state government’s various targets face real challenges, as we know, whether they be renewable energy targets – I see Minister Stitt has come into the chamber now; we discussed this the other night – or whether they be the broader targets for other parts of the sector. We think there is real pressure on the Victorian government’s targets, and we think that they are really going to have to redouble their efforts, but they are going to have to do that in an environment where many in the Victorian community have lost confidence in the minister and the government and see the government and the minister as arrogant and out of touch.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (10:32): I rise to speak today on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. This bill requires VicGrid to embark on medium- and long-term strategic planning in consultation with communities and stakeholders. I am going to reassure the chamber about the concerns expressed by Mr Davis around community consultation in this bill. Perhaps the amendment is a very specific description of community engagement, but I think I can reassure him that community engagement will be required in the strategic planning process. It does include a Victorian transmission planning objective within the responsibilities of VicGrid, and this is the tool that will facilitate the engagement.

Just as a matter of introduction, the bill enables VicGrid’s CEO to conduct planning for transmission projects in renewable energy zones. It allows the minister to declare renewable energy zones after that proper process is conducted, and in doing so the bill sets out processes and rules when declaring a renewable energy zone. This bill also introduces compensation to landholders where they have transmission infrastructure on their land, and it ensures that all stakeholders are consulted throughout the process at the various stages of assessment.

The bill is an important one that goes towards the Allan Labor government’s ensuring that the energy sector achieves net zero emissions by 2045. It will also ensure that Victorian consumers have reliable supplies of energy. Strategic planning is an important forward-looking process that brings together technical considerations, community considerations, traditional owner perspectives and a whole range of diverse variables, such as financial, environmental and engineering, just to name a few.

This bill requires the VicGrid chief executive officer to undertake transmission planning functions for renewable energy zones. Declaration of a renewable energy zone will allow VicGrid to conduct works early, in an ordered matter, which will provide more clarity for long-term investment in transmission projects within Victoria. It also allows the best possible sequencing of infrastructure investments. The Victorian transmission planning objective will be the guide for the VicGrid CEO to utilise when conducting transmission planning in renewable energy zones.

The bill also introduces the requirement for the publishing of the Victorian transmission plan. In other words, this plan is the analysis of transmission infrastructure needs to allow for new renewable generation and renewable energy zones. The bill specifies a process to follow when the minister declares a certain area within Victoria as a renewable energy zone. A renewable energy zone declaration is done to identify geographical areas where energy generation from renewable energy sources will be of greatest benefit. A declaration will include transmission capacities within the declared zone and passages for transmission of energy. The analysis process conducted by VicGrid will be used to inform the minister in making the declaration.

The purpose of the legislation is to find a balance between competing priorities. No one use will override another. We need to build enough capacity to keep the lights on as ageing coal-fired plants close, but we need to minimise impacts on agriculture and the environment and communities, including traditional owners, at the same time.

The bill also adds payments for landholders who host new transmission infrastructure. The scheme sets out annual payments for a period of 25 years, and the formula includes $8000 per kilometre of easement hosted per year, indexed for 25 years. This is in addition to existing compensation arrangements under the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act 1986, which cover any loss of land value. The bill further sets out the criteria for those landholders deemed eligible, along with private landholders. Eligibility is extended to certain holders of rights and interests where Crown land hosts new transmission infrastructure. Payments to landholders will assist with the development of new infrastructure and will be additional to any compensation made available to landholders under the land acquisition act, as I mentioned earlier.

It is appropriate to provide a structured framework that codifies compensation for use of land for renewable energy. Ongoing payment frameworks will be calculated utilising the bill or will be prescribed in regulations for a period of 25 years. Avenues of appeal will be made available to landholders found to be ineligible or with grievances via the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Costs from VicGrid will be recovered from consumers or end users through system charges. These costs will arise through the development of the Victorian transmission plan as well as high-priority projects. The fees and charges associated with VicGrid will be determined through consultation with the Premier, Treasurer and minister.

The bill amends section 16Y of the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 to allow the minister to order to modify or disapply certain provisions of the National Electricity Law or National Electricity Rules. The national framework subjects Victorian declared transmission systems to various regulatory processes or requirements under the National Electricity Law or National Electricity Rules.

The reforms we have today before us go towards ensuring that Victoria has a reliable, affordable and renewable energy supply – no mean task. We in the Allan government know that renewable energy infrastructure is the way Victoria needs to go to ensure a cleaner future for our energy supply. These amendments go towards stabilising Victoria’s energy future. They will enable cheaper energy generation and ensure Victoria is doing its part to reach net zero.

Some on the other side argue that we need nuclear power, a source of energy that would require years of policy development and legislation, not only in the Victorian Parliament but also in the federal Parliament, to even get started. It is a source of energy that, as Ernst & Young’s climate change and sustainability partner Emma Herd stated in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on 7 October 2023 that nuclear energy has a 20-year time frame just to plan, obtain approvals and then build a plant and an additional 10 to 20 years on top of that to build any semblance of an industry. I won’t even go into the toxic waste storage and the inherent risks there.

We simply do not have time to waste in addressing the issues around climate change, growing energy requirements and rapidly ageing coal power infrastructure. With this bill and other legislation, the Victorian government is not sitting around thinking about what-ifs or if-onlys. We are actively ensuring that we address the threats of climate change and growing power requirements and ensuring that Victoria has a stable renewable energy supply well into the future.

The Allan Labor government’s commitment to future-proofing Victoria’s energy supply is clear, from our investment into the SEC to our investment in innovative and emerging renewable technologies in solar and wind, like the $20 million we just invested into the Victorian company RayGen Resources for them to continue to develop photovoltaic modules that generate 2000 times more power than traditional solar systems. VicGrid is investing $480 million into projects as well to strengthen and bring Victoria’s energy grid up to modern standards.

When the minister makes a declaration for a renewable energy zone, it will require stakeholder consultation, including industry and consumers. Once a declaration has been through this process they will be published and the reasons given. Everything that this government and VicGrid are doing in relation to electricity transmission is done in consultation with industry and community, and this ensures that policy is done in an informed and balanced way. The Allan Labor government has begun running community workshops and drop-ins. These workshops ensure that early engagement of landholders, communities and First Nations peoples is conducted to minimise impacts on communities, and it also enables local communities to take part in regional development opportunities that are on offer. Following the workshops, communities will be given the opportunity to provide feedback through the renewable energy zone priority areas draft. The current arrangements, the way we currently do things, are not fit for today’s communities.

Importantly, traditional owners and communities are not brought in early enough, and this bill addresses that concern. I had the privilege of visiting Budj Bim with the Minister for Environment a few weeks ago. Representatives of Gunditj Mirring spoke of the trauma associated with the construction of transmission lines during the 1970s and 80s through the western Victoria area – this was several decades ago. This bill ensures that traditional owners and communities have a voice before the work begins.

Victoria has already achieved 38 per cent renewable energy, and we on this side are determined to achieve 95 per cent renewable energy by 2035. This bill before us enables the Victorian government through the CEO of VicGrid to prioritise key and critical infrastructure projects and develop renewable energy zones in areas that will be appropriate and in a balanced consideration of competing and complementary interests, ensuring that Victoria meets its targets. It means that Victoria will have a safe, secure and sustainable energy resource that will keep going even when our ageing coal-fired plants are gone. This bill and other related bills mean that we can get these projects done. It means that we can ensure Victorians have lower energy costs and a reliable power grid.

In my electorate in south-west Victoria we are seeing many renewable projects come to fruition and we have onshore turbines and also the federal offshore wind projects. I just want to address offshore wind, not only its contribution to the grid but also in terms of its environmental contributions. Some would argue that offshore wind turbines can impede the environment, but there is plenty of evidence that exists that shows that often the part of the wind turbines under the water actually enhance ocean habitats. Researchers looking at artificial reefs around offshore wind turbines in Europe found that large rocks and boulders placed around turbines were now being used as shelters for European rock lobsters.

In short this bill before us today enables long-term strategic planning to occur in this space. It allows for the declaration of renewable energy zones. It sets out processes and regulations that include communities and traditional owners, ensures appropriate compensation for landowners and makes sure that we achieve our goal of reliable, renewable and affordable energy in the state of Victoria. I commend the bill.

Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (10:47): We have heard a lot about consultation. It is a new buzzword the government seem to be interested in, but they actually do not know how to practice it. There has been no consultation with the community so far over the period of time I have been in this Parliament over the transmission lines in the Western Renewables Link and now the VNI West project – no consultation whatsoever. Local members of Parliament plus ministers plus bureaucrats have absolutely no interest in consulting with the communities that are so adversely affected. You are absent without leave at every public meeting. I was at Lethbridge Airport the other day. There were nearly 1000 people there; not one Labor member turned up, and you own the space in many areas in Ballarat and in the Geelong area. You are absent without leave and you are a disgrace, so do not come in here and talk about consultation. It is like rubbing salt into the wound for the communities all the way along these transmission line projects. If you have offshore wind at Warrnambool, Ms Ermacora, what are you going to do once the power comes onshore? Are you going to put it underground or is it going to be above ground? Because you will have another roaring fight on your hands.

It is ironic that the government introduces this bill and talks up consultation with communities yet just weeks ago gazetted planning amendment VC261, which did precisely the opposite – suppressing notification and consultation and ultimately removing the right of appeal. Do not be hypocrites and talk about consultation in this place then actually gazette a planning amendment that does exactly the opposite. It is a disgrace.

Consultation must be one of the most abused words in Victorian politics in recent years. I have lost count of the number of different issues in every aspect of government where consultations have been run and yet the result has been the preplanned, preconceived position of the department or the minister involved. It happens in planning. I will pick just two examples from different ends of my electorate: the Larcombe’s farm in Waurn Ponds and the Nesseler family farm and business at the Twelve Apostles site. Both have been ‘consulted with’ by government, yet with no discernible benefit. The government proceeded to take the land at Waurn Ponds from the farmer and seems hell-bent on doing exactly the same at the Twelve Apostles. You are a fundamental disgrace.

It happens in public submissions too – on the extermination of brumbies in Victorian national parks and the reintroduction of dingoes in parts of Victoria. Committees of this house invite public comment and yet are ignored time and time again – on homelessness, on ecosystems. True, they are not directly government-led consultations, but Victorians spend hundreds of thousands of hours submitting material to these inquiries, committee members and staff put in a great effort at the hearings and in producing reports and recommendations, and yet ministers do not even bother to reply.

This attitude has been particularly obvious in the area of transmission line planning. From 2020, when the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project was first publicly announced, it became clear that the consultation exercise was being run backwards. A predetermined conclusion on the route had been reached, and the consultation was designed merely to sell the idea to an enraged public. AusNet and the Victorian energy minister badly underestimated both the anger the plan would cause and the ability of communities to resist government intervention. I want to at this point pay tribute to the incredible efforts of so many people in fighting this campaign at considerable personal financial and emotional cost and an amazing effect on their health. I have seen people hospitalised as a result of trying to fight government and bureaucracies over this issue. It is cruel.

The community has been threatened not just by the project but by the divisive tactics used by the company trying to construct it, AusNet. In conducting land access and use agreements with individuals, they have set neighbour against neighbour. It has been traumatic. So in February this year I was very surprised to see Engage Victoria launch a consultation called ‘Developing the first Victorian transmission plan’. I was surprised, but I would not like to imagine the response of my constituents who have been fighting the blight of the Western Victorian Transmission Network Project, now greenwashed as the Western Renewables Link, for nearly four years, or their friends, whose battle against the VNI West interconnector route is also ongoing. Where was this plan before the route was imposed upon them? Why on earth is the first Victorian transmission plan being consulted upon now? It is yet another example of this government’s total failure to manage the transmission element of our energy transition. The consequence has been badly designed projects, furious communities, delayed development and a serious undermining of investment in new renewables technology. It is this total failure that means that by the Australian Energy Market Operator’s figures last year, 29 per cent of wind generation and 25 per cent of large-scale solar generation in the Western Victoria and Murray River renewable energy zones respectively was wasted due to inadequate transmission capacity. Do not come in here and talk about renewable targets and climate change and zero emissions; you have no capacity to deliver.

The government’s solution to all this has been VicGrid. While there may be some virtue to this model – it could hardly be worse than the omnishambles that went before – I am sorry to say that already serious concerns have been raised about the organisation’s ability and, most importantly, its independence. To take just one example, plan B is an independent alternative proposal for the future of Victoria’s transmission grid designed by energy academics and professional engineers Professor Bruce Mountain and Simon Bartlett. It is extremely credible, the result of years of experience, high levels of technical expertise and an enormous and dedicated effort to design an alternative to the overengineered 500-kilovolt Hobart to Townsville super grid, which has been the driving obsession of AEMO since that organisation’s creation in 2010. This builds, at enormous environmental and financial cost, levels of interconnection which are almost certainly redundant in the energy future we are now approaching, with localised generation and storage. The plan B proposal delivers more than the Australian Energy Market Operator’s proposed capacity increase far less invasively and at significantly lower cost. It is also significantly more disaster resilient. It has zero single points of failure, vital for infrastructure of this significance.

In comparison AEMO’s proposed single-tariff 500-kilovolt lines have more than 1000 single points of failure. In firefighting terms, AEMO will ultimately create more than 1250 kilometres of new easements, many double-circuit 500-kilovolt lines with 80-metre-high towers. Plan B, in contrast, uses existing and spare easements already in use, reinforcing and augmenting 220-kilovolt lines with 41-metre towers and a small length of single-circuit 500-kilovolt line with 48-metre towers, which will create nothing like the destruction of AEMO’s 80-metre-plus towers.

This detailed and credible alternative presented the Victorian government the opportunity to stop and think again before it became too late, to reconsider whether the proposals on the table, vastly expensive and damaging, were genuinely necessary. Unfortunately, the stubbornness of the minister’s advisers, her department and others involved suggest this chance is being overlooked. It is actually quite horrifying to look from the outside and see that the sunk-cost fallacy has combined with political management and personal stubbornness to push them ever onwards with a deeply misconceived, damaging, expensive and irreversible mistake. Professor Bruce Mountain has written:

VNI-West is a generation-defining potential infrastructure development. The Government of Victoria has failed to address the questions we have raised about it. As time passes and our studies and advice endures without credible critique, we believe with ever greater conviction that the Government, which has blindly followed AEMO’s advice, has made a big policy blunder at considerable and needless cost to consumers, tax payers, clean electricity providers, land holders and the environment.

I am pleased to see Dr Mansfield here; I am sure she is concerned about the environment, especially in our electorate of Western Victoria Region with 80-metre-high transmission towers traversing the countryside like a spider web of steel, a disgraceful attack on the environment. VicGrid, which ought to be in a position to get this right, has completely failed here. The government, VicGrid and their consultants, Jacobs, did not engage with the report authors. They would not provide the terms of reference for the consultants, nor include them in meetings, nor did they question them on the report released. Professor Mountain notes:

VicGrid did not ask a single question of us during this review. Beyond superficial details, Jacobs too had no questions and they did not ask to see our workings, which we were at pains to proffer. Jacobs told us they had no need to see our workings in order to reach their conclusions.

This is not an impressive start for the organisation. It does little to remove the scepticism I have about the government’s attitude to consultation. It is a farce and a fraud and a lie being perpetrated on the community. Where is the independence? Where is the competence? I have little faith that this bill will do anything to improve the overall quality of our transmission network upgrades. As experts and advisers are recycled from department to favoured consultant to quango to regulator, no new insight arrives, no new ideas or ability. Shuffling the cards in this pack does nothing if the cards themselves are worthless.

As for suggesting compensation to landholders, that is absolute rubbish. If you take the transmission lines going into the potato farming area, their businesses will be rendered inoperable. Their boom sprayers cannot work near transmission towers. You are absolutely crippling many agricultural industries, you are absolutely polluting the environment with your above-ground transmission proposals and you are not prepared to ever look at undergrounding transmission or to going to the expert alternative of plan B. But also what happens? You say you will give them compensation for 25 years. What happens after that? These towers are going to be there in perpetuity. Are you serious – 25 years of compensation? Are you going to pull them down? If we have a nuclear reactor, we will not need these transmission lines. What are you going to do then? But meanwhile all these properties, landholders, agricultural institutions and tourism precincts will be rendered inoperable and have this blight perpetrated on them in perpetuity. This is a disgraceful bill, and I oppose it.

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (11:02): I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. The Victorian Greens are supportive of this bill, a well-overdue move in the right direction for transmission, renewables and related infrastructure planning in this state. At the outset it is important to recognise that increased transmission capacity is required in our energy grid regardless of the energy source, but it is particularly critical to our rollout of renewables.

While there are different views among some regarding where this transmission should go, broadly energy experts agree that more transmission is required. As those before me have laid out, this bill transfers the role of planning for transmission to VicGrid and confers on it a number of responsibilities, most importantly related to community consultation and strategic assessment. This is a belated recognition that the approach taken so far has alienated many in our community and turned them, frankly, against renewable energy.

The Greens have been critical at the outset regarding the consultation process taken on projects like the Western Renewables Link. I have spoken to many in the community that are in my electorate of Western Victoria, and they are anxious about what these projects will mean for them. These conversations have been really hard. Their anxiety and distress are real and should not be dismissed. So much of the anxiety has come from the uncertainty and the information void that they have experienced – a sense of a lack of agency and a failure to be heard by anyone making decisions. Many of these communities have told me about how they were actually really supportive of renewables – and still are – and they felt like they had a role to play in it, but the poor planning and consultation has meant that they have not felt like they have been brought on that journey. Poor engagement has also created space for misinformation to spread, capitalising on the uncertainty and anxiety and building a broader resistance to renewables in some areas.

The Greens really welcome a renewed approach to planning that will involve communities at the earliest stages, rather than drawing a line on a map and then going to consult after decisions have been made. It is an incredible shame that this was not done prior to the Western Renewables Link being planned – or VNI West – as it has done substantial damage to the social licence for renewables in many parts of western and northern Victoria. There is still scope for improved engagement with those communities, and I really urge VicGrid to redouble their efforts, to listen and to work with those communities and provide them with the information that they need, and to continue to engage with them as these projects roll out.

When we stand back for a second and recognise the impact that fossil fuels and climate change have on people and the environment, including farmers, it is clear that this is magnitudes greater than the impact of renewables infrastructure. It is something that can get lost in these debates. Nonetheless, we recognise that this infrastructure is not zero impact – no form of energy is – which is why we want to see genuine efforts put into ensuring that host communities directly benefit from the renewables rollout. This is part of the just transition to renewables. Not only must we support those who have relied on the old fossil fuel industries for their livelihoods to re-skill and move into the new economies, we must also recognise the role that other communities are playing in hosting new forms of energy production. This is an opportunity to deliver benefits to us all, particularly those in the regions, and avoid repeating the same old pattern of corporate profiteering at the expense of communities. But it requires the right policy settings.

Community benefit really has to be more than a simple per kilometre compensation scheme for landholders, and it is disappointing that such a simplistic measure was included in this legislation. That said, we do want to see some form of compensation to landholders, so we will not oppose that, but I will have some questions about that in the committee stage. But there needs to be a lot more considered when it comes to community benefit, because a simple per kilometre compensation scheme fails to differentiate the value of land from agricultural or ecological perspectives. It fails to consider the impact on the broader community and their needs. For example, many agricultural communities and farmers struggle with power costs, with energy costs, and when they see renewable energy bypassing them en route to the city, leaving them with unreliable, expensive, dirty power, it does nothing to build social licence. So they too should have access to cheap renewable power, and there is a real opportunity here with this renewables rollout to do that for these communities. Regional communities are struggling with housing. They struggle with access to services, with internet access and with local skills training opportunities to keep jobs in their local communities. These are things that could all be looked at as part of community benefit schemes attached to things like transmission. We have heard from traditional owners, who want their land rights considered, including potential for community ownership models that deliver ongoing benefits for them.

While we have been advised that legislation regarding broader community benefit is coming, the importance of this in terms of building social licence cannot be overestimated, and nor can the opportunity to use renewables to address chronic inequities in our regions. I think it is a shame that we have to wait for a further tranche of legislation to deal with this community benefit aspect of the renewables rollout. I think it is something that is, again, well overdue, and it goes hand in hand with consultation. However, we do look forward to seeing some further legislation later in the year that deals with this again. I will have some questions in the committee stage about what the intentions are around community benefit. But we really need to support our regional communities. We need to ensure that they are genuinely heard. I hope this legislation really marks a genuine shift in the approach that is taken, because if we do that, we can get on with the rapid transition to renewables that we need.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:08): I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024, and off the top I endorse Mr Davis’s comments regarding the importance and the role of renewables in our energy sector and the transition. I also endorse that it is far better that we localise the key accountabilities around these powers and this transition away from the Australian Energy Market Operator; it is better to have a local body to oversee projects. This is good. But let us be clear about what this bill is for and what this bill is attempting to solve. Yes, the projects that come forth are intended to address climate change and assist with renewables, but that is not actually the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to create a regulatory framework to conduct projects for that end. It is not just little projects, not just on a rooftop solar scale, but on a massive scale: North East Link scale, Suburban Rail Loop (SRL) scale – a scale that requires a statutory body to be given the powers of the state to spend and to be judge and jury over planning rules to determine what information is shared and what is withheld and what consultation it hears and what it ignores.

Why does it need these powers? What problem are these powers solving that could not be solved by Parliament and its ministers or by normal due process and transparency? What is VicGrid and the power it is given designed to do? Well, it is explicitly, specifically and categorically designed for one thing – to ensure local communities, local individuals and local home and property owners cannot stop, interfere with or contest projects, cannot appeal against its imposts on their lives, cannot raise and alert the world to mistakes and cannot prevent its excesses. It is to ensure that people do not get in the way of the project, because the project is all that matters.

In the orders of priority, the bill makes the hierarchy very, very clear: government first, project second, renewables targets third, environmental surveys fourth, cultural heritage fifth and people last. Not just last, worse than last – they are the last and only sole group with no power and no recourse. Under the methodology of this bill it is perfectly okay to put people last. Let that sink in. This is a law that says it is okay to put people last. Environmental activists get a say. We saw what just happened at Hastings. Indigenous groups get a say – Indigenous groups have a say over land and water usage, and rightly so – but not the average Victorian, not the home owner, not the property owner, not the business owner and not the local council, nobody.

The ones most directly affected are uniquely singled out, partly I think because they do not want any pesky, uppity local residents holding things up. In order to save the people from climate change, they must come last, because every other consideration must come first, and every other interest comes before them. This project is expensive and complex, and there are important CEOs, steering committees, oversight and coordinating management and consultation structures that report to other structures that have cross-deliverables with other Messiah-complex departmental heads. All of the public servants in the world get a job with an impressive title and a pay packet, and they get a say. But you know who does not get a seat at this table – the sole group that do not get one is people, families, communities. Any consultation is entirely the gift and within the definition of VicGrid, and whether or not it is adequate is all determined by VicGrid. The targets must be met, and we must do whatever it takes to do so.

In the eyes of this government, these ends justify these means. And what are the means – well, to pull apart and eviscerate every notion of natural justice, fairness and due process that belongs to citizens. The ends justify the means, and what are the means – the means are that you will not know it is happening, you will not be able to stop it happening and you will not be able to appeal what is happening. You do not matter. Victorians do not matter. The ends justify the means. You can justify anything when the ends justify the means. There have been so many instances in history where governments have decided that the ends justify the means. It rarely ends well.

I think in the tone of those opposite there is an expectation that the people should trust the government with this power, like the people of Watsonia and Bulleen trusted the government with North East Link or like the people of Box Hill and Glen Waverley trusted that the government were not going to build massive high-rise towers and change their town landscape if they supported the SRL. It is just like when we were told to trust them with other important projects like the Commonwealth Games, like hotel quarantine, like the airport rail link and like AusNet: ‘Trust us.’ Trust the government that treats the $10 billion blowout of North East Link as someone else’s problem and the government that promised no new taxes and then introduced 54 of them. As Mr Davis’s amendments point out, the bill includes significant revenue costs to Victorians.

Trust the government that does not appear before inquiries, and when it does, those accountable cannot remember any key details. But the lesson here is that without Mr Davis’s amendment, under this law, there is now in practice no recourse for citizens in contesting the government. The rule of law is that they have no rights. The scene will be a family having breakfast: trucks and builders roll up next door and start tearing up the land and beginning works, and that family will have had no right to be forewarned, consulted or even considered. Before anyone can say that is an exaggeration, that is exactly what has happened with the North East Link and exactly what is happening now with the SRL in Box Hill and Glen Waverley. Mark my words: without this amendment, VicGrid will join the ranks of the most hated government institutions in this state. It is yet another example of a government authority created expressly to bypass the democratic process, and all norms of consultation between state and people.

It will of course have a labyrinthine management and governance structure whereby it will be completely opaque in operation. No-one will be able to point to an accountable person or function for any outcome. Responsibility will be bounced around as expedient. It will be given unprecedented powers – all the extended powers of government – granted with autonomy. It will be an autonomous body with the powers of the state – power without accountability. Not a single person in this massively well paid executive suite of this body can be voted out – not a single one. Anyone wielding state power autonomously has to answer to Victorians. We will get, at best, crappy half-year updates and annual reports that bury accountability in jargon – transferred accountability and creative accounting – and all Victorians know it. We have been here before, and we have seen before us the financial wreckage that will be left in its trail, let alone the targets. We have a budget next week, a budget that by all accounts is going to be a wrecking ball through services, through living standards and through community programs. But do you know what will not be touched – North East Link, SRL, VicGrid. Yes, those guys are looked after because after all the ends justify the means.

Those opposite can rant and rave about the coalition’s ideological opposition to renewables, which of course is not the case –

A member: No, lies, lies, lies.

Richard WELCH: Lies. But what could be more ideological than a law that imposes a state authority being above its citizens – the ideology that the state knows best for you and your family? The amendments that are put forward are not just sensible, they are necessary. A community committee is a simple, small step, the bare minimum, giving people a seat at the table alongside every other stakeholder and every other unelected official. The revoking of the easement tax to avoid the project costs being passed back to consumers in a period of a cost-of-living crisis is eminently sensible, and you would think it would just be the norm within a project like this. I commend Mr Davis’s amendments. I thank the house. That completes my contribution.

Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (11:19): I rise today to oppose the government’s National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. My main concern about this bill is a lack of opportunity for Victorians to oppose and negotiate the construction of energy infrastructure through their communities and private properties. We have all heard from our constituents that the government’s idea of consultation is feeble at best, with very little time and information provided to enable communities and individuals to respond and absorb what it is the government is proposing. This is vastly unfair to the Victorians we represent. My second concern with this bill is the amount of unchecked authority that enables the VicGrid CEO and the Minister for Energy and Resources to steamroll communities and private properties to achieve their agenda. In my opinion, this is a very undemocratic method in which to achieve an outcome here in Victoria. In fact it is quite a socialistic way to go about things.

In the past few weeks we have already seen the government remove the rights of Victorians to appeal such proposals for energy infrastructure through their planning scheme amendment VC261. This has had many of my constituents reaching out in a panic, not knowing how to save their communities from being destroyed by unwanted and dangerous energy infrastructure.

Having recently had discussions with the Victorian Farmers Federation, many concerns from farmers are being highlighted about the compensation proposals of the VicGrid lines. Who will be paying this compensation – an already broke government that will thrust even more taxes onto our struggling Victorian household budgets or the VicGrid enterprise with funds received by grants yet again funded by our Victorian household budgets? How much compensation is considered a fair price? One farmer stated that overall compensation is only enough to cover just three years of produce lost in the footprint of these lines.

I would like to take this opportunity to praise the opposition in its objection to this bill and for the amendments that it has proposed. It is good to see them standing strong for their constituents – the same constituents that I represent, the same people who do not want to see this bill passed.

Joe McCRACKEN (Western Victoria) (11:21): I rise to speak against this bill as well. This bill is basically like opening the gate for a massive bulldozer that is going to run roughshod over country communities – a bulldozer that does not care where it goes. It just cares about crushing country communities, and that is exactly what will happen.

When we talk about projects, the VNI West, which runs right through my electorate from Bulgana up to the New South Wales border, is a significant infrastructure project that requires a lot of consultation. The VNI West has been the subject of a lot of community discussion – not much of it positive. Then there is also the project called the Western Renewables Link from Sydenham to Bulgana, which runs along the spine from Melton all the way up to Bulgana through Ballarat, through prime potato-growing country. I have got to say for locals to say they are disappointed is the nicest way of saying it. They have been gutted. They have been absolutely traumatised by these activities which have been going on, as I think Mrs McArthur might have said, for over four years now. And it is now that consultation has been discovered – it is like a new buzzword that has been discovered – but consultation in words, not in action.

There was a rally in Charlton on 17 April, and the message was very, very clear: no to option 5A, a big no to option 5A. Now, will the government and will VicGrid listen to this consultation? No, they do not care about it. All they want to do is ride their bulldozer right through these communities. Let us not forget the rally that was held right out the front of this Parliament last year as well, when we had literally hundreds of people out there talking about the negative impact that VNI West is going to have, let alone the dozens and dozens of tractors that were on show for everyone to see. Is that going to be ignored as well? What about that consultation – a very visible, tangible consultation? Is that going to be ignored as well? What about the huge rally that happened last year in St Arnaud in my electorate, where again there were dozens and dozens of tractors driving down the street with placards saying ‘No to VNI West’? What about that? Is VicGrid going to listen to that – no. Is the government going to listen to that – no. No Labor MPs turned up. The member for Ripon did not turn up. I was there. The Nationals were there. They do not care – clearly they do not care. If you do not turn up and you are not willing to listen, why would the community think that you actually care?

It is rather ironic actually, given that what is proposed in this legislation to be set up – it is called the Victorian transmission infrastructure framework – is supposed to include meaningful community engagement. It is almost like it has just been discovered. Although the opportunity to engage in meaningful community engagement has existed for at least four years on these matters, rarely has it been taken up by members of the government – next to zero.

If you want to talk about some of the consultation that has happened already, locals in St Arnaud have been telling me that there have been consultants – not members of the government, consultants – out on the street with iPads, and they say, ‘Do you support more renewable electricity?’ Very simple questions. The thing is these are basically consultants that stand out the front of the supermarket saying, ‘Oh, can you please do a survey? We will give you $20.’ These people could be from out of town, they could be passing through, they could be tourists. There is no robustness about the data collection in these surveys, which are supposed to inform any of the community feedback that goes on. That is not real consultation. There have been reports of consultants trying to step onto farms and going through farm gates. If anyone knew anything about farming they would know that that was a biosecurity hazard right there and then, because you do not want to bring outside materials onto a farm. But of course we cannot expect the consultants or the government to know that; they know nothing about farming.

Bev McArthur: They live inside the tram tracks, the whole lot of them.

Joe McCRACKEN: One hundred per cent, Mrs McArthur. I also want to acknowledge many, many locals that have fought for a significant amount of time through arduous circumstances, often with a lot of pushback, against consultants, VicGrid, AEMO and the like.

Bev McArthur: AusNet.

Joe McCRACKEN: AusNet as well. If you take a drive through areas in the northern part of my electorate, including northern parts from Dean through Ballarat to Daylesford, all the prime potato-growing country, you will see that there are heaps of signs – ‘Stop Labor’s towers’. Stop Labor’s towers. I encourage you to go through there and read them and talk to locals. That might be genuine consultation. But I would like to acknowledge some locals that have been through some extremely difficult times that have still kept fighting. Glenden Watts is an amazing community leader from St Arnaud, who along with many locals has been fighting and continuing to fight so that their voice is actually heard. I have been proud to walk with them on the journey to make sure that they have been heard, to be genuinely listened to, because they continue to be ignored.

A lot of the work that has gone on around VNI West and the Western Renewables Link is on prime agricultural land. I talked about potatoes before, but there is a lot of cropping country that is impacted by this as well. If you want to carve up country Victoria with coathangers, essentially – large coathangers carrying transmission lines – where do you expect food to be actually grown? Are you going to grow it in community gardens in the city? Because that may be all that is left. Most of it is very good cropping land, extremely good cropping land, so where is food actually going to be grown? Has food security even entered the thought process in this regard at all? Because I tell you, if you talk to locals they will tell you, ‘Where are we going to grow our crops? How are we going to feed the city?’ It appears none of these questions have even been considered, or if they have, they have been completely and utterly ignored, which is probably more the case.

I really do hope that this is genuine consultation which is proposed in this bill. For years you have had the opportunity to consult genuinely; for years it has been ignored. Why would it change now? When VicGrid, AEMO and all these other different bodies have had the opportunity, their track record of consultation has been pathetic – zero out of 10. It would probably go into the negatives if it could – that is how bad it is. But I guess, what does it matter for you guys – for the government? What does it actually matter? Just keep on riding your bulldozer, keep on crushing country communities, keep on destroying our food bowl, because you guys have to meet your targets.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:30): I rise to speak on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024. After the fire and brimstone and fury of those opposite, I think it is important to reflect on what this bill is actually designed to achieve. This bill is one that will assist us in a very important measure, and that is our transition to a renewable energy future for Victoria. That is a very important thing to do. Those opposite, when they were last in power federally, had 17, 18, 19 different policies. They have no consistency, no clue, and we see that from them here today as well. Again colleagues like Mr Welch are banging the nuclear drum, which would also require new transmission lines. We do not have any clear picture. It is very rare that I find myself in agreement with Mr McGowan in this place, but at least he has the good sense –

Richard Welch: On a point of order, President, Mr Galea said that I was banging the nuclear drum. I did not mention nuclear once in my entire address.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order anyway.

Michael GALEA: It may have even been, I believe, Mrs McArthur who mentioned nuclear. I will take that on board.

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: You did mention it. The privilege of being in that chair is that you get to listen most intently to the contributions in this place, and I can very much assure you, Mrs McArthur, that you did.

Unlike those opposite, the point I am making is that we actually do have a clear and consistent plan for meeting renewable energy targets. And unlike those opposite, when we set those targets we achieve them. That is what is happening, and that is why projects like this are so important.

This bill will establish a new framework for planning and developing transmission infrastructure and renewable energy zones in Victoria with a new Victorian transmission investment framework, which will be implemented by a new body known as VicGrid. It will also establish an interim measure which will enable the new CEO of the agency to deliver these high-priority transmission towers such as the Victoria to New South Wales interconnector, better known as VNI West, Marinus Link, the Western Renewables Link and transmission connections for offshore wind projects, such as what we are going to see with the Star of the South, which is going to be an incredible project which is going to transform Victoria’s energy future.

Bev McArthur: I hope you are still alive.

Michael GALEA: I am sure we will be in fact, and I think even you will be, Mrs McArthur.

Bev McArthur: I am living forever.

Michael GALEA: That will strike fear into the hearts of all your colleagues, which is great to see.

Melina Bath: I hope you are not being ageist.

Michael GALEA: Definitely not. I think you lot are much more concerned about that than I am. I very much look forward to your continued contributions in this place, Mrs McArthur.

I do want to take a moment to reflect on some amendments that have been circulated today by Mr Davis – some curious amendments in fact. One of things that the amendments seek to target is the removal of any additional payments for traditional owners. Part of this bill is actually designed around additional payments for landowners. This bill does not actually go into traditional owner payments or other payments for local communities. Future legislation will do that, but this legislation does not. So it is very curious to see in the first place that you are objecting to something that is not even in the bill.

But secondly, why are you only targeting traditional owners? Why are you drawing a line in the sand and saying they do not deserve fair entitlement? You come into this place. You are yelling at us about consultation, consultation. We are doing that work, we are doing that consultation and as part of that we are responding to that with these reasonable compensation payments, whether it is to landowners, to community groups or to traditional owners. But you are saying, ‘No, no, no. Don’t do that, and leave traditional owners out of it.’ Never mind. It is not even in this bill. You are saying, ‘Take that out altogether.’

This is exactly what we have come to expect from those opposite, from an opposition who announced on a radio interview that they are walking away from the treaty process in Victoria, blindsiding their own colleagues, blindsiding even the Leader of the Opposition, who according to the member for Rowville is the right leader at the moment. We will see what happens in a few more weeks.

Melina Bath: On a point of order, President, on relevance, that has nothing to do with this bill whatsoever. Could you draw the member back to the actual bill?

The PRESIDENT: Sorry, I missed a bit of that contribution. But to be safe, I will call the member back to the bill.

Michael GALEA: Thank you, President. I would argue I was being at least as relevant to the bill as Mr Welch was when he was talking about the Suburban Rail Loop. Much as I love talking about that in this place, I will not take up the opportunity to go down that particular line of topic. But again the point is worth mentioning that the only people that they seek to exclude from this consultation that they are so vociferously campaigning for in this place are actually traditional owners, and that speaks to the way in which they approach traditional owners in this state. The point that I was making is that is highlighted by the absolutely cavalier, disrespectful attitude, as conveyed by the Leader of the Nationals in the other place. That is exactly why that is relevant to that.

I also note the amendments put forward by Mr Davis advocate for the establishment of a community advisory committee. Aside from various procedural functions, the amendments list the proposed membership, which would be two members from the Victorian Farmers Federation, one person from the Australian Industry Group, one person from the Municipal Association of Victoria, two people from the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a Seafood Industry Victoria representative and two people to represent the interests of electricity consumers in Victoria, though it is very unclear what that actually entails, because of course we are all electricity consumers. But based on the make-up of that group, what is abundantly clear –

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I am sure Mrs McArthur probably would sit on that, because what is abundantly clear from that list is that we know what they would try to do if that got up. We absolutely know that the first thing that they would be doing is doing their absolute best to stack it out with their own cronies. I am sure, Mrs McArthur, you would get a prime spot on it too. If you are going to put out a list like that and that is what you are doing – absolutely zero union representation for one, which I would have thought would be quite relevant and appropriate too; absolutely zero environmental representation as well, never mind; and again, complete disregard for First Nations representatives and traditional owners – we know what you are going to try and do with it. Despite the fact that you come into this place and undermine and let down farmers at every opportunity, you still think that they are on your side. You are trying to put this list in so that they would be your people, and it leads me to ask: if you are going to do that, why not just say the community advisory committee should be composed of Liberal Party branch members? That is basically what you are asking for, and I am sure, Mrs McArthur, if you did go on it, you would be putting just the same things up as what they would be saying.

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Michael GALEA: But the list you are putting forward, Mrs Hermans – I do not know if you have read this list – is very, very decidedly pointed. It is a very strategically designed list of groups that you want to be consulted – only particular people, it seems. That is the plan from your side over there. Now, I am sure Liberal Party branch members have other things to talk about, like, as I say, who the best person to lead the Liberal Party is at the moment – and we will find out again next week if that is different from who it should be this week.

But I would also like to touch on some comments that Mrs McArthur made. As I said, I do enjoy listening to your contributions, Mrs McArthur, and I appreciated your thoughts and your talk about plan B. That was referenced in the Jacobs review, and you are advocating for that as a better way forward. The Jacobs review – I am sure you have read it; I know your colleagues are not very good at reading the reports that they talk about in this place, but I presume you have read it. If you have, you will know that that report says that plan B simply does not stack up. The Jacobs independent review actually found that what the Australian Energy Market Operator was saying was true and that it does not stack up. In fact to do plan B would be not only more costly but also less reliable. Further to that, again underlining the hypocrisy of those opposite, to do plan B would require vastly increased numbers of home acquisitions in Ballarat and Bendigo, and I am sure you would have something to say about that. Whether they are within the tram tracks of Ballarat and Bendigo or outside the tram tracks of Ballarat or Bendigo, more home acquisition is something that plan B would entail.

As I say, this is a publicly available review, but again what we have from those opposite amidst all the bluster is a complete failure to read the reports and to look at the facts and a complete refusal to acknowledge scientific fact that is staring at them right in their faces. It goes to the point again on renewable energy that we do not have a clear policy agenda from those opposite.

We have not had that for a long time, and –

Ann-Marie Hermans: We’re not in government.

Michael GALEA: We are in government, Mrs Hermans, and I think there is a very good reason for that. I think there is a very good reason why the people of Victoria have looked at your policies for the last three elections in a row and looked at your bumbling Shadow Treasurer, who could not even produce a single figure in his pre-election press conference – they have seen what you have put forward and have rejected it three times consecutively. You say that we are in government – yes, and there is a very good reason for that. It is something that we certainly do not take for granted. When we go to the people of Victoria, we go to them with a clear policy agenda, we outline what we are going to do and they vote for it.

Those opposite, when they were in government federally – and we could bring up many state examples as well – had, what, 19-odd energy policies? We had complete dysfunction. Industry had no idea – they had no certainty and no capacity to actually invest – because your federal colleagues, in their infinite wisdom, kept changing their minds. ‘Here’s our new policy,’ they said, ‘We’ve fought it out in the party room. Here’s another new policy,’ and then, later that afternoon, ‘We’ve been knifed; we’ve been necked,’ because people who are ambitious for their leaders turn out to be more ambitious for themselves, and that is exactly what we are going to see from those opposite in this place as well. We see it in opposition, and we will absolutely, sure as anything, the next time –

Joe McCracken: On a point of order, President, this is completely irrelevant.

The PRESIDENT: I am happy to uphold the point of order. Also, can I remind members that constant interjections are unruly. I would suggest to the member on their feet that they do not react to interjections and also that they direct their contribution through the Chair.

Michael GALEA: Thank you, President. Sometimes it is too tempting.

I will conclude my contribution by outlining that this is one more bill that is a part of the suite of measures that this government is implementing in order to deliver the renewable energy future that Victorians need, that Victorians want, that Victorians voted for and also, extremely importantly, that our planet needs as well. As we make this transition, this is one very important bill on the step towards that destination. While highlighting the fact that if those opposite were ever given power again it would be complete chaos in the energy space, I do note that this is a very important bill for the reasons that have been outlined by my colleague Ms Ermacora and through some of the points I have mentioned today. I do commend the bill to the house.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (11:43): I am pleased to rise to make a contribution on the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024 today. I considered, on Tuesday, the Energy and Public Land Legislation Amendment (Enabling Offshore Wind Energy) Bill 2024, and there are elements of crossover with this bill today. One was the point of manufacture of the offshore electricity power, and then there is the consideration of the transportation and the transmission of that electricity into the Latrobe Valley on one side, and/or VNI West, which I will speak about in my opposition to that particular plan as well.

There is a serious energy crisis that we are facing. In effect there is going to be the closure of Yallourn power station by 2028 and Loy Yang A by 2035 in Victoria. They will take considerable gigawatts – 1.2 gigawatts and 2.5 gigawatts – out of our energy system. At the moment those coal power stations run day and night and provide that firming and consistent power. This government and certainly the Nationals do not oppose offshore wind. In fact I can remember back to 2017, when the new proposed Star of the South came to town on a tour saying, ‘We’ll save every town in Gippsland,’ virtually, and they put that proposition before us. We listened with interest. I have said this before: certainly the offshore Gippsland area is one of the windiest places on earth – that was quoted by Star of the South. We know moving forward that the federal government have recently given the green light to six proposals, and they listed them the other day, in regard to feasibility licences to move forward, to get all that planning and assessments done et cetera. Again, we do not have a problem with that. Then there are another six moving forward potentially as well. We do not have a problem with that.

Of course when you manufacture that electricity out at sea, you create that, it has got to be transmitted from the sea, offshore, and through, in our case, to the Latrobe Valley, where it can access the current switching stations – the hard wire, shall we say – in order to move it out into homes, schools and businesses. This is all under an ideal scenario as well. We also know that AusNet in the past had been doing a considerable amount of work in that transmission space, and they had a proposed pathway – they were going to take the electricity from offshore and through a pathway. They had been doing a lot of consultation, but nowhere near the amount of consultation that will be required under the sample pathway or the sample route that VicGrid is proposing through Gippsland. Indeed they were in with 50 landholders and farmers. This proposed pathway is up to 300.

I will get to the concern around community consultation, which is vast and deep and of most concern to people in country Victoria, but first let us just look through some of this scenario. There are going to be 300 farmers and landholders that are going to have a cloud over their head in relation to the pathway. In terms of VicGrid, VicGrid have come out and said that their preferred pathway is above ground, and they are talking about a range of costs that that would take. I will go the upper echelon, because we know with this government it is always the highest value – $1.5 billion to put overhead transmission lines through an arc from roughly around Giffard into the Latrobe Valley, through Holey Plains et cetera, past Flynn.

There has been considerable commentary in my patch in relation to underground lines, and I concur and support the arguments of many people in that space. Indeed, the government or VicGrid’s upper limit was around $4.5 billion. In some ways this is all quite important to delve into. The upshot is at the end of the day this will be a cost that will be shared, and some of that will be shared by consumers without a doubt.

These are important issues. What I do find interesting is that VicGrid is a government organisation – a statutory body et cetera. But here is the thing, and I am just using Star of the South as an example: they actually had a proposal to go underground, create their own electricity and produce transmission lines underground. There are all sorts of science and mechanics behind that, going underground, but this government said, ‘Well, Star of the South, that’s all very well and good, but if you want to play our game, if you want to play in this space, you will be cut out, shut out and locked out of any encouragement or support.’ So in effect it has stifled, stymied and stopped Star of the South from doing their own underground transmission lines because of the establishment of VicGrid. There is all the rigour around it, but no: ‘If you want to come and play in our patch, you have to go through our lines.’ It is sort of a justification. If there is going to be the capacity that is going to be built offshore in time, to the multigigawatts – 8 gigawatts of electricity out to shore, that is what we are hearing – well, surely there could be an engagement with Star of the South wanting to do their own.

I want to understand why it is forcing Star of the South to abandon its proposed underground transmission lines. I also want to understand why the government considered an offshore connection point for all wind farms with one high-voltage direct current underground cable and then connecting them to the grid at Loy Yang or Hazelwood. How did the government address the concerns about the close proximity of the new lines – the proposed lines in this arc, this sample pathway – to the existing Basslink cables? Will the government be up-front on the fact that this transmission line will only cater at the moment for 2 gigawatts when, as I have just said, there is going to be roughly 8 to 9 gigawatts as planned? And how many more transmission lines can we expect will be needed? All of these questions are certainly open for conjecture, and the government needs to come clean, discuss that and provide a clear understanding on those very serious considerations. Then of course it is going to ask for tenders, and good old AusNet, if it wishes to, can bid on that.

That is all there before us. What I would like to also delve into is the discussion around consultation. I have heard and listened to my colleagues and concur with their concerns around consultation. We also certainly have seen gross negligence by this government in relation to consultation on the VNI West project, and certainly I applaud all of the Nationals, whether it be the member for Mallee, the member for Mildura, my upper house colleague Gaelle Broad or the member for Lowan, and all of my Liberal colleagues for standing up for the rights of landholders and our agricultural primary producers, our farmers, and their concerns. I do remember the procession of tractors and residents concerned that their prime agricultural land is going to be nothing more than a highway of transmission lines and concerned about the impact on our food bowl and food supply. I certainly concur.

In relation to consultation, what we see in the amendment from my colleague David Davis certainly goes to the importance of having proper consultation. Some of the communication from the government around this legislation is that VicGrid will have a new Victorian transmission infrastructure framework, which includes meaningful engagement and benefit-sharing arrangements for X, Y, and Z. Meaningful engagement – well it defies me how this government consistently does the lip-service in terms of engagement. It may have an Engage Victoria website, but it is a case of ‘Tell us what you think, and we will disregard it.’ It happens time and time again. At the moment we have got an eminent taskforce on the future of our forests. Talking about eminent, again, this lacks the depth of expertise, and I will relate it back to this amendment. It lacks that depth of expertise in bushfires, scientists – people who actually understand what could happen from the further locking up of forests. That concerns me.

Let me go to Mr Davis’s amendment. It goes to the need to have a sensible knowledge matrix: an advisory community body with two farmers – how terrible to have farmers on an advisory body where there is going to be a line through the state; a manufacturer – remember what manufacturing was? We used to do it in Victoria for decades and decades before –

Bev McArthur: Affordable power, to deliver it.

Melina BATH: That is right, absolutely. There must be a representative of rural councils, two representatives of small business – that is exactly right – and some consumers, and the minister must consult with this consultative body in relation to any works going forward.

We have heard discussion around VNI West, and I have also had the pleasure of hearing about Professor Bruce Mountain’s particularly thorough investigation, No Longer Lost in Transmission, affectionately known as alternate plan B. We have heard of the importance from Professor Mountain of the way that existing easements can be used and can be upgraded and can still deliver those transmission lines that are necessary to cater for renewable energy. They can still deliver that without cutting swathes of new transmission lines through farming properties. I heard from Mr Galea just then that apparently the Jacobs report is ordained and that we should all bow down to it. I have it in my hand. Under pressure from the community and from the Nationals and Liberals to actually consult on this alternate plan B report, there was an investigation. But the Jacobs report’s terms of reference were far too flimsy. They were insufficient, and there was no depth. There was no adequate rigour or discussion with the proponents of plan B. Certainly you can come to a rationale that it is not good enough if you do not look at it and involve yourself in the actual understanding of what that proposal is. Shame on the government for accepting this, but I also think this is fair trade for this government.

We do have issues. Certainly, I have outlined some of my issues in relation to this. We have issues with other scenarios, with the government removing the right of individuals and property owners to go to VCAT for an appeal process. That is another concern. The rights of individuals, the rights of farmers and the rights of Victorians and country Victorians are being removed. With those few words, I will say that I certainly endorse the improvements to this bill. This government has a problem to solve, but it absolutely needs to create the right framework, and without these amendments it is in an untenable position.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.