Wednesday, 19 June 2024

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:52): (939) My constituency question for the Minister for Emergency Services concerns strike action proposed by local CFA brigades in Western Victoria Region over what they describe, quite rightly, as the Victorian government’s reckless renewables expansion. These brigade volunteers come from communities which will bear the brunt of the government’s rushed, incompetent efforts to implement its 95 per cent renewables target by 2035 and of its inexplicable attachment to the Victoria to New South Wales interconnector, which the Australian Energy Market Operator’s own figures show will cause Victoria to become dependent on importing power from New South Wales. Rightly, brigades will still respond to threats to life, but my question to the minister is: will you simply acknowledge, as the brigades demand, that high-voltage lines are potentially lethal in wildfire scenarios, that they jeopardise firefighter and community safety and that powering down 500 kilovolt transmission lines during wildfire events is not a realistic protection mechanism?