Tuesday, 13 May 2025

Bills

Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025

Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025

Cognate debate

Lizzie BLANDTHORN (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Children, Minister for Disability) (14:04): I move, by leave:

That this house authorises the President to permit the second-reading debates on the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 to be taken concurrently.

Motion agreed to.

Second reading

Debate resumed on motions of Enver Erdogan and Ingrid Stitt:

That these bills be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (14:05): I am pleased to rise and make a contribution to both these bills, the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025, and in doing so indicate that the opposition will make a number of points about each bill. Both bills are in fact omnibus bills of a type. They cobble together a number of changes across a broader front, and in that sense it is quite appropriate that they be considered cognately, noting that the votes on the second reading and the committee stages and a third-reading vote would of course occur distinctly and separately for each of them. Notwithstanding that, I want to put on record a number of points.

I am going to start with the Victorian energy efficiency target (VEET) bill and indicate what it does. It extends the energy upgrades program’s legislated end date from 2030 to 2045, it explicitly allows activities that may be mandated by another law or regulation to be prescribed under the Victorian energy upgrades program, it allows the VEU targets for upcoming years to be set in a two-year rather than a five-year block, it expands the Essential Services Commission’s compliance and enforcement powers and it removes technical restrictions on the creation and surrender of the Victorian energy efficiency certificates.

I want to start by saying that, first of all, the Liberals and Nationals support the concept of energy efficiency. We see that that is an important position where outcomes can be achieved in terms of reduction of emissions but also efficiency in terms of better financial outcomes. So it is in that sense a happy medium spot. It is a spot where the impact on businesses and households is likely to be less than some other interventions that are designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That is an important understanding and background point, but that is not in itself a licence for any program, any approach towards energy efficiency. It is a program that still needs to run dare I say efficiently, it is a program that needs to run safely and it is a program that needs to run in a way that does not cause unintended consequences.

Now the truth of the matter: this has been a dog of a program. It is a program that has been poorly run by this state government. We were all aware of – and who can forget them – the images of small businesses with two, four and up to six fridges lined up outside the businesses where the energy efficiency program has delivered free fridges to businesses. Of course moving to an energy-efficient fridge makes perfect sense in terms of exactly the issues of energy efficiency I have pointed to. But delivering the second or the third or the fourth or the fifth or the sixth fridge is a point of declining efficiency for the businesses.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

David DAVIS: I have got to say, Mr McIntosh over there seems to support the idea of delivering six fridges to a business under the efficiency program. What about the cost blowouts on that? We know that the program is the least efficient energy efficiency program in the country. There are of course in Labor’s history of energy efficiency programs some real doozies. The Kevin Rudd pink batts – who can forget the pink batts – led to the lives of people being lost, enormous inefficiency and enormous cost overruns. Nobody can deny that that program was a complete and utter dog of a program. Equally, this one that is being run in Victoria at the moment is a program that has not been well run. It is a program that has had –

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, what do you think? Was it a great thing to deliver six fridges to a business – unrequested fridges? I mean, honestly.It is certainly an amazing image, you would have to say. You would certainly say it is an amazing image, wouldn’t you? A business with six fridges lined up out the front, all delivered for free – and the business only needed one fridge. I mean, this is seriously important.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, how many businesses need five unrequested fridges?

Melina Bath: On a point of order, President, the member should be able to conduct their statement and debate in silence.

The PRESIDENT: I uphold the point of order. Mr Berger and Mr McIntosh, can you desist with your loud interjecting.

David DAVIS: The various schemes around the country run at various levels of efficiency, and I wrote a note on this bill shortly after it came in. I could look up today’s figures; they will not be that different. In March 2021 the Australian scheme was $33, the certificate price. The other schemes around the country were of a similar order – some down much cheaper. But the Victorian scheme had careered up to a massive amount per certificate, and this has been a very, very inefficient scheme. It is a scheme that has been poorly run from the start. It is a scheme that the government has imposed on the communities. It is a scheme that has actually got the highest amount of impact on Victorian bills – household bills and small business bills. So you might want to laugh about what people have to pay. You might want to laugh at the fact that families and businesses have got higher electricity charges because of this scheme. I say even where a scheme has good intentions, it can be poorly designed and poorly delivered – and this is such a scheme.

It is important to note that the state government have even recognised that there are a series of real problems with this scheme, and they have actually ordered a strategic review. The discussion paper for the strategic review is out. We would argue that the strategic review should be done before the bill is brought to Parliament and before we change the legislation. We will make that point in our amendments. We will also say that the strategic review should be tabled in Parliament. The state government has not been open about the submissions that have gone to that review, and the state government, further than that, has got the department to do the review itself. So you have got the department, which has failed in delivering properly and efficiently in this way, and it has been asked to do the strategic review of its own work. You have got the kid at home being asked to review their homework. The kid – in this case, the department – is actually reviewing its own homework.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, I am arguing that the department should not be reviewing its own homework. I am actually arguing that the department should have been independently reviewed. Instead of reviewing its own homework, the department should have had an independent external review looking at the failures, looking at the problems and looking at what could be done to fix the problems and what could be done to improve the operation of the scheme. What is so controversial about that suggestion? It seems to have agitated a number on the other side of the chamber, but I think it is a very reasonable point to make. If you are going to do a strategic review, do the strategic review independently; do not give it to the department. The department is going to say, ‘No, we’ve all done very well. It’s fantastic, how we’re operating our own scheme.’ The review that they are undertaking there I predict will give a real tick to the department; I think they are going to be seen as doing a very good job. But let me be clear: they have not done a very good job; they have botched many parts of this program. I am not saying I am against energy efficiency – on the contrary, I actually say energy efficiency is an important part of our approach – but it behoves those who want energy efficiency programs in place to run them properly, to run them efficiently.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, run them properly: properly review the program, independently review the program, release the independent review –

Members interjecting.

Melina Bath: On a point of order, President, it seems that there has been some red cordial consumed at lunchtime and people are a little bit too exercised. I ask that the member can actually speak in silence.

The PRESIDENT: Other than the red cordial stuff, I uphold the point of order. I think there has been some flouting of my previous ruling. I will call the members to order. Mr Davis to continue without being yelled at.

David DAVIS: These are very reasonable points. It might be appropriate at this point to distribute the amendments that we are proposing.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

David DAVIS: As I said, it has been a poor program. The spot prices for the certificates have surged from around $30 up to well over $100. The direct costs are incorporated on energy bills – that is the highest impact in Australia on energy bills. If you ran the program efficiently and properly, without waste, without misapplication, you could actually abate more carbon dioxide emissions. That is the point: you could actually do more in that respect, or you could do the same amount more cheaply. These are, again, very reasonable points.

We do not for a moment think that the setting of the targets is a sensible change here. The minister is seeking the power to set single-year targets, enabling her to play games ahead of the state election, to strike targets that are less embarrassing for the government, given greenhouse emissions have actually been rising the last two years. Let us be clear about this: emissions are down since the baseline in 2005, significantly over 30 per cent, but in the past two years there has been an uptick. On the reporting of these matters we do not agree. The government should stick with its approach; the government should not be trying to tweak this for its own purposes.

I think I have said enough about this bill. It needs to be seen in the context of the surging electricity and gas costs that are being faced across the state at the moment. Small businesses are being clobbered with surging gas costs. We are seeing businesses unable to continue because of the gas issues of reliability of supply and cost, and we are seeing small businesses facing real trouble because of the issues of reliability of supply of electricity and the surging costs. And we are seeing families thumped – everyday families in Victoria being absolutely smashed month after month after month.

The truth is that energy costs were significantly lower in 2014. Those costs bundled along at the bottom of the level. Then they surged and surged and somewhat plateaued for a year, but the plateau is far higher than it was before. It is an absolute smash onto everyday families, who are now paying far more for their energy bills. It needs to be seen in the light of that. The energy upgrades strategic review done by the department itself, reviewing its own homework, is entirely unsatisfactory. I pay tribute here to some of the work that is done by St Vincent’s, Gavin Dufty and his group, for their very detailed analysis of small business costs for gas and electricity and their very detailed analysis of gas and electricity costs for households, and they are the reliable indicator. The ABS figures also make it very clear that there is a problematic increase in costs. We also have this issue of uncertainty of supply, and this is entirely from the state government’s own decisions, its own mistakes. Let us be clear here: the Andrews and Allan Labor governments have now been in power for almost 11 years. They are in their 11th year, and those surges in electricity costs and the surges in gas costs are entirely their responsibility. They have had 11 years to deal with this, and in fact the position has deteriorated in terms of cost and reliability of supply. We all understand the move to net zero, we get what is going on, but you do have a responsibility to make sure that there is continuity of supply and reliability of supply, and that families are not absolutely smashed by these energy charges. So I think it is important to see all of that in the right context here as well.

I want to say something about the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 as well. This bill does a number of things. It amends the Electricity Safety Act 1998 to make some further requirements in terms of bushfire mitigation. It seeks to abolish the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee, and I will say more about that in a minute. It provides additional enforcement powers, and some of these powers seem draconian, and some industry participants have been very clear with us about the scale of these changes. It changes references to ‘enforcement officers’ to ‘authorised officers’. It provides that a court can make adverse publicity orders in relation to offenders. When it amends the Gas Safety Act 1997 it provides further in relation to enforcement and related powers, including additional entry powers. Again, these seem a little bit of an overreach. It changes all references to ‘inspectors’ to ‘authorised officers’. It puts increased penalties in. These are big surges in penalties – massive surges in penalties. I am not sure whether this is going to make the difference that the government imagines. It amends the Pipelines Act 2005 to provide additional powers of entry and to provide that a court may make adverse publicity orders, and it amends the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005 to provide Energy Safe Victoria the ability to only provide its corporate plan every three years, and any updates in between are to be provided to the minister in secret. We are very cautious about that. It amends the Land Act 1958 to clarify that the minister administering the act is not prevented from entering into certain agreements to lease government land for the purpose of various works related to the energy system.

There are a number of problems with this bill, and we do have a set of amendments, which have been distributed. The proposed amendments do effectively three things. The first relates to a number of the statutorily protected consultative committees, the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee, and we seek to amend the legislation to ensure that these committees are not disbanded and that the status quo remains. We oppose the government’s ongoing attack on independent expert advice. This is a nasty government. It hates independent advice.

A member interjected.

David DAVIS: No, no, no. This is what is going on. We saw it with the Public Record Office Victoria. They wanted to abolish the independent advice committee. In the case of the electric line clearance committee, this is a quite a large committee with stakeholders, experts and technical people from across the sector. It has statutory underpinnings as we speak today, and it provides advice to the Minister for Energy and Resources. But you know what – it has provided advice that the minister for energy did not like. It has advised that with respect to line clearance, particularly in the city – not in bushfire-prone areas – where you have the electric lines you could cut much closer rather than more distantly from the lines. They have looked around the world and at other jurisdictions and they have looked at every technical argument, and they have come back and said, ‘Actually, by cutting less often and less deep, we can actually get a better outcome. It’s cheaper. And there’s probably a billion dollars – one thousand million dollars – in value of tree canopy that can be preserved.’ We have got a dense city. It is getting denser and getting hotter. If you knock down houses with tree canopy, and you build great, concrete monstrosities with no trees or tiny boxes along the front, it gets pretty hot. But actually here is a thoughtful expert committee, and it said, ‘We can do this differently. It’s cheaper, and we get a billion dollars worth of extra tree canopy.’ I have FOI-ed their minutes, and I have read them. I am still in dispute on a Deloitte report that the government does not want to provide and some additional matters, but the actual minutes are very clear. I have read them cover to cover, and I pay tribute to the committee and the people that are on it. They are from councils, they are from line authorities, they are from right across the whole technical gamut.

But the minister does not like that recommendation. The minister apparently went nuts when she heard it. And you know what the minister wants to do now – she wants to abolish the committee and get rid of the independent umpire. It is actually pretty nasty; it is pretty ugly what she is doing. Why? Why would you seek to pull the statutory underpinning from a committee that is comprised of all sorts of complex technical experts who have got knowledge that none of us in this chamber have? President, you might have a bit more because of your trade background; you might have more than many.

Members interjecting.

David DAVIS: Well, a number. I am making that point. But this committee and the electrolysis committee likewise are not party-political committees; they are technical expert committees. But this minister wants to kill them, figuratively, because they have given advice that she did not like. This is ‘shoot the messenger’, ‘kill the umpire’. It is actually profoundly disturbing that the minister would seek to nobble an independent advisory committee that has gone to so much work and thought about this so closely. There are expert council officers on this too, and all of them can see their municipalities would look better, the process of tree clipping would be cheaper and we would end up with more tree canopy at a time when we are worried about heat island effects in our cities.

I really sound a note of alarm at the approach of this minister; it is a shocker, an absolute shocker. So we will seek to stop that abolition of this committee. Maybe the numbers are there in the chamber for the crossbench to join with the government and overwhelm this, but this is a very thoughtful and sincere approach that we have adopted here. We have said, ‘We’ve consulted with those people.’ I mean, they would be shot if they were found by this minister to be talking to the opposition – my goodness. Figuratively, they would be treated quite poorly. And in this case they are certainly disbanding the committee. This committee is going and the electrolysis committee likewise, so part of our amendments is to say, ‘No, we won’t support this.’ On the tabling of the annual report, we ask: why can’t this just be tabled as part of the annual report of the department or Energy Safe? What is going on here? Why do we need to stop the public seeing the latest corporate plan for Energy Safe Victoria? Why is that? We do not agree with that, and we will oppose that.

Regarding the bill’s power for agreement to lease unreserved Crown land that is subject to the Environment Effects Act 1978 for projects under section 134 of the Land Act, we would seek to impose a transparency requirement so the minister has to publish the value of the agreements and so forth at the time. We think this is eminently reasonable. We do not agree with the draconian approach that has been adopted by this minister. We do not think that this is the right way forward. The government says, ‘Oh well, we are going to do some sort of regulatory impact statement on this.’ I say they should get moving. They should have got moving on some of the advice of the line clearance committee a lot earlier instead of dithering and delaying. But either way we do not agree with this idea of abolishing the independent technical advice committees. We think that this is the wrong approach. One of the things I will say here is the government is getting a lot of this quite wrong, and they are getting it wrong because they are not listening to the technical experts. It is time they actually engaged with the technical experts more closely. There are ways forward.

Going back to the VEET bill, we think this strategic review should be conducted entirely openly and entirely independently and it should be released before the bill goes through. We think if the independent review was to come up with the right answers and come up with reforms, it may well be that the energy efficiency and energy upgrades program could be improved. We could get a program that is closer to the cost of schemes in other states for the amount of abatement achieved, and that could be done safely as well. Safety is an important consideration, thinking back to what happened with pink batts. We accept that the minister is certainly thinking about that, but we are not at all convinced that the independent advice that is needed to guarantee that has actually been heeded in the right way.

To be clear, there are a set of amendments for both of these bills. They are carefully thought-through amendments, and we would urge the chamber to support them.

Anasina GRAY-BARBERIO (Northern Metropolitan) (14:33): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025. As my colleague Ellen Sandell explained in the lower house, the Greens will be also supporting this bill to extend and improve the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) scheme. It has never been more urgent to transition Victorian homes and businesses off fossil gas and expensive, polluting and dangerous fossil fuel and onto cheap, clean renewable power. Victoria consumes more gas than any other Australian state or territory. About 88 per cent of our homes still have to use it instead of cheaper, safer electric alternatives – that means split system air conditioners, hot-water heaters and induction cooktops.

All the fossil fuel gas used in our homes, businesses and electricity generators is just a small fraction of the gas Australia sends offshore. Around 80 per cent of Australia’s gas is exported by global gas companies as liquefied natural gas, basically for free, with the gas industry paying zero royalties on more than half of it. This country is one of the top exporters of LNG in the world, along with Qatar, and when planet Earth has already basically breached the 1.5-degree target and we are seeing increased heat, bushfires, droughts and storms, that really needs to change. We also should not even be considering new gas projects like Viva’s ludicrous new idea to import gas into Australia at Corio Bay. Never mind banning just those new projects, Australia should really be shutting down existing projects if we are going to survive the next century of a climate collapse. But homes and businesses need help to make that transition, and that is what the VEU does by subsidising new energy-efficient products. So again the Greens support this bill, which first and foremost extends the program from its 2030 deadline through to the end of 2045, effectively safeguarding it against any future coalition governments.

We particularly support the new power for a future VEU program targeting vulnerable and low-income consumers. This is something that stakeholders have been calling for for years to make sure poor households are not left behind in the transition to cheaper, more energy-efficient households. While we understand the nature of the VEU scheme means there will be certain logistical challenges, the government has to work through to develop this kind of program. We would urge Labor to make this a priority. The bill also allows discounts for government-mandated upgrades, which were previously ineligible due to the VEU’s additionality requirement. That includes the forthcoming minimum standards for renters, which we are really hoping to see from Labor soon. Ideally that means Victoria could end up with something like the ACT scheme, where the government gives landlords a deadline to upgrade their properties and then provides financial support to make those changes. The Greens support other changes through this bill: the new enforcement tools for the regulator, the Essential Services Commission; increased flexibility of Victorian energy efficiency certificate surrender deadlines; and the plans for the new interim targets for 2026 and 2027 to allow future targets to incorporate the findings of the current two-year strategic review.

Finally, the Greens were happy to hear Minister Lily D’Ambrosio announce that from next year the VEU will include ceiling insulation. This is a decent reform which will make insulation so much more accessible for Victorians stuck in what are really glorified tents, who cannot afford the upgrade. We commend the minister for this reform, and while we would like to see it apply in two other forms – wall and floor insulation – we assume this will be a kind of staggered rollout and those types are coming down the track. As such the Greens would like to withdraw our amendment requiring all forms of insulation be added to the scheme. Our proposal was slightly different to the one the minister had laid out. We were going to tie insulation to the residential efficiency scorecard to give households holistic advice before applying for an upgrade, and we would still encourage households to apply for one of those assessments. This means that we will also withdraw our amendment giving the government the power to add an energy storage program to the scheme. We understand that this is a bold proposal – emissions savings from energy storage can be much harder to assess than, say, removing a gas heater – but we would still encourage Labor to pursue this idea in the long term to support households who may already have solar panels but may need that extra bit of support to install batteries.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (14:38): I rise to speak in strong support of the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 and also the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. These two bills are complementary, addressing both sides of the energy transition equation. One drives the uptake of energy efficiency technologies that cut emissions and lower costs, the other ensures that our energy system evolves and the safety and reliability Victorians rely upon is maintained and together they are essential for delivering an affordable, safe and zero-emission energy future. I am pleased to say that the Victorian energy upgrades bill also strengthens the Victorian energy upgrades program, the VEU, ensuring it continues to deliver cost-of-living relief, emissions reductions and investment certainty. Since 2009 over 2.5 million households and businesses have benefited from the VEU. Households save an average of $110 per year and businesses on average $3700, with large upgrades delivering savings in the tens of thousands.

I had the good fortune last week of going out to Yarraville with the member for Footscray Katie Hall and meeting residents who had benefited from the VEU scheme. They just loved telling me how much, because of the VEU, their energy bills had completely dived. In fact some had now no energy bills, because they also installed a battery. The stories about working people upgrading their homes are incredibly powerful. They need to be heard more, because this is not a fantasy that lives elsewhere. This very much is in the homes and lives and bank balances of Victorians, and the benefits of the VEU extend to much more than just the individual bill savings, because every single upgrade that is done reduces demand on the grid and lowers wholesale electricity prices.

Between 2021 and 2025 the VEU is projected to save $3.8 billion in energy system costs. I have got to tell you, this means that even those who have not participated are going to see some lower bills. For communities in Northern Metro – from the renters in Brunswick to small businesses in Coburg – this program is critical. Too many are still grappling with some high energy costs, and this bill ensures that they can access affordable, efficient renewable energy solutions. At its core the bill extends the VEU program’s legislated end date from 2030 to 2045, aligning with our net zero target for Victoria, providing some long-term certainty to industry and ensuring that households can continue upgrading from polluting gas appliances to cleaner electric alternatives. Some opposite have claimed that this extension is premature due to the ongoing review of the VEU, but the review really is about improving the program, not about questioning its very existence and leaving industry in limbo. It really would be an irresponsible move. You see, certainty drives investments, it creates jobs and it absolutely delivers for consumers.

The bill also adjusts how VEU targets are set, introducing a two-year tranche for 2026–27 to allow some flexibility post our review. Critically, the bill strengthens the Essential Services Commission’s compliance powers, enabling it to issue improvements and prohibition notices, mandate some training and enforce civil penalties. Consumer trust is vital, and with a complaint rate of just 0.13 per cent across the 200,000 activities that were conducted in 2024, the VEU really does have an incredibly strong track record. This bill ensures it stays that way. Further, the bill clarifies the additionality requirement, ensuring upgrades that become mandated under other laws can still qualify for the VEU discounts, and this is essential as we explore mandating efficiency standards for rentals, which is especially important, I have got to tell you, in the Northern Metro Region, where we have got some older housing stock and there are also some high energy costs – and they absolutely intersect. Outdated restrictions on certificate vintage have also been removed, aligning Victoria with best practice in other jurisdictions and improving Victorian market liquidity and flexibility for retailers. Importantly, this bill lays the legislative groundwork to better target VEU discounts to vulnerable and low-income consumers, which we know is really important. For renters in Coburg, for public housing tenants in Brunswick and for multigenerational households in Epping this is a vital reform. The VEU is just one pillar of Victoria’s broader energy strategy, alongside the Gas Substitution Roadmap, the revival of the SEC and record renewables investments.

Victoria leads the nation in climate action. We have legislated targets of 65 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and 95 per cent by 2035. We are delivering nation-leading storage targets of 2.6 gigawatts by 2030 and 6.3 gigawatts by 2035. It is all happening fast, and our offshore wind targets are amongst the most ambitious in Australia. We are decarbonising here in Victoria at the fastest rate in the country, with emissions already having been reduced by 31.3 per cent from the 2005 levels by 2022. We are legislating ambitious renewable and energy storage targets by decarbonising faster than any other state and delivering the lowest wholesale electricity prices nationally. Programs like the VEU absolutely are critical to this success.

What we heard earlier were some contributions by Mr Davis, and what I can say is that their history on energy policy is one of neglect and denial. I recall very much that they opposed the SEC renewable energy legislation and have even tried to abolish the VEU. Their criticism of this bill is really a continuation of a backwards approach, because Victorians absolutely deserve better. They understand that climate action is about jobs, it is about the cost of living and it is about justice. Energy upgrades to the VEU mean lower bills for struggling families; they mean new jobs for electricians and installers, healthier homes and a fairer, more just transition. The VEU currently supports 2200 jobs; whether improving comfort for older residents in Rezza, creating apprenticeships in Northcote or helping small businesses in Thommo, the VEU delivers tangible local benefits. This bill ensures these benefits continue smarter, fairer and stronger for decades to come.

Now I am going to take some time to talk about the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. This bill is fundamentally about keeping Victorians safe and making sure Energy Safe Victoria (ESV), the independent regulator, remains resourced and agile. As we transition from a centralised fossil fuel based system to a decentralised renewable-powered future, new safety risks do emerge. Whether they are rooftop solar or home batteries, EVs, wind farms or other technologies, they are absolutely reshaping how we generate and use electricity and energy. Our current safety framework, designed for a different era, is not fully equipped to manage the challenges of today and tomorrow. This bill modernises Victoria’s energy safety laws, ensuring Energy Safe Victoria has the tools, powers and flexibility it needs to keep Victorians safe. It introduces new powers, updates penalties, streamlines governance and reduces unnecessary red tape all whilst maintaining safety insight.

A key reform is the introduction of a new entry power for ESV officers, allowing them to enter premises with a Magistrates’ Court warrant to investigate risks, monitor compliance and take enforcement action. Currently ESV cannot enter residential premises without consent, even when there are serious safety risks present. This gap limits their ability to act swiftly. This new warrant-based power addresses this, while maintaining judicial oversight. Enforcement tools are expanding with prohibition and improvement notices and injunction and adverse publicity orders. These ensure that serious breaches are transparently addressed and deter unsafe practices for electrical workers and contractors. ESV gains the power to immediately suspend licences where public safety is at risk. This targeted power prevents unsafe operators from continuing dangerous work during investigations. Penalties under the Electrical Safety Act 1998 and Gas Safety Act 1997 have been updated to reflect the seriousness of the breaches For example, knowingly installing unsafe electrical equipment will now attract penalties of 240 units for individuals and 1200 units for body corporates, aligning with other regulatory frameworks. For minor offences, the bill allows ESV to issue infringement notices, enabling swift action and freeing up resources for much more complex enforcement matters. These reforms ensure that ESV can effectively regulate new technologies, enforce compliance and protect communities as the energy sector evolves. Maintaining consumer confidence is essential to our fast and safe transition aspirations for the future.

This bill also addresses bushfire risks through changing bushfire mitigation plan submissions from annual to every five years, reducing that administrative burden while maintaining the oversight necessary, as ESV retains the power to require revisions as necessary. Governance reforms include abolishing the Electrical Line Clearance Consultative Committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee. While historically valuable, I must say their prescriptive structures have really become barriers to effective consultation. This bill enables more flexible and targeted engagement with experts and with stakeholders. This bill establishes a three-year corporate planning cycle while continuing with annual report updates, balancing strategic planning with transparency and accountability. The bill also amends the Land Act 1958 to clarify that the Minister for Environment can enter into agreements to lease over unreserved Crown land during an environment effects statement process, or EES, as it is known. This provides investment certainty for strategically important projects like, for example, major renewable developments while maintaining rigorous environmental oversight. These agreements are conditional on EES outcomes and are expected to impact only a small number of critical projects across the state.

The reforms in this bill have been developed through close consultation with industry, unions and government stakeholders. Can I take the time to acknowledge the Electrical Trades Union and the Plumbing and Pipe Trades Employees Union and their strong support for the reforms relevant to their sectors. As is known to both of those unions, I began my career in fact in the electrical safety office, so the safety of electrical workers is something very dear to my heart. Knowing that with this bill before us today we will further strengthen safety for electrical workers and installers, it is something that I fulsomely support.

Energy Safe Victoria has absolutely been a key partner in shaping these changes to ensure that they reflect the operational realities and the enforcement needs. I know almost 20 years ago, when I conducted that work in electrical safety, I could never have imagined the complexity of today’s energy system. But now, as I am getting my head around the enormous change in front of us, I know that the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 ensures that as Victoria’s energy sector evolves, our safety framework evolves with it. It strengthens the power of our regulator, aligns penalties with contemporary standards, improves governance, reduces red tape and supports critical investment, all while keeping Victorians safe. This bill is not just about addressing current gaps, it is about futureproofing Victoria’s energy safety framework for the challenges ahead. It ensures the benefits of the energy transition are realised safely, reliably and sustainably.

Together, these two bills demonstrate the Allan Labor government’s commitment to a future where Victorians have access to affordable, reliable and safe energy. They represent smart forward-looking policy that balances innovation and responsibility. Those opposite can continue to play politics, but on this side of the chamber we are focused on delivering for Victorians, whether it is through lower energy bills, safer homes, new jobs or a cleaner environment. These bills deliver real outcomes for our community. With that, can I say on behalf of the Allan Labor government: I commend both these bills to the house.

Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (14:53): I am pleased to rise today to make a cognate debate on two bills put forward by the government this afternoon, the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 and the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. I think any and all governments should certainly be looking to provide energy-efficient homes and energy-efficient options for our homes, our families, our single people, our elderly and our businesses and upgrade appliances, lights, fridges and air conditioners and the like. This has been the focus of this particular rollout and this particular program. But, as my colleague Mr Davis said, unfortunately it has been anything but successful. It has truly been maladministered, and this government and the previous government certainly have had a track record of botching rollouts.

I have been around long enough to recall in 2009–10 the rollout of a then revolutionary government program in education called the Ultranet. Indeed we had an all-singing, all-dancing cast. I am going to quote the line from the Ultranet rollout, which cost some hundreds of thousands of dollars: ‘We are living in a virtual world, and I am an Ultranet girl.’ This was sung to the tune of a Madonna song from back in the day. It was heralded as being a wonderful platform for educators, for teachers, for families, for students et cetera. And what happened on the day of the implementation of its final rollout? We all stood there behind our computers with bated breath – it dived, it stalled, it crashed and it crawled away. If we look at another Labor invention from back in the day – and I remember this one too; it was a long time ago, back in 2008 I think – the Myki rollout: well, it was rolled out, it rolled over and it needs to roll under a tree and under the bed and fall away. All the time over in New South Wales they have been able to tap on with a thing called an Opal card, or even their credit card or their savings card, and use public transport. So this government has a track record over the course of the last 20 years of botching the rollout of what could be reasonable programs. Well, this is the purview of this particular energy upgrades program that we are looking at today.

Again, the idea about improving prices and improving efficiency is a noble one, but what have we seen under the government in recent years? We have seen energy prices rise, rise, rise – not go down, down, down but go up, up, up. They have risen significantly, and this is not from me, this is from the Essential Services Commission. For the Victorian default offer the prices increased by approximately 25 per cent in the 2023–24 period. We are seeing increases. I heard my colleague Mr Davis reference St Vincent de Paul. They are doing some very good work, some very strategic work and some very important work on keeping track of the changes of residential energy prices and energy tariffs and reporting back. They have been doing that for the broader community since 2010, and they have documented ever increasing pressures on Victorian consumers. In a 2023 report from St Vincent de Paul we see that, and I am quoting this, ‘prices are high and innovation is low’.

It is important to look at a mix of energy forms and a mix of structures, but we heard the previous member crowing about the importance of offshore wind energy. Well, this government and the federal government have not got their act together with respect to that. They cannot decide on whether they are going to have an energy infrastructure terminal at Hastings. They cannot decide whether they are going somewhere else or whether it will be shoved off far, far away, over to Tasmania, because this state government cannot get its act together. So to crow about it is one thing, but the reality is it is not going to meet those targets by the time required. That, unfortunately, has an impact on Victorians across the board. Of course there are also concerns for people in my community about transmission lines turning into a spaghetti factory but also about the impact of those offshore wind turbines on fishing and fish beds and that industry. So there are many things to be done by this government; it is just not necessarily doing them well by any stretch. I concur with Mr Davis that the Nationals and the Liberals will certainly not be supporting this bill. However, we are calling on the government to come to some sensible amendments.

Also, you only have to google it and you can get some good footage of, very sadly, this system being rorted. My office had particular traffic back in the day where constituents were very frustrated at being cold-called again and again and again and doorknocked again and again by persistent people wanting to sell these and of course make a profit on the system. This one was not from my electorate, but there is an example where this 92-year-old woman – just think of that – is in her own home and is trying to be sustainable, and she has been repeatedly receiving telemarketing calls every day for 12 months, despite repeatedly asking to be removed from the contact list. These are some of the things that have been facing many people across Victoria. It was then banned and there was a sigh of relief, but it does not reduce the fact that many of these shysters were actually trying to rip off the government and therefore, in effect, also still rip off the taxpayer, because at the end of the day it comes back to being included in taxpayers bills and government mismanagement. We have seen that the Victorian energy upgrades program has certainly been botched through and through.

In relation to the oversight and the regulation, we see that there seems to not be that proper administration and controls, and we certainly see that there was gaming of that system that I have just been referring to. What happens is ultimately the cost of the gaming, of the inadequacies and of the rorting – the cost of this program – ends up impacting on Victorians’ power bills. It is always passed on, and this system has been mismanaged, as I have said.

We go to an article this morning in the Australian Financial Review talking about energy and talking about electricity, and we heard the Greens talking about gas and how terrible gas is. Well, we know that gas is a very important peaking energy supply, not only for industry, for homes, for restaurants and all of that but also for feedstock for very important industries. Again, because of the lack of supply and the huge cost, we have seen that there was a collapse in 2024 of the plastics maker Qenos and the loss of around 700 jobs. Where does this go? This also still impacts our productivity and the lives and futures of Australians and indeed those good people who live in and around that area in Altona. The government are living in a virtual world, and I think they often just feel that it is virtual money and it is not going to impact Victorians. Well, it does indeed.

If we look to the other bill that I would like to speak to, the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025, which we are speaking on in cognate debate, again the Nationals and the Liberals are not in favour of this bill. We feel that it is not addressing some of those key issues. One of the things that we are comfortable with and that is a positive step in this bill, though, is in relation to the bushfire mitigation plans and the requirement for power supply companies to move from an annual basis of reporting to every five years for those plans. This seems like one of the few sensible reforms out of that one.

In relation to powerlines, particularly in my Eastern Victoria Region, we know that during bushfires power supply is all critical – indeed not only bushfires but in terms of windstorms, and we have certainly had our share of storms and mini tornadoes in Eastern Victoria Region. South of Latrobe Valley the beautiful Mirboo North has certainly seen one of those. I know that our local power supply company, AusNet, has been working really feverishly to improve its response in times of crisis and emergencies and to certainly provide that more rapid response to get electricity back on for homes. If you do not have your electricity – particularly if you are in a storm situation and you have had your solar panels ripped off the house – it is often very challenging to get that energy supply to boot up your phone, and of course our phones are our connection to the outside world. One of the key things that I know that both Powercor and AusNet have been working on is indeed the rapid earth fault current limiter. That technology has been rolled out over time, and this was from some of the recommendations out of the Inspector-General for Emergency Management’s assessment of the terrible 2019–20 fires, when we saw shocking devastation right across the eastern part of the state and in my Eastern Victoria electorate. Certainly it is important for those rollouts, and they have occurred across the state – and I note there was an article recently in Wonthaggi as well – but of course that is at the footprint at the minute. Indeed I understand that this technology being rolled out is actually the size of Belgium, and those areas are now hopefully supported so that if there is damage to powerlines, they can be short-circuited and stopped before a fire can get hold. These are very important activities. But of course the lines are continuing to grow as well.

I think that is all that my contribution needs to be. We are concerned that this government has spent a lot of money and a lot of time wasting taxpayer money. We do not support these two bills. We do ask the house to consider the Liberal and National amendments, and with that I will conclude my remarks.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:06): I am proud to stand and support these bills. I am a little bit perplexed to follow on from the opposition speakers’ comments, but I will come back to that in good time. I am proud to be speaking on these two pieces of legislation, because they are all about driving down Victorian households’ power bills, and they are about providing jobs. This is what we are doing year in, year out through the work that we have done across Victoria’s energy network and the work that we have done in Victorians’ homes.

We started off by taking the low-hanging fruit and reducing the amount of energy that people consume in their home. I am sure those opposite nearly had heart attacks when there was work going on to replace incandescent light globes with lower energy consuming appliances – oh my gosh, how outrageous, how crazy. Just starting from that point and going all the way on, we have seen over a period of time energy demand from households in Victoria drop. This matters to Victorians, because that means when you use less of something, you pay less for it. Fancy that: you use less of something, you pay less money out of your pocket, out of your wallet.

If there is one thing the last couple of weeks have shown us, it is that Victorians and indeed Australians want to see policies that reduce their cost of living. They want to see policies that keep more money in their own pockets. That is why I am proud to be in a government and in a party that has committed long term to reducing energy costs for Victorians, and the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) program delivers on just that. It is helping hundreds of thousands of Victorians, whether it is to reduce their consumption, whether it is to change the energy supply or whether it is getting PV on their roofs so they can create their own electricity. I do not know if it is just in our DNA in Australia, but we love being able to operate with a bit of freedom, operate how we want to, and I tell you what, when you can support Victorians to reduce the amount of energy they need and then also support them to generate the electricity that they need, that is a feeling and that is something they passionately want to do.

When you go out and talk to some of the Victorians that make up the 2.2 gigawatts of solar panels on Victorian households, a lot of them will tell you that they want to generate their own power and they want to perhaps give a little bit of lip to the providers. But those opposite are not for that. They are absolutely for centralised power generation. They do not know how it will be generated, but they do not want Victorians to save money and they do not want Victorians to be off the chain and to be able to generate and do what they want to do. Things like heat pumps – when you are talking 2 kilowatts to heat the water for a home, why not do it? Why have an ideological hatred for it? Why have an ideological opposition to it?

All these energy upgrades, through saving every single household’s energy consumption by lowering it, we are actually lowering demand on the grid, and that is lowering the cost of power for all Victorians. I do not think anyone on that side actually understands how the generation network, how the grid and how retail actually work. They just sit there and espouse all these motherhood statements. I have written quite a few of them down, which I was going to come to later in my speech, but I might raise a few now. We have heard things about jingles: ‘Rise, rise, rise’, ‘Down, down, down’, ‘Virtual this’. David Davis sounded very much like Trump, talking about things being ‘nasty, nasty, nasty’ and ‘scheme, scheme’. There was a lot of hyperbole – a lot of very, very wild words – but what I can tell you there was not on that side was anything that resembled policy, anything that seemed to have drawn from a set of values that might put on the horizon some sort of plan to present to Victorians. There was nothing of that. I get criticised from time to time. I talk about Jeff Kennett and what he did during the 1990s, but the best they could muster on that side was to talk about pink batts and talk about some fridges from years ago. How about fronting up to the Victorian people and actually telling them what you are going to do? But you cannot, because you do not know what you believe in, because you are not able to formulate a set of values that can then make a set of policies that you can take to the public. I do not want to talk too much about the federal election, but it only was eight or nine days ago. We have seen what happens when you front up with nothing, when it is just divisiveness, division and fear – and that is exactly what has happened in the energy space for two decades.

We heard Ms Bath talking about the offshore wind industry. That offshore wind industry sat on Angus Taylor’s desk for years when he was federal energy minister. It sat on the desk until the 2019 election. From that point Labor have been able to get on with getting the offshore wind system established, getting the framework in place, putting some points along a timeline and having targets and mechanisms to get there. That is very different to what the Liberal–Nationals did – driven by the Queensland lobby of the National Party, driving Liberal–National policy all around the country. The best they could come up with was nuclear reactors. I hate to say I told you so, but I will tell you what, probably 15, 18 months ago you started this – and I do not mean to be rude – drivel about small modular nuclear reactors: ‘We’re going to have a small modular nuclear reactor down at Anglesea, and we’re going to put one in the valley.’ Yes, another one has left the chamber. Small modular nuclear reactors do not exist. ‘Oh, well, you know, you don’t need to give voters anything in reality. Just use fear and division and drivel, and it’s alright, they’ll vote for us. It worked for Trump. It worked for Trump! Just do it. You don’t need to put time into developing policy; just see if we can get away with it.’ And do you know what happened? As we got closer and closer to the federal election, and Australians and indeed Victorians were asking where their energy is going to come from for the next two decades as we transition our energy generation capacity, there was nothing. There was absolutely nothing. Contrast that with Labor, federally and state, aligned with clear targets and clear technologies to roll out and generate the power we need and coming along with additional policies like home batteries. That again comes back to Victorians’ and Australians’ sense of wanting to provide for themselves.

In the situation of storms, as was highlighted on the other side, they had no solutions to what happens in the storms, just saying, ‘Oh, storms can happen and powerlines can fall down. That’s the fault of renewables or it’s the fault of this or it’s the fault of that.’ Fear, division et cetera – insert standard lines. Here is a policy, an investment, that enables batteries to go into your home. Do you know what? If those storms do hit, you have got back-up. Do you know what else? It is taking demand off the grid more broadly. And they stand over there like they are saying something incredible that no-one knows: gas can be used for peaking. Yes, of course it can, but it is darned expensive. In the US they cannot get a gas turbine for four years. They cannot get them because they have not got tooled up enough to build the things.

If we are going to be trying to put more gas turbines in, something we do not need – if we are going to invest in something that is about 250 bucks a megawatt in comparison to Victoria, when we are looking at wholesale rates of about $50 a megawatt – let us get serious. Let us get absolutely serious; do not stand and talk out the side of your mouths. The Liberal–National parties are saying this sort of hyperbole or whatever – thanks, Dr Heath, for trying to help me out with that word before.

Members interjecting.

Tom McINTOSH: Mr Davis pronounced it like that, so I am just following that pronunciation. But get serious about presenting something to the Victorian people. I am really proud that this side does that. It does not matter whether it is in health, whether it is in education, whether it is in transport infrastructure or whether it is in housing: whatever it is, we bring a plan, and it is the same in energy.

I just come back to it again: cost of living is so important to people when we look at the inflationary impacts. Mr Davis over there said – and these are his words – ‘Over the last 11 years of Labor power prices plateaued along, plateaued along and then spiked.’ You know what, Mr Davis? There was a little thing called Ukraine. You know what happens around the world when energy prices go up? You get inflationary pressure, because everything depends on energy, whether it is homes, whether it is business, whether it is government assets. That is why energy is so darned important, and that is why it is too important to talk out the sides of your mouths. The federal Liberals, when they were in power for nine years, had 20 different energy policies. Every time a new media adviser rolled through they would roll something else out, because it is not underpinned by values; it is all just hyperbolic rubbish.

It is very interesting that today of all days the Liberals have elected their new federal leader and their new deputy, Ted O’Brien. What has Ted O’Brien been running around the country for the last year doing? He has been spouting nuclear. So where are you guys?

Members interjecting.

Tom McINTOSH: Do not roll your eyes and laugh. As the alternative form of government, that is your answer to Victorians. And if it is not your answer, come here and tell us what your answer is. We all know that you do not have an answer. You have got absolutely nothing to bring to the table.

Back to Mr Davis’s point, he was saying that it plateaued and then it went up. Have a look at energy prices around the country and have a look at energy prices around the world – they all went up because of the Ukraine war. Mr Davis likes to cherrypick, he likes to pull his points out and he likes to use his negative words like ‘scheme’ and ‘nasty’ and all this sort of stuff. But he is the alternative energy minister, and he should front up to Victorians and provide an alternative plan, because you know what their alternative plan is going to be? They are going to turn around and they are going to rip up farms to frack gas, because there is no other option. The Liberals are going to have to cut up pristine agricultural farmland to get gas to be able to run generators in this state, because we know that they are vehemently, ideologically opposed to renewables, which we know are the cheapest form of energy. I was just talking about some of those wholesale rates before. When you are talking 50 bucks a megawatt here in Victoria and when you are talking $150 a megawatt up in Queensland and New South Wales, where they are dependent on black coal, follow the economics. You are meant to be a party founded on economics. I do not know what Menzies would be thinking. He would be absolutely rolling over, going, ‘What on earth is going on with the Liberal Party?’

Members interjecting.

Tom McINTOSH: Do not take my word for it – have a look at the federal election. How many seats have you guys got left? Do you have one safe federal Liberal seat left in this state? No, you do not, because you have been wallowing along with this negativity. Energy and climate are just one space. We know there are whole areas where you would rather divide our population. In the energy space you are trying to divide metro and regional, but you do it in lots of others: ‘Let’s try and divide people on their sexuality, on their gender’ – or whatever it might be. You will not come to the table with policies, as I have said, to identify a plan. It is just this constant negativity, and that constant negativity and that constant lack of a plan actually see prices increase. The one constant you hear from industry is they want certainty; industry wants certainty. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief when it became very clear very early on last Saturday night that in the federal election Labor had won and things were not going to be scrapped; we were not going to have another massive lurch to the side, heading for nuclear. That was very, very clear. Industry want certainty, and when we get that certainty, we get investment. I will tell you what: there was nobody lining up to invest in nuclear. I should not talk about it as a past thing, because maybe it is not dead. Tim Wilson loves it and Ted O’Brien has been spouting it, so I am sure you are all waiting to take your marching orders as to what it is that you believe in –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Tom McINTOSH: That is right. It is what the Nationals are going to tell you out of Queensland, what your policy will be. But it is that lack of certainty that creates the vacuum that then sees prices go up. Mr Davis was again just throwing these comments around without any foundation in truth or reality or zooming out and looking at the bigger picture of the energy market, which is why I am so proud to be part of a government that has done exactly that – that has identified our values, created the policies and set out a clear plan that we are not only meeting, we are beating, whether it is on our emission reduction or whether it is on our generation ability and driving prices down, seeing the lowest wholesale rates around Australia right here in Victoria.

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (15:21): I have no idea what that rant was about – certainly not much to do with energy. He covered Trump; he covered the Queensland Nationals, I believe. But I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Mr McIntosh on doing his first ever speech in this house without mentioning Kennett.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Renee HEATH: Oh, sorry. I withdraw; he did mention Kennett. I did mislead the house – my mistake. I am staggered by this government, who without fail get up there time after time after time and spout mistruths – just completely dishonest lies, to be honest. I do not know if it is because Mr McIntosh is not in his office and does not have staff there most of the time, so the constituents wander round and come to my office and speak to me. But what they are talking about is the increase in power bills, how they are going through the roof, and I cannot understand it.

Let me just correct a few things. One of the things he said was, ‘You’ve got to follow the economics.’ Well, the facts are – and I have spoken about this before – that those nations with the highest share of renewables in electricity supply have higher costs. Those nations with the higher shares of wind and solar renewables have the highest cost. Those are Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and Spain. And those countries with the lowest share of renewables when it comes to wind and solar have the lowest costs. They are Russia, Saudi Arabia, Korea, India and China. So what I am saying is you cannot trust what he says, because the facts just do not match up with reality. I am pro clean energy; I am pro renewables. What I am anti is Labor lies and Labor spin. Wind and solar can only be commercially successful when they are in the receipt of a subsidy. And guess who is going to pay for that subsidy? Victorians, because Victorians are already paying the price of the mismanagement of the Labor Party. So I just think it is unbelievable.

Ms Watt spoke about energy costs going down; it is just not the reality. Even Mr McIntosh mentioned that; he blamed it, of course, on Ukraine, which was another thing he spoke about in his random contribution. The fact is energy costs are going through the roof in this state. The people in this state are living through a horrific cost-of-living crisis, first and foremost caused by the state and federal Labor governments’ policies, which of course have been exacerbated by their inability to keep crime off worksites in Victoria, by their inability to manage budgets and by their inability to treat taxpayer dollars with a bit of respect. I just think it is unbelievable.

The other thing Mr McIntosh spoke about – where did I write that down? He just had so many ridiculous things, quite frankly, that he said. He said that it is about reducing bills, which they have not done, and that it is about providing jobs. I am just going to respond to that one for a minute, providing jobs. Let us just talk about our electorate alone, Mr McIntosh and Minister Shing, the Eastern Victoria Region. You have obliterated jobs in the Eastern Victoria Region. What about the 4000 jobs that were lost from the native timber industry? You have never replaced the 1000 jobs that were axed with the closure of Hazelwood. I just think it is time for you potentially to have a look in the mirror, stop reading your propaganda points and maybe start talking to some constituents, who you have been put there to serve. I just think those are a few things to just start off with.

Tom McIntosh interjected.

Renee HEATH: Mr McIntosh, you cannot direct a member about what sort of speech they are allowed to give. Surely you would know that. Your obsession with the coalition continues. I would say 14 out of the 15 minutes were about all sorts of bizarre things and not much to do with energy. It has been a long time since you have been the party of the workers – a very, very long time. I think Labor used to be a pretty good political party. That was a very, very long time ago.

Anyway, today I am going to speak about the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. This bill is titled the ‘energy safety bill’, but when you examine its contents it becomes clear that the bill does not improve safety at all, it compromises it. The government claims that it is streamlining governance, that it is improving efficiency and that it is enhancing enforcement. What it is really doing is centralising power, which you actually spoke about, saying that is what we are apparently trying to do – pot, kettle, black. How about you look in a mirror? That is what you are trying to do: centralise power, reduce accountability and cut out the community and expert voices at a time when our state is facing escalating fire danger and increased energy instability.

This bill amends the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005. It expands the powers of authorised officers, allowing them to enter private property without consent if they deem there is a risk. It abolishes independent advisory committees like the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee. It does not surprise me that you are getting rid of them. I do not think you should. It reduces Energy Safe Victoria’s corporate plan reporting from annually to once every three years. Mr Davis spoke about how it is like getting you to correct your own homework. What you are really doing is just cutting the work down for yourself. You do not want to consult different people. You are cutting out expert advice, and you are making Victoria less safe in the process. What Labor is doing once again is tightening that stranglehold that it has on Victorians.

Let us remind ourselves: Victoria is one of the most bushfire-prone regions in the world. Black Saturday in 2009 claimed 173 lives. During Black Summer, in 2019 to 2020, 1.5 million hectares burnt and billions of animals were killed. This year bushfires in Victoria’s west burnt 65,000 hectares in a single day. Experts from repeated inquiries have repeatedly urged for a comprehensive approach, transparency, independent oversight, regular vegetation clearance and modern infrastructure upgrades, yet this bill does the opposite – not surprising. Once again Labor is doing what it wants to make itself look and feel better and ignoring expert advice, and Victorians will pay the price for that.

Let me read from Energy Victoria’s electric and gas network safety review. It says fires can be caused by electric arcs igniting vegetation, equipment failure or hot molten metal particles from powerline contact. This is a serious issue – that is not speculation, it is fact – and it is one that you are just turning a blind eye to. On Black Saturday three major fires were started by ageing electrical infrastructure. Despite knowing this the government is pursuing massive expansions of high-risk energy assets through large-scale renewables: 10,000 kilometres of transmission lines and poles up to 85 metres tall. So it is not us, Mr McIntosh – through you, Acting President – who are ripping up farmland. It is not us. We are supporting farmers. We were out there with the hundreds and hundreds of farmers when you were just completely ignoring them. We were out standing shoulder to shoulder with them, because you are not doing the right thing by them. There are massive wind turbines and solar farms often built in ecologically sensitive areas and fire-prone areas. There are gigantic lithium ion battery sites, notorious for fire risk and nearly impossible to extinguish once ignited – and that does not include hydropower. All this is being fast-tracked through our landscapes –

Members interjecting.

Renee HEATH: They are a rowdy bunch, aren’t they, over there? They are a rowdy bunch that often do not care about their regions, I think. All of this has been done with minimal transparency and no independent oversight. Rural communities have been stonewalled. It was not just this morning on the steps that the government stonewalled people from rural communities, this has been happening over and over again. This government has continually trampled over property rights in projects such as the Gelliondale wind farm, which has received comprehensive complaints, many of them, and has been considered without proper planning processes being followed, due to its reclassification as a significant economic development site. This is industrialisation on a huge scale. So where are the environmental concerns now, when we are talking about these things? Native forests are being cleared at an alarming rate, koala habitats are being destroyed, birds are being destroyed or displaced, wildlife corridors are being fragmented and recovery zones are being erased – all of this from a government who shut down VicForests and the native timber industry, citing concerns for biodiversity and fire risk. Yet these large-scale renewable developments are clearing far more land and killing far more native species and have far less scrutiny.

Harriet Shing interjected.

Renee HEATH: What a shame. I am so sorry. It is lovely to see you in here, Ms Shing. These technologies are not renewable in any literal sense. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates 78 million tonnes of solar waste by 2050. That is a lot. According to Harvard Business Review by 2035 solar waste will outweigh new installations by 2.5 times. Lithium batteries are another fire hazard. One US recycling operator put it like this:

There’s nothing you can do to put out a lithium ion battery fire … it has to extinguish itself …

by consuming all available flammable material. This is a huge risk in our state. We are supporting our CFA and supporting our rural communities. The Labor Party certainly are not.

Renee HEATH: They do hate the CFA. They have destroyed the CFA. Not only that, they ignore them. There were hundreds of CFA volunteers out on the steps this morning, and they were given nothing but the cold shoulder by this government. You really have to face up to the fact that you have closed the native timber industry. The people that would be first on site when it when it came to fires, that would clear the paths, that would go and make sure that there was a reduced fuel load – you shut them down with no plan of what to do next. Imagine a scenario during summer in rural Victoria surrounded by the fuel that we have now with the plan that these guys have got.

At the same time the government has undermined the very strategies proven to reduce fire risk, including vegetation clearances around powerlines, regular back-burning, which is known to reduce fires by 95 per cent – all of these things have been neglected – and sustainable low-impact clearing methods; there are lots of different ones that you have completely turned a blind eye to. And of course there is the closure of the native timber industry, which has removed a huge safety net that we have relied on. We have lost experienced bush workers, many of whom play a vital role when it comes to bushfire prevention. We have seen the rise of the detection-and-suppression approach, which sounds modern but is absolutely reckless. We let fuel loads build up and pretend that we can douse them from the sky. This is absolutely terrible policy; it is lazy policy, and it is out of touch.

In my last 14 seconds I will say this: I am glad that we are –

Members interjecting.

Renee HEATH: You can move to extend my time if you would like. But I am glad that we are opposing these bills. I am proud to stand with the people of Victoria by opposing Labor’s latest bills.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:36): Well, that speech was certainly about as underwhelming as the Liberal Party’s election results last weekend. I was not quite sure where it was going at different points there. It did not really quite get any sort of plan fleshed out. You would think, having spent so long in opposition in this state, that they would have some sort of concept of a plan, some sort of vague idea of what they would want to actually do for the Victorian people, as opposed to just the usual talking about themselves and talking about us and how horrible we are.

We do have two bills today in cognate to be debated: we have the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 as well. With the often freewheeling nature of this place, it is customary of course for many of our speakers on both sides to respond to the various points and the ideas put forward by members opposite, but I do not really have a great deal to go off, to be honest, based on that previous contribution. I did not get any sort of real sense of policy or, as I said, any sort of idea for strategy. What we did hear was a rambling and incoherent discussion, if I did not mishear, quite favourably discussing certain countries – and frankly it is outrageous. A communist dictatorship in Asia and a fascist dictatorship in Europe were apparently being held up as examples of having cheap power prices.

Renee Heath: On a point of order, Acting President, Mr Galea is really misrepresenting me, and I would ask him not to verbal me, please.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Jeff Bourman): On the point of order, I was not here for the earlier contributions, and my understanding is a bit here and there. Let us try and keep this roughly on the path. To be frank, I was not 100 per cent listening to Mr Galea when whatever was said was said. So I will just give a reminder: no reflecting on people, no misrepresenting people, and play on.

Michael GALEA: No offence taken, I think. I will rephrase my comments, then, to say it would be an outrageous folly to seek to compare Victoria unfavourably to communist and fascist dictatorships overseas, and I am sure that that was not what the member opposite intended to do.

We do know that we have a very, very strong renewable energy sector here in Victoria. We are already seeing those results, and those results are coming through programs such as the Victorian energy upgrades program, otherwise known as the VEU. Indeed, as we know and as members opposite have conspicuously forgotten about or failed to mention, Victoria does also have the cheapest power prices in the nation. That is not despite our investment in renewables; that is in large part driven by that investment. We know that the VEU is a fantastic program, and for the best part of two decades these energy upgrades have worked to lower emissions in this state. The Allan Labor government is planning for the future, protecting our environment and ensuring that the average Victorian spends less to switch on the lights, put the kettle on and turn the TV on, whether that is to watch a great Victorian-made show or whether it is perhaps – a week or so ago – to turn on the ABC or Sky News to see some very catastrophic election results for the Liberal Party. One of the key reforms introduced by this bill will extend the VEU program to 2045, locking in the next 20 years of support that the VEU will provide to Victorians, which will also help to provide long-term certainty to facilitate investment and innovation in the Victorian energy industry. The bill will also help to facilitate the continued delivery of the Allan Labor government’s plan for the future of Victoria’s energy market, the continued path towards net zero and the ongoing goal of delivering cheaper, cleaner and more reliable energy to Victorian households and businesses.

This of course stands in complete contrast to the zealous fascination with the idea of nuclear energy that has so captured the hearts and minds of those opposite and indeed the new federal leadership team announced just this morning, Sussan Ley and Ted O’Brien – who is of course one of the chief proponents of the coalition’s nuclear policy. I am not sure what they will do now. Of course as Mr McIntosh said, there were 20 different energy policies in nine years under the former federal Liberal government. Who knows how many they will have by the end of this year alone? But we do know that those members opposite supported their federal platform, which was a zealous campaign of nuclear energy, no matter the immense cost, no question as to the water demands that nuclear energy has in a country that is famous for its wildly differing levels of rainfall, no concept of where these plants were going to go and no plans for the cost that was going to be imposed on all Australian households and businesses to fund this ridiculous frolic. And of course, as far as we know, they still support it. We did not hear a rebuke from state colleagues. In fact we had Mr Davis and others openly cheerleading for it, probably unable to come to their costings yet again, as Mr Davis is wont to do – but again, a frolic of a nuclear vision which was so utterly and comprehensively rejected not just in Victoria but across the nation as well.

We also know that members opposite have opposed, repeatedly, measures in the VEU. They tried to abolish it when they were last in office, and they have repeatedly tried to undermine and trash the VEU in their long term in opposition here. They do not care about the money that Victorians have saved thanks to the VEU, nor do they care about the role that the program plays in delivering action on climate change that is so important.

Beyond extending the VEU to 2025, this bill will make a number of significant changes. The bill allows regulations to set targets in two-year tranches, rather than every five years, whilst the program undergoes its strategic review. This review is currently underway, and it will modernise and strengthen the program to ensure that it continues supporting Victorians in transitioning away from gas, for example, and lowering their energy costs in the process. It gives certainty to industry – certainty that, again, is just completely absent from those opposite. Mr McIntosh spoke about the sigh of relief in industry – again, not having to go through changing energy policy a few times every year, every few weeks in some cases, which those opposite want to do because they do not have a plan for Australia and they do not have a plan for Victoria. All they are invested in is the spoils of their ever-diminishing power. This certainty is so important, and as part of this bill we are providing industry and others with the certainty that we are committed to getting this right. Once this review is completed we will set targets from the period of 2028 through to 2030, and then the five-year increments will resume until 2045. The bill also introduces new provisions to expand the Essential Services Commission’s compliance and enforcement powers. This includes new improvement and prohibition notice powers, an additional civil penalty requirement, enforcement pathways and new mandated training requirements for scheme participants.

Reducing the up-front costs for energy consumers, though, throughout this transition is vital. Therefore the bill will amend the act to clarify the additionality requirement and explicitly allow for activities that may be mandated by another law or regulation to be prescribed under the VEU program in future. This indeed will allow consumers to continue to receive discounts for energy upgrades in their homes and in their businesses and facilitate the uptake of mandated activities if deemed necessary.

The bill also introduces flexibility and reduces pressure on energy retailers by removing an existing restriction on the vintage of certificates that can be surrendered by energy retailers each year. It also allows for future VEU program discounts to be targeted to specific cohorts – for example, vulnerable and low-income customers – to enable greater access to this program as cost-of-living pressures continue to apply for lots of people. We know that Victoria is leading the country in delivering climate action and transitioning to renewable energy. We have legislated ambitious targets for renewable generation of 60 per cent by 2030 and 95 per cent by 2035 and nation-leading storage targets of at least 2.6 gigawatts by 2030 and 6.3 gigawatts by 2035.

We know that when it comes to this program of delivery we are seeing those results come through, because when you have a government that has a clear vision, that has a clear pathway to achieving it, that is how you achieve results, not by constantly being at each other’s throats because you still cannot decide what you want your energy policy to be. When you have that, you have uncertainty, you have risk for industry and you have costs, and that is what we continue to see from those opposite. Again, I can only infer what I presume to be implicit support for the federal Liberal Party’s nuclear policy. With the new deputy leader of that party I can only presume that that will continue, but I do not know. To rely on what the Liberal Party’s energy policy will be in a week, let alone a year, is a fool’s errand indeed. Whilst they continue to squabble over on that side and whilst they continue to tear each other apart because they do not have an interest in what is actually best for Australia’s future, they will continue to do that. But over on this side we will continue with our plan to drive Victoria towards a renewable energy future that continues to have the cheapest power prices in the nation, that provides certainty to industry and to other stakeholders and that provides far, far improved sustainability outcomes. Countries such as those referenced by Dr Heath might not be moving in that direction, but many countries are. In Asia and in Europe countries are moving towards renewable energy, and if we were to go backwards or to go on some ridiculous detour, such as nuclear energy, which would take decades and decades and decades to build – if you can afford it; if you are not then slugging bill payers with the cost of it – we would then be delaying action for 30-odd years on other forms of renewable energy that we can do cheaper, quicker and more efficiently now.

I would say the choice is clear, but we know that the Victorian people – indeed the Australian people – have spoken very recently. Indeed with energy and nuclear such an important part of the Liberal Party’s strategy – apparently they did not want to talk about it quite so much towards the end, but that was their policy – they have sent a very clear signal on that ridiculous idea too, because we know, at the end of the day, it is not about nuclear energy, it is about a smokescreen. It is an excuse to delay whilst they continue to support their mates and continue polluting.

These two bills before us today –

Members interjecting.

Michael GALEA: I have got so much to talk about. I have got pages here, Mr Mulholland, that I have not even got to yet. I have got some very exciting figures.

Perhaps you might like me to tell you how these policies have actually helped Victorians to save and to get better energy outcomes. We know that as of last year, Mr Mulholland, the renewable energy policies and programs that this government has overseen have helped Victorians to reach 5301 megawatts of commissioned large-scale wind and solar capacity that is being built in this state – renewables that are now producing more electricity per annum than any individual one of the three remaining coal-fired generators. We also have 4537 megawatts of small-scale rooftop solar PV capacity – rooftop solar has produced more than 8 per cent of Victoria’s energy generation since 2023 – and indeed 537 megawatts of commissioned battery storage capacity, which is more than any other state.

We know that measures such as the VEU program have been critical to achieving our world-leading climate targets to reduce our emissions by 45 to 50 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and 75 to 80 per cent on 2005 levels by 2035, ultimately working towards net zero emissions by 2040, and with these stats we are well on our way to achieving these targets. We have more than tripled the share of renewable energy in this state since 2014, generating now around 39 per cent of this state’s power from renewables, and all throughout those opposite have said, ‘It can’t be done, it can’t be done, it can’t be done.’ Whilst they continue to squabble over there, we are getting on and we are doing it. I commend these two bills to the house.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) (15:52): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025. The Victorian government is committed to the safety of all Victorians, and we have proven this time and time again. This energy and land legislation amendment bill is no different. It is excellent to see bills coming through in the energy space, and they demonstrate how the Allan Labor government is doing what matters when it comes to energy policy and safety. This bill is another step towards the Victorian government’s broader focus on delivering more sustainable and accountable energy systems for the Victorian community.

Energy network safety has long been a concern for the Victorian community and a high priority for successive Victorian governments, because safety must always be a priority in delivering essential services like energy. The provision of an essential service like energy cannot occur without appropriate regard to safety frameworks, because safety is essential to the proper delivery of energy and is crucial to safeguarding consumer protection and confidence. It is also a crucial part of building the community’s acceptance and trust, which we need during this energy transition. Power bills have been a big stress on family budgets as of late, influenced by both the cost-of-living crisis and inflation. The Allan Labor government has been doing an enormous amount of work in the world of energy legislation, programs and policies to help mitigate that pressure, along with other measures outside gas and electricity, in order to help everyday Victorians with the pressures of cost of living, the most well known of these of course being the power saving bonus, which was a tremendous success in my community of Southern Metro. That is why this bill is so important. The reforms it introduces will have long-term benefits for Victorians and ensure that confidence in our energy safety regulator, Energy Safe Victoria, remains.

Victoria’s energy safety framework consists of the following acts – the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997, the Pipelines Act 2005 and the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005 – and also regulations made under these acts. This framework supports safety in the energy sector, and it protects people and their property from risks associated with electricity and gas incidents, including bushfires. We have seen the devastating capacity for danger in these networks before. The Longford gas explosion in 1998 highlighted the impacts of a major incident disrupting gas supply to the state as well as the dangers that those working in the gas industry face. Electricity network safety concerns were cruelly emphasised by the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009; 173 lives were sadly lost that day, largely linked with fires initially sparked by faults in electricity lines running through extremely dry bushland. Both of these incidents were a critical motivator in developing relevant and responsive safety frameworks for major hazard facilities and energy networks in Victoria and have continued to shape the importance of proactive safety measures in Victoria.

For example, the powerline bushfire safety program was established in 2011. The program has substantially reduced the risk of powerlines starting bushfires by upgrading Victoria’s electricity distribution network with world-leading safety technologies, introducing legislative amendments to mandate them and addressing powerlines in the highest bushfire risk areas throughout regional and rural Victoria. The reality is we are certainly a fire-prone region in Victoria, indeed across the nation and across the world, and all governments’ focus needs to be on mitigation. If this bill can go some way towards revising and improving mitigation plans, then it is undoubtedly a reasonable thing, because we want to ensure that such catastrophes are not repeated.

This highlights the government’s dedication to undertaking complex work to make Victoria safer, but our work does not stop here. Victoria’s energy sector continues to be significantly developed and transformed. We are seeing growth in renewable energy and storage. We are seeing the transition from a few large-scale facilities towards various distributed energy resources, and while these innovations are indicative of the strides in progress of our state, this also means gaps in the energy safety network have been exposed.

The current framework was designed for a centralised fossil fuel based network and has not kept up with the pace of evolving technologies as we move to a cleaner, greener Victoria. The changing nature of the energy landscape in this state is obvious, and it is crucial for new energy technologies to encompass, be as responsible and have the same level of accountability as traditional companies – those of generation from coal and gas.

The bill looks to improve community safety through effective targeted regulation to reduce those risks, as I have said. This is where legislative reform is important. Responding to contemporary energy safety risks requires providing Energy Safe Victoria with a variety of strong and flexible powers. Changes are required to respond to contemporary energy safety risks and to ensure that our great state maintains an internationally leading network safety system, because this is a government that cares about our communities, about our environment and about our future, and we will keep working hard to ensure that this continues.

Energy Safe is a statutory body established by the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005. Their role is to ensure Victorian gas and electricity industries are safe and meet community expectations. They prevent harm by monitoring and enforcing compliance with Victoria’s Energy Safe legislative structure. This enables both the promotion and the enforcement of compliance with the regulatory framework. It is imperative to improve community safety through more effective and targeted regulations of new and emerging energy safety risks, including those posed by new and emerging technologies. Of course as a proactive government, unlike those on the other side of the chamber, we recognise that this transition period requires a reliable and safe supply of energy to Victorians, because energy is not just a commodity, it is also an essential service. It powers our homes, our industry and all of our lives. Therefore the government has the responsibility to ensure that it puts in place a robust regulatory framework so that every Victorian can trust that energy is safe, reliable and sustainable, because that is what this government is about – we ensure that our legislation is up to date. This bill is all about strengthening our position at the forefront of this critical transition. We are keeping pace with emerging technologies to protect the workers’ and the community’s safety.

The bill will amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997, the Pipelines Act 2005 and the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005. These amendments will strengthen Energy Safe’s suite of regulatory tools. This bill will do so by introducing increased capacity for Energy Safe to mitigate safety issues early, monitor compliance with directions and take enforcement actions. It removes the need for Energy Safe authorised officers to obtain written consent before exercising certain powers, particularly when there is a risk to the health and safety of a person or significant damage to property.

We saw the serious fires in 2021 at the Victorian Big Battery and the Cohuna solar farm, and we know that the limitations imposed on Energy Safe Victoria meant it was unable to intervene until it was too late. That was not acceptable, and these amendments recognise that. This will enable authorised officers to act swiftly to resolve safety risks involving new technologies requiring specialist knowledge. The bill provides extra flexibility for Energy Safe to appropriately and efficiently respond to minor offences. This will mean they will have the capacity to issue on-the-spot infringements for offences against the Electricity Safety Act and the Gas Safety Act.

New powers for the courts will also be introduced by the bill, enabling them to issue injunctions and adverse publicity notices, strengthening the deterrent effect of penalties, whether that be through introducing reputational risk for noncompliance or improving public awareness about energy safety issues. Energy Safe will be granted new powers to suspend electrical contractor registrations or worker licences where it is within the public interest to do so and, further, issue prohibition notices to prevent certain activities and risks to the safe supply or use of electricity. Importantly, Energy Safe’s powers to issue improvement notices will provide a more proactive approach. This will ensure compliance with the Electricity Safety Act and regulations and a readiness to address risks in advance.

Various penalties under the Electricity Safety Act and Gas Safety Act will be increased with the bill. This serves as a strong deterrent to the potentially dangerous or damaging consequences for noncompliance. Not only does it reflect the seriousness of the offences, but it also brings the penalties in line with other offences in similar legislative frameworks. The true severity of noncompliance with energy regulation law is not something we take lightly, and let that serve as a warning to any industry bodies that might consider breaking the law or attempt to disregard any regulation that serious measures are in place. The regulatory body will fine you and will prosecute you, plain and simple. It is high time that we recognise the true severity of violating electricity and gas regulations and their obligations. The primary goal here is to promote consumer safety, to protect building occupants at risk from unsafe electrical gas-fitting work and to prevent anything that could lead to serious injury, illness or even death, because our system must be protected against any and all risks that could potentially lead to harm for our consumers in this great state.

Other minor and technical amendments will be enforced by the bill to improve Energy Safe’s operational efficiency and effectiveness. This will include changing terminology, aligning regulations and processes with subordinate legislation or act requirements and also removing the duplicated duty. The bill will also require a corporate plan submission from Energy Safe every three years as well as the usual annual update. This in turn will mean the development of more forward-focused strategic plans.

The bill also seeks to provide increased certainty of public land tenure and proponents undertaking environment effects statements – processes that are subject to the Environment Effects Act 1978. Currently the Land Act 1958 has restrictions on the minister entering into an agreement to lease with a project proponent under section 134(1A) while the EES process is underway. Consequently, proponents of the major infrastructure projects can be without certainty or tenure for long periods of time while an EES is being completed. This is crucial, as projected proponents may not be willing to continue investing in a project without some security of tenure. This can impede the progress of a project where land tenure is needed to further inform investment in EES processes. These projects, while not overly common, are often strategically important for Victoria. Amending this act will therefore remove doubt and allow the minister administering section 134 of the Land Act to enter into an agreement to lease over unreserved Crown land whilst a related EES process is underway. This change seeks to support further investment in EES processes and future project needs. This is a win for future infrastructure and a win for Victoria.

It is worth noting that various key unions, industry and government stakeholders supported the proposed reforms when consulted during development of the bill. This included Victoria Police and the relevant departments, such as the Department of Premier and Cabinet, the Department of Justice and Community Safety, the Department of Treasury and Finance, the Department of Education, the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, the Department of Health and the Department of Transport and Planning. The Solicitor-General provided advice in relation to the environmental effects of the Land Act, which helped to inform the development of the proposed amendments to it, and projected proponents who currently are affected by the operation of the Land Act and the environmental acts as they currently stand were consulted on the development of the Land Act amendments. Clearly community safety is the highest priority in this government, and the introduction of this bill shows that we are unwavering in our commitment to the safety of Victorians.

I have absolute confidence in Minister D’Ambrosio as the state’s Minister for Energy and Resources, and I commend her for her ongoing commitment to not only transforming our energy system but also ensuring we lead the way with reliable safety frameworks in place when we need them. It is this leadership that has seen new technologies emerge and new technologies succeed. There can be no doubt that this government is committed to ensuring that Victorians have the best possible delivery of essential products like electricity and gas. We are focused on creating a livable, inclusive and sustainable Victoria, one where the community is at the centre of everything we do. Victorians know it too, because they voted for Labor and for a Labor government that makes clear commitments. They have voted for us a number of times now, so it is clear that Victorians know the difference between a government that is committed to doing something about our future and the stark contrast with those opposite.

These amendments will ensure that our system is protected against many risks that could potentially lead to harm of our energy consumers in this great state. It will protect the ongoing market and it will protect the transition to renewables, and it is vital to safeguarding consumer protection and confidence by ensuring the safe delivery and regulation of these new technologies. These reforms are a clear reflection of the government’s election commitment to ensuring regulatory settings keep pace with emerging technologies and to protecting our workers’ and communities’ safety. By strengthening Energy Safe’s suite of regulatory and enforcement tools, we will do this. This is a sensible bill, an intelligent bill and a bill that will protect Victoria from future reliability risks on the energy market and assist with the smooth transition into a more future-ready Victoria. I commend the bill to the house.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:06): I also rise to say a few words on the two bills that we are debating today simultaneously in cognate debate. I will start with the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. Firstly, I would like to thank the government’s advisers for their assistance with our many questions on both of these bills. I did have many concerns about some of the issues around powers of entry and this sort of thing in this bill. I believe that most of my concerns are acquitted there, but I will have a few questions in committee on that bill and we will get to that.

The other bill is the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 on the energy upgrades scheme. I have had lots to say about this scheme in the past, and it has been spoken about by many other members, around waste and rorting and corruption and ineffective technologies and all sorts of things that have happened with this scheme. The fridges were brought up by the opposition. I think that even the government would concede that there have been, historically, many problems with this scheme. To the government’s credit, I think that many of the problems will actually be fixed by this bill; they are attempting to fix some of these things. On that note, I actually do not understand why the opposition are opposing this bill, because they seem to support the idea of having an energy upgrades scheme, they just do not appear to think that it is being run very well.

The Libertarian Party has a much more fundamental opposition to this, and whether or not it is run well, we do not believe that the government should be interfering in this space. Effectively what happens with this scheme is people’s power bills are effectively increased by these certificates, as the retailer has to go out and pay for things that end up in efficiency upgrades. These are things like upgraded appliances, heat pumps, better air conditioners and these sorts of things. It is our belief in the Libertarian Party that the market should be as free as possible and, if a particular appliance by a manufacturer increases the efficiency, that efficiency should be paid for by the consumer, not by everyone else who happens to be not consuming that. I know that there is an argument that if someone is not a renter and they are a property owner, they have got the money to spend on this and they get the discount effectively through this scheme. The argument is that a renter who cannot invest in that sort of thing to increase their efficiency gets some benefit because of overall lower demand on the system and therefore they get some sort of benefit. But I would argue that they are still paying for that through their electricity bills, and I would rather they had the choice of what to do with their money than the government making that choice for them or indeed the energy retailers making that choice for them. So we do not think that it should be interfered with at all. We think that the market should be as free as possible and if there are great new technologies then companies can market those technologies and sell them to people and people can gain the benefits of those technologies.

I do have concerns about access to certification under this scheme. It is always a magnet for governments picking winners and losers, as we have seen in the past. They get lobbied by different manufacturers, and they may or may not agree to incorporate them into schemes. That can cause governments to pick winners and losers in technology, and inevitably governments are not very good at picking winners and losers in technology. As has been pointed out, many of these technologies turned out to be duds. One that I personally experienced and I think many Victorians experienced is when the government rolled out many years ago the compact fluorescent globes. They would get someone turn up to their door and give them a whole bunch of free stuff, and of course people took it because it was free. It was not really free; it was paid by everyone who had a power bill. But very soon after that LEDs became more popular and more efficient and more affordable, actually, and people would voluntarily choose to go and buy them from a retailer and replace their globes and they would gain the benefits of that. What I do think is that the government should be encouraging more competition for these technologies, encouraging lower prices as much as possible. But interfering in the market like this – I am sceptical as to the benefits, and therefore the Libertarian Party will be opposing this bill. Again I state that we oppose it not because we think that this bill will not improve the scheme; we oppose it because we oppose the scheme fundamentally, and extending it to 2045 is a bad idea in our view.

We also do not agree with emissions reduction targets. I have said many times I do not think that Victoria setting emissions reduction targets is going to change planetary weather systems by any measurable amount whatsoever. Therefore we are imposing costs on Victorians for no measurable benefit globally, and I think that is wrong. I think that we need to focus on Victoria and Australia first and worry about what other countries think secondarily. The major countries that are causing these emissions are backing away from this. The United States, China, India – if people care about emissions, they are the countries they should be focusing on, not Australia, which in the scheme of things is nothing more than a rounding error. I hear the Greens talk all the time about how we need to cut emissions so that we are going to change the weather. That is not going to happen. It does not matter what Victoria does; we are not going to change the weather by ourselves. We are largely at the whims of much larger countries with much larger populations and much larger economies that have much larger emissions than we do, and that is where the main game is. If you care about emissions, that is where you should be looking: foreign countries.

Again we have had nuclear brought up in this debate. I know that Labor loves bringing it up to tease the Liberal Party about, and I always get upset when they ignore the fact that we have supported the legalisation of nuclear energy for 24 years now in the Libertarian Party. I would say this: Australia does do one really good thing in the nuclear space in that we export large amounts of uranium, which generates large amounts of carbon-free energy all around the world. Last time I checked, the amount of electricity generated with Australian uranium is approximately equivalent to 80 per cent of Australia’s total electricity production. So in many ways we are already doing very, very much globally to try and have different energy sources out there, including nuclear. In fact there was much surprise from many Victorians and even from the government recently when it was reported that the United States was using uranium from Victoria, of all places, to power some of its nuclear reactors. Because we have the nuclear prohibition in Victoria, companies do not want to process mineral sands for elements like neodymium and praseodymium. And what people do not realise is that those rare-earth metals, which we are lucky in Victoria to have a lot of, are also in situ in the ground with other elements which have low radioactivity, like uranium, like thorium, and we cannot process them in Victoria because no-one wants to do that when we have a nuclear activities ban. So we just send them off to South Australia, we send them off to China or we send them off to the United States. The United States quite sensibly said, ‘Well, we’re going to get the neodymium out to make these strong magnets’ – to build wind turbines and electric cars and all this other stuff that they do with neodymium – ‘but we’re not going to waste the uranium, we’re going to process that as well,’ and they use it in nuclear reactors. So Victorians can stand proud that some of the uranium produced in Victoria is producing nuclear energy in the United States.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:16): I am pleased to rise to speak in the cognate debate on the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025 and the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025. It is always a pleasure to get up in this house and talk about energy policy, particularly given the government have a very, very clear policy that we support a renewable future for Victoria. We believe that investing in renewable energy is going to reduce the amount of carbon that pollutes our atmosphere from our electricity and energy generation, and we believe that a renewable future is cheaper for Victorians and for Victorian households. They are two fundamental reasons, two of the best reasons, why renewable energy is the future of energy in this state and why this Labor government has been and will continue to be a fervent supporter, a solid supporter, of a net zero future, of a renewable future, for Victoria.

We were also really glad to see that on Saturday week just past the community here in Victoria and across the nation endorsed a federal government that shares Victoria’s vision for an energy sector built on a renewable future and that wants this nation as well as this state to be a renewable energy superpower that harnesses the great natural gifts that we have been given in this country, whether they be wind or whether they be solar, to produce cleaner energy and to produce cheaper energy. The Australian people, particularly on the Saturday before last, made a very clear statement that they prefer Labor’s approach to renewables to the Liberals’ approach to nuclear power. We know that the journey to a renewable future, to renewable energy in this state and this nation, is leading to cleaner power and is leading to cheaper power. That stands in stark contrast to the agenda that the federal Liberal Party, the federal National Party, the state Liberal Party and the state National Party have been pushing for a very long time, and that is to reopen the nuclear question – to start our consumers, our energy users, our households here in Victoria down a path that is going to lead to more expensive power in the form of nuclear energy and is going to lead to more dangerous and more costly power in the nature of nuclear energy.

We have had debates on those questions here in this chamber before. I hope that the resounding rejection of nuclear energy that we saw in the recent federal election from the people of Australia puts those debates to bed, because I think the people of Australia have spoken, and certainly they have said that they do not believe that nuclear energy has any place in Victoria’s or Australia’s future energies mix. In that light we have got to ensure that there is an energy future for this state that is going to be with us after our ageing coal-fired power stations reach the end of their lives. We cannot hope away the reality that our coal-fired generators here in this state are reaching the end of their economic life. They are becoming increasingly unreliable. They are becoming increasingly costly to run and to fix.

What the government here, under the leadership of Minister for Energy and Resources Ms D’Ambrosio, has set us on a course for and is delivering for is a future that ensures, as our coal-fired generation phases down in terms of the share of energy it is capable of producing for this state, as it reaches the end of its economic life, that we have got the energy mix in place to ensure that Victoria has the energy future we need. Part of the comprehensive suite of measures that the energy minister has been championing in her efforts – a tireless champion for a Victorian energy future that is reliable, cleaner and cheaper – is to make sure we have got all parts of the system working together in the same direction to achieve that end goal, our legislated end goal of a net zero target by 2045.

A key part of achieving that target is not just on the generation side, though that is important – such as making sure we have got the transmission lines to bring the new power that is being generated in certain parts of the state to the homes and communities who are going to need that power. Not only is it about investing in new forms of generation and new forms of storage, the big batteries and the significant investments that we are making in things like offshore wind, a key part of that target is ensuring that the consumption that we do of energy in this state is complementing that shift to renewable generation in particular – that the electrification of our homes is enabling us to take advantage of the cheaper and cleaner renewable energy that the state is generating in our households.

The Victorian energy upgrades program is a key part of that electrification agenda, and it has helped provide more than 2.4 million households and businesses in Victoria with discounted energy products and services. Since the Victorian energy upgrades program went electric in 2023 it has delivered rebates for more than 19,000 reverse-cycle air conditioners and 39,000 hot-water systems, saving 28 million tonnes of emissions. Under the scheme, households that replace a gas ducted heating system with an electric one can receive a discount of up to $3600. So not only does the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) program save on emissions, it helps deliver that cheaper and that cleaner renewable energy into people’s homes through electric appliances.

It also helps households reduce their energy bills. The households that receive up to $3600 to replace a gas ducted heating system with an electric one can also save around $600 every year in their energy bills. So the program is delivering up-front savings in terms of a rebate to help with costs of replacement of old, particularly gas-powered ducted heating systems, for example, with modern electric heat pumps, but the benefits of that are not just in the up-front rebate. It is the ongoing savings that people receive – in this case, with this gas ducted heating system, of around $600 a year. An electric heat pump hot-water system can save households $250 per year compared with a gas unit. For businesses the average saving on energy bills as a result of the Victorian energy upgrades program is around $3700 annually.

I have been out and seen this firsthand with members of our community. I have spoken in this place previously about the visit I made with Minister D’Ambrosio to a couple in Hampton who, as part of the Victorian energy upgrades program, replaced their old gas ducted heating system with an electric heat pump. We visited Bob and Pat in their little villa home in Hampton. They were effusive in their praise for the benefits of the electrification that they had already undertaken in their home in terms of the electrification of their cooktop to a new induction system but also the ease of the installation, the ease of the procurement and the expected gains from the new electric heat pump and better insulated ducted system, which had been installed by a local Victorian company headquartered in Clayton South that is employing workers, employing tradies, to do these sorts of installations right across metropolitan Melbourne.

As a result of the work that is being done across our energy sector we have in Victoria retail power prices that are some of the lowest in the country, and they are projected to keep falling into the future. Renewables have had and will have a big part to play in ensuring that Victorians are paying less for their energy. Our target of net zero by 2045 we are well on our way to achieving. We surpassed our 2020 emissions target of a 15 to 20 per cent reduction in emissions; we achieved a 30 per cent reduction. We were already in range of our next target, which was 28 to 33 per cent by 2025, with a 31 per cent reduction by 2022.

Victoria is decarbonising at the fastest rate in the country, with one of the earliest legislated net zero dates in the world. We are achieving our goals. We are decarbonising faster than anyone. We are putting more renewables into the system. It is delivering savings for Victorian households. But we can always do better and we can always do more. That is why we are doing this two-year strategic review of the Victorian energy upgrades program. What this bill does is allow regulations to set targets in two-year tranches rather than every five years while the program undergoes its strategic review – the review that is underway and will modernise and strengthen the program to make sure that it continues to support Victorians to make the transition away from fossil-based fuels to renewables to lower their energy costs.

The changes also give certainty to industry that we are committed to getting this right and that once the review is completed we will set targets from 2028 to 2030 and then resume in five-year increments until 2045. The bill also strengthens the regulatory framework as the program continues to provide a wider and more flexible range of compliance and enforcement tools for the Essential Services Commission, who are the regulators of the program. We do have an expectation that the products that Victorians are installing in their homes through this program are of the utmost standard, backed up by proper compliance and enforcement activities – and that is critical.

The changes in the bill will also include new improvement and prohibition notice powers, an additional civil penalty requirement and enforcement pathways as well as mandating training requirements for scheme participants. We are further adapting the bill to ensure that it fulfils its requirements and improves accessibility to the program for both businesses and consumers and it introduces flexibility and reduces pressure on energy retailers by removing existing restrictions on the vintage certificates that can be surrendered by the retailers each year, bringing the program in line with similar programs interstate, such as in New South Wales, which is expected to enable more efficient trading of certificates and reduce the costs of the program, which will ultimately be reflected in energy bills.

The other piece of legislation that we are debating today, the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025, will amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005 to introduce a new power of entry for Energy Safe Victoria officers to be able to enter premises with a magistrate-issued warrant to allow officers to investigate safety risks, monitor compliance and take enforcement actions with safeguards, ensuring proper oversight. Current powers do not allow inspectors to enter residential premises without the occupier’s consent, even in circumstances that may pose a risk to public safety. The bill will expand the tools available to Energy Safe Victoria and the courts to enforce compliance, including the powers to stop unsafe work and to suspend electrical contractor registration or electrical worker licences where it is in the public interest to do so.

The bill will create a range of maximum penalties to better reflect the gravity of relevant safety risks and to increase deterrence, given the potential consequences of noncompliance. It also amends timeframes for specified operators to submit bushfire mitigation plans from annually to up to every five years – unless circumstances change, requiring a revised plan to be submitted sooner – relieving the administrative burden.

It amends the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005 to establish a three-year corporate planning cycle rather than an annual cycle, which while maintaining accountability through annual reporting updates, seeks to make a range of changes to reduce administrative burdens by abolishing a range of committees and changing the sunset period on a range of other matters.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Mr Mulholland does not appear to be interested in the content of the bill. He would prefer me to get back to talking about how the Victorian government is making energy cheaper and more renewable for Victorian households. I am happy to do that. Fundamentally, the Liberal Party seems disinterested in cleaner energy; it certainly is disinterested in cheaper energy for all Victorians. But I commend these bills to the house.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (16:31): I am delighted to speak on the first two bills, together, since the period of recess, I suppose you would call it – it was not really a break – the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025. The energy safety bill upgrades our legislative framework around energy safety and strengthens the Victorian energy upgrades program. We have worked with Energy Safe Victoria and other stakeholders to review the regulatory regime around energy safety, and we have committed to making sure that it is still fit for purpose. The key objective to this is to keep Victorians safe, and we need a regime that can respond to the rapid rate of change as technology develops and our transition to renewables continues.

The second bill, the energy upgrades for the future bill, will make amendments to the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007. The energy upgrades for the future bill will strengthen the Victorian energy upgrades program, the VEU program, to ensure that it can continue to effectively support the energy transition. These amendments are critical to our future energy security. They will extend the VEU program’s legislated end date until 2045, introduce new provisions to expand the Essential Services Commission’s compliance and enforcement powers and explain how the current power to prescribe activities will operate concerning the additionality requirement, and this clarification is needed to ensure the VEU program can offer discounts in future situations where an action is mandated by another regulation or law. It will remove an existing restriction relating to the eligibility or vintage of certificates that can be surrendered by energy retailers each year, and importantly, it will allow for VEU program discounts to be better targeted specifically to a class of energy consumers such as vulnerable low-income consumers to enable greater accessibility to the VEU program. And finally, the amendments will introduce new mandatory training requirements for scheme participants. These reforms are essential for the VEU program to facilitate the energy transition. Simultaneously, a broader strategic review is being conducted to modernise the scheme. This will enhance its support for electrification and ensure the Essential Services Commission, the program’s regulator, can effectively manage it, minimise noncompliance and enforce regulations when needed.

So what has changed? What has changed in recent times is the transition to renewable energy has been changing the way we generate and deliver energy. Victorians are now much more likely to generate and store their own energy in their own homes. In fact there is a phrase called ‘prosumer’ – producer and consumer. Thanks to the incentives provided by the Allan Labor government, more than 300,000 solar panels have been installed on Victorian rooftops, so there are a large number of Victorians that are both consumers of energy and producers of energy. That is more than 2100 megawatts of solar power, the equivalent of the Loy Yang A coal-fired power station, and that is not to be underestimated. Today 30 per cent of Victorian homes have solar installed. Each of these households are now saving an average of around $1000 on energy bills each year. And with the Albanese federal government’s home battery rebate plan, more Victorians will also be storing their own energy at home.

It is not just at the home level that things have changed. Our priority is to drive investment into Victoria’s energy, resources and infrastructure sectors, employing Victorians for decades to come, and driving not just jobs but driving the renewal and the changes. This government have met every single emissions reduction and renewable energy target that we have set. I will repeat that: we have met every target we have set in relation to emissions reduction and renewable energy. We are on track to achieve 40 per cent renewable energy by 2025. We are building energy storage, like the Victorian Big Battery, to provide reliable renewable energy. We are supporting the development of offshore wind energy. And when I say we are supporting that development, we are making the regulatory changes that enable these changes to happen for that energy offshore to traverse Victorian waters, public land, Crown land and occasionally private land, and for the regulatory boundaries and rules to be set in relation to that.

I must say I am thrilled at the result of the federal election on 3 May, because as my colleague Mr McIntosh said, there was definitely an enormous sigh of relief on Saturday the 3rd in the evening, I am sure, in our region, with policy certainty now for the energy strategy going forward. If we had had a conservative result, we would have ended up with another complete flipping to another strategy and years of delay. So far we have had three years of investment into a national renewable energy transition. Obviously Victoria, as compared to some states, is ahead of the game, but we are very ready for the federal government to be playing their role in supporting renewable energy into the future, and so I was very, very excited. I do know that places like the Port of Portland, who are currently negotiating a range of different innovative renewable energy projects and have investors and users, will be absolutely thrilled that we are not flip-flopping to nuclear energy or any other crazy idea that may come from the federal opposition, which is where they should stay.

We are supporting the development of offshore wind energy, but at the same time we are respecting communities’ views, community input and First Nations people’s views as well. We are improving the planning and approval processes to deliver the projects we need while managing the impacts on our communities, the environment and First Nations people. We are determined to show respect and provide accurate information about our rules and the way things are going ahead to all of our communities and to not allow communities to be misled. We have brought back the SEC to directly invest in renewable energy generation and storage projects. So we are not just relying on private sector investment. We know, just like we had a transition to a fossil fuel energy grid perhaps 75 years ago, we are now going to be transitioning to a renewable grid. We do not want the power to be going off, and we do not want energy inequality to happen. When I say energy inequality, I am talking about isolated and rural communities losing their power and certain businesses and industries having insecure energy supply. That is why we are managing this transition very, very tightly and in a logical way, a pragmatic way, and I absolutely congratulate the Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio for the way that she is moving forward on this very, very complex transition.

Since 2014, 59 projects providing 4471 megawatts of new capacity have come online, and there are nine projects currently under construction which will provide a further 1314 megawatts of capacity. These include the SEC project at Plumpton, one of the largest battery energy storage projects in the world. It will provide enough power for 200,000 homes.

This bill will also strengthen enforcement powers. The bill introduces a new magistrate-issued warrant that will give Energy Safe Victoria officers authority to enter premises. Currently inspectors cannot enter residential premises without the occupier’s consent, even when there is a potential risk to public safety. For example, Energy Safe became aware of a do-it-yourself home battery installation at a residential property that posed an electrocution and fire safety risk. Fortunately, the occupant gave consent to inspect. They found an extensive array of batteries had been installed down the side of the house with very limited access and clearly exposed wires and connections. Without the owner’s consent there may have been a very serious incident.

The bill will also confer powers to stop unsafe work and to suspend registrations or licences of providers of electrical services, and it amends the types and severity of penalties to better fit the circumstances. It increases maximum penalties for serious offences to deter people from cutting corners and risking safety, and it introduces additional penalties that can be imposed via infringement notices. These can be issued on the spot for relatively minor offences. One of the ways that risk is managed is through two committees, the Electrical Line Clearance Consultative Committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee – that is a bit hard to say, isn’t it. The bill abolishes these committees – and I heartily endorse that based on pronunciation difficulty alone – as Energy Safe Victoria is better able to perform their functions and, might I say, better named. In a fast-moving landscape, standing committees are too slow and process-heavy to be effective.

In concluding, I want to say that the world is changing at quite a fast pace. The invention of new ways of doing things, new ways of creating energy into people’s homes and new technologies to do old things means that there is enormous opportunity for communities to save money and to save the planet at the same time. But there is also the risk of perhaps ill-informed or ill-qualified people unintentionally – usually it is unintentional – doing something that is dangerous without even knowing. That is part of the reason why we need to play a role and regulate, particularly in the emerging space where there is not common knowledge about some of these changes. Both of these bills are another step in the journey of our transition, and I well and truly support both the bills and recommend them to the house.

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (16:45): I rise to speak in support of the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025 and the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Bill 2025. The Allan Labor government is unapologetic about our energy safety regime. Victoria’s robust energy safety framework is proactively updated to ensure that we continue to keep both workers and the community safe. Many of these reforms are aimed at relieving administrative burden and red tape from Energy Safe Victoria (ESV) so it can direct resources to where they are most needed. Our government is committed to helping Victorian families and businesses continue to slash their energy bills, and this bill will help the Victorian energy upgrades (VEU) program continue to do just that.

The energy safety bill will amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998, the Gas Safety Act 1997 and the Pipelines Act 2005 to introduce a new entry power for Energy Safe officers which will enable them to enter premises with a magistrate-issued warrant. This allows officers to investigate safety risks, monitor compliance and take enforcement action, with safeguards ensuring proper oversight. Current powers do not allow inspectors to enter a residential premises without the occupier’s consent, even in situations where those circumstances pose a risk to public safety. The bill will expand the tools available to Energy Safe and the courts to enforce compliance, and these include powers to stop unsafe work and to suspend an electrical contractor’s registration or electrical worker licence when it is in the public interest to do so. The bill will increase the range of maximum penalties to better reflect the gravity of relevant safety risks and to increase deterrents, given the potential consequences of noncompliance. It also amends timeframes for specified operators to submit bushfire mitigation plans from annually up to every five years in line with major electricity companies, and it amends the Energy Safe Victoria Act 2005 to establish a three-year corporate planning cycle rather than an annual one, while maintaining accountability through annual report updates. It will reduce the administrative burden on ESV by abolishing the Electric Line Clearance Consultative Committee and the Victorian Electrolysis Committee, allowing them to consult more flexibly. It also clarifies that the Minister for Environment can sign a contract to lease unreserved Crown land on agreed terms, subject to conditions, while an environment effects statement is ongoing, and this change reduces barriers to large-scale energy resources and infrastructure investment in Victoria.

The government is introducing a house amendment to the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Bill 2025, including additional amendments to the Electricity Industry Act 2000 to repeal the Essential Services Commission’s role in determining minimum feed-in tariffs, or FIT rates, from 1 July 2025 onwards, providing greater flexibility for electricity retailers to set their own FIT rates for amounts to be credited to their customers for their solar exports. The huge uptake of solar in Victoria has helped push daytime wholesale prices to historic lows, and this means lower power bills for everyone but also means that the minimum feed-in tariff is no longer required.

Can I ask that the house amendment now be circulated, which I note is pursuant to the instruction motion on the notice paper.

Amendments circulated pursuant to standing orders.

Ingrid STITT: The energy upgrades bill will amend the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007, the VEET act, to support the scale-up of electrification under the Victorian energy upgrades program and strengthen consumer protection. The bill extends the VEU program to 2045; critically, this will ensure that the VEU program will be here to support Victorians for the long term while providing long-term certainty to facilitate investment and innovation in the Victorian energy efficiency industry. It also aligns the program with Victoria’s legislated net zero target of 2045. The bill will achieve this by extending the regulation-making power to set targets which determine the ambition for the program and the obligation on energy retailers to not fall short of their certificate surrender obligations beyond 2030.

The bill allows regulations to set targets in two-year tranches rather than every five years while the program undergoes its strategic review. This review is currently underway and will modernise and strengthen the program to ensure it continues to support Victorians to make the transition away from gas and lower their energy costs. The target setting will go back to five-year tranches once we hit 2030 and any review outcomes have taken effect. It is common sense and responsible governance to reduce the target tranches while the review is being undertaken. It gives certainty to industry that we are committed to getting this right and that once the review is completed we will set targets from 2028 to 2030 and then resume five-year increments until 2045. The opposition, I note, have said that we are changing legislation to get around the review, which just demonstrates that they really do not have any idea how the scheme runs and how to give industry certainty. I would pose the question to those opposite: why on earth would we set targets for five years when undertaking a two-year review? It pre-empts outcomes, and that is not what a responsible government does.

We also know how important it is that Victorians have confidence in the program and the products installed through the program, ensuring the highest standards backed up by proper compliance and enforcement activities, and that is absolutely a critical feature of the scheme. That is why the bill introduces new provisions to expand the Essential Services Commission’s compliance and enforcement powers, and this includes new improvement and prohibition notice powers, additional civil penalty requirements and enforcement pathways as well as new mandated training requirements for scheme participants. Reducing the up-front costs for energy consumers throughout this transition is vital; therefore the bill will amend the act to clarify the additionality requirement and explicitly allow for activities that may be mandated by another law or regulation to be prescribed under the VEU program in the future. This will allow consumers to continue receiving discounts for energy upgrades in their homes and businesses and facilitate the uptake of mandated activities if deemed necessary.

The bill introduces flexibility and reduces pressure on energy retailers by removing an existing restriction on the vintage of certificates that can be surrendered by energy retailers each year. This amendment will allow them to obtain certificates registered prior to 31 January of the year following the obligation year, and this brings the program more in line with similar programs interstate, such as in New South Wales. This is expected to enable more efficient trading of certificates and reduce the cost of the VEU program, which is ultimately reflected in consumers’ energy bills. The bill also allows for future VEU program discounts to be targeted to specific cohorts – for instance, vulnerable and low-income consumers – to enable greater access to participate in the VEU program in future as cost-of-living pressures increase.

We have heard some interesting commentary from the opposition in the other place and here on both of these bills. I think what it does enforce to me is that we are focused as a government on getting the energy transition right, and I do not believe that the opposition are really prioritising Victorians’ safety in some of the questions and some of the comments that I have heard in today’s debate. This energy safety bill absolutely strengthens safety and compliance within the gas industry. It does support plumbers and businesses to provide gas services, to the contrary of what the opposition have claimed. Only people who do the wrong thing, who put safety and the community at risk, will face negative consequences from this bill. To be clear, the bill does not in any way prevent qualified gasfitters and plumbers from fixing gas appliances. Immediate suspension powers target unsafe practices, protecting public safety and maintaining industry integrity. These new reforms create a safer and more transparent industry that benefits skilled professionals and ensures confidence in energy services.

I want to be very clear about how the opposition is twisting the truth of the cost of the VEU scheme to consumers. We have heard them bang on about how it is the most expensive scheme of its kind in the country and that it increases consumers’ energy bills – nothing could be further from the truth. There is no way that anybody responsible could make these claims. This program is the largest and most ambitious of any energy efficiency scheme in Australia. While it saves consumers on up-front costs of appliances by providing discounts and provides ongoing savings to their energy bills by improved energy efficiency, it also avoids costs that consumers would incur if the scheme did not exist. Between 2021 and 2025 the VEU program will avoid $3.8 billion in energy system costs that would be required if the scheme did not exist. Even those who do not participate in the program will save on their bills as a consequence of the program, with households saving $150 and businesses saving $870. This is because improved energy efficiency in some households means lower overall demand for electricity, and when you improve the supply–demand balance in the electricity market, you get lower wholesale electricity prices, which flows on to lower retail prices. Between 2010 and 2020 the VEU program reduced wholesale electricity prices on average by 2.2 per cent annually.

We are getting on with the job of slashing Victorians’ energy bills, reducing the state’s emissions and keeping Victorians safe as we continue our energy transition, and I commend both bills to the house.