Tuesday, 14 October 2025

 Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:15): (1975) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for the State Electricity Commission, the Honourable Lily D’Ambrosio in the other place. The action I seek is for the minister to outline how the SEC is powering Victorian government operations in Croydon and Kilsyth, including Gladesville Primary School, Croydon Hills Primary School and Melba secondary college. At long last the SEC is back. Thirty years after the Liberals shamefully sold it off, we are bringing back publicly owned power for Victorians. This means our hospitals, our local schools, our museums and even our traffic lights powered by clean, affordable energy that stays in public hands. The SEC is not just about electricity, it is about jobs, fairness and our renewable future. It will deliver over 59,000 jobs, including 6000 apprenticeships and traineeships, creating opportunities for Victorians in the industries of tomorrow. And now that the SEC is enshrined in our constitution, it can never be sold off again. That is certainty for workers and certainty for our clean energy transition. The SEC will also power our trains and trams – more than 350 million trips across the state – making the way we move cleaner and cheaper. Just last week we announced the Metro Tunnel will open in December, and yes, it too will be powered by the SEC – how good is that? This is only the beginning, and soon the SEC will expand to retail offerings for commercial and industrial businesses, servicing 5 per cent of Victoria’s energy consumption, with every dollar of profit reinvested to grow projects and capacity. That is what public ownership looks like: power for people, not for profit.