Tuesday, 3 March 2026

 David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (19:38): I will not say I am pleased to rise, but it is in order to make a contribution to the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. This is a classic omnibus bill that seeks to do quite a bit here and quite a bit there, and I will go through the provisions step by step. There are a few issues we have with this bill. It is a bill that we were not necessarily intending to oppose, but I do want to put on record some points about the way the government has managed this particular bill.

The main purposes of the bill include to amend the Electricity Safety Act 1998 to require distribution companies to prepare network resilience plans and to provide for the approval and enforcement of network resilience plans. It amends the Electricity Industry Act 2000 and the Gas Industry Act 2001 to provide increased flexibility for the setting of retailer obligations to life support customers. It amends the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 to clarify the eligibility for payments to landholders by limiting it to interests in land in relation to major new transmission infrastructure, to make further provisions in relation to the issue of grid impact authorities, to confer further functions in relation to the national electricity market onto VicGrid and to make further provision in relation to preferred transmission project areas of interest within and between renewable energy zones (REZs). It amends also the Energy and Land Legislation Amendment (Energy Safety) Act 2025 – schedule 1 of that act – to include consequential amendments to the Electricity Safety Act 1998, additional amendments to change references to ‘enforcement officer’ to ‘authorised officer’. It amends the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Act 2007 to repeal certain provisions. It amends the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid Stage 2 Reform) Act 2025 to make an amendment that is consequential to amendments being made to the National Electricity Act (Victoria) 2005 relating to preferred transmission project areas of interest and between renewable energy zones, and it amends the Advancing the Treaty Process with Aboriginal Victorians Act 2018 to make further provision in relation to the composition, structure or legal form of the Self-Determination Fund referred to in the act. We have some amendments. I am happy for those amendments to be circulated at a convenient point, if that is possible.

I also understand that the government has amendments. I am going to just put on record my concern at the government’s approach to this. I had a call on Thursday of the last sitting week to say, ‘We’ve got amendments to this bill. We’ll brief you.’ We booked a room for the minister and her staff to brief us Thursday of the last sitting week. The bill was still in the Assembly at that point. Then the government cancelled that briefing. Today the chief of staff to the Minister for Energy and Resources called to say, ‘Oh, we have got amendments for this bill, and we want to brief you on it.’ I said, ‘Thank you, but why on earth were we not briefed earlier? Why were we not briefed in the sitting week before? Why were we not briefed in the non-sitting week in between? Why has it been left to this hour at that point for us to be briefed?’ The truth is we are going to be briefed tomorrow morning at 8:30 on amendments. I am not sure about the crossbench and what briefings they have had. But given the consequential nature of the amendments – I am going to put on record the general nature of those amendments rather than the specifics – we think it is very poor form that the government would seek to delay that briefing for so long. We do not think that is the right way for the government to go around its approach. I am thankful that we are going to be briefed tomorrow morning, and I will be asking the department some questions.

But let me just say, essentially what the government is going to seek to do with its new amendments is to amend the electricity act to make some provisions around compulsory acquisition, and it will also seek to weaken the controls that are around the very important Environment Effects Act 1978 and enable them to start purchasing and compulsorily acquiring land before an environment effects statement (EES) is completed. This seems to me to be very problematic indeed. It seems to put the cart before the horse. You do want to do proper environmental effects assessments before you do major projects, and you do need to do that in a thoughtful and genuine way. This, at a minimum, undermines the Environment Effects Act activities and approach.

Essentially, there are a number of things here in the bill. The resilience reforms are not things that in fundamental measure we disagree with; we see the logic of them. We are a little concerned about a greater involvement for regulations with resilience reforms and the designating of who will have the support and so forth in certain circumstances, such as the life support aspects in the electricity act and the Gas Industry Act. We understand it is part of a review that happened – the Electricity Distribution Network Resilience Review – supporting priority restoration of power following prolonged power outages. In that sense, we certainly do not oppose those changes.

The energy upgrades program, I might add, is a circus. The state government has the energy upgrades program. It is a very expensive program. There is some worthwhile work being done, but there have also been some major blunders and errors. Who can forget those refrigerators lined up outside businesses? In some cases, up to four and six refrigerators were delivered to businesses. Many businesses could deal with one more energy-efficient fridge – it makes a lot of sense – but very few had need for four or six fridges. So what I am saying is there are problems with the energy upgrades program and its management and the competence with which it is managed.

We note that the act was reviewed, and that review has not become public. We note that the government amended the relevant bill last year in April, and now this pulls out and repeals part 4 of the Victorian Energy Efficiency Target Amendment (Energy Upgrades for the Future) Act 2025, which was intended to strengthen existing offence provisions and key definitions. Subsequent policy analysis has shown that these changes would unintentionally exclude a key business model responsible for delivering a substantial share of the energy upgrades program. I will be asking in committee – and I put this on record for the minister now – for a copy of that review. We think the review is not up to scratch. It is the department reviewing itself, so it is marking its own homework, and we know the department has failed in a substantial way in many aspects with this program. You amend the bill last year in April – now you pull out those bits. We are not opposing that, but we do note the incongruity that is involved and the fact that the review has still not been released.

The VicGrid reforms: VicGrid obviously adopted a different approach to renewable energy zones and transmission infrastructure. We have a number of concerns with that. We did vote against substantial matters in the VicGrid bill, not that we object in principle to the return of many of these powers to the state from national bodies. We would prefer that they be undertaken here, and in that sense VicGrid is closer to the state position. We were supportive of that part of the model; it is actually the implementation that is the question.

The flexibility in the making of renewable energy zone orders and the assessment of renewable energy zone scheme authorities: first, the bill allows renewable energy zones to be declared where there is existing sufficient transmission infrastructure or where there is not yet a proposed transmission project on the planning horizon, and on it goes. Let me just say we think it has been a series of blunders in the declaration of renewables zones. I have had people in the wind industry say to me, ‘We’d prefer to be out of a renewable zone,’ and they are worried about the cost of the renewable zones. They are worried about the involvement of an overarching committee that the minister will appoint that will have control over the support and compensation given to communities. They think that this is not a nimble and targeted approach. They think they would be better doing it themselves, and I suspect they are right. So we think there are a lot of problems with the way the REZs have been declared. We think there are a lot of problems with the way VicGrid is operating. Nobody in country Victoria thinks VicGrid is operating well; they think it is an overbearing organisation with an arrogant approach. The suite of additional powers that were taken recently, the ability to impose those powers and to impose greater fines – all of this is essentially massive overkill. So we have some problems with that section.

The treaty itself and Self-Determination Fund reforms: we have some problems there with the treaty payments, which are going to be made to traditional owners through some of these mechanisms. In common with other sections of the electricity provisions, there are more and more and more costs being loaded onto the bills. More costs, environmental projects, traditional owners compensation – the list is very long, and the amount is now very great. Families are reeling from the cost-of-living issues that are being imposed on them, and a lot of it is through the supply charge on their electricity bills. More and more costs are being loaded onto families and being loaded onto small businesses. They are buckling under the cost-of-living crisis and this government has pushed up power prices, and part of that increase – only part of it – is due to these matters that are being loaded onto bills. We think some transparency is required there as well.

We think that across a wide front, not just traditional owner payments but land compensation payments more generally, the Victorian energy upgrades aspects, all of those, ought to be more transparently declared to consumers. They get at the moment a bill where they can see their electricity usage and they see the supply charge, but they do not know how the supply charge is broken up. That supply charge contains all of those components: the VEU scheme, the payments to traditional owners, the payments to landholders. All of these are loaded in and loaded and loaded and loaded and loaded up so that every family is buckling and businesses are buckling under the additional costs that are being loaded onto them. We say there needs to be greater transparency, and one of our amendments goes directly to that. I will say that it deals with this aspect with traditional owner payments here, but in the longer term we believe that there should be a broader arrangement of transparency so that people can see what they are paying and where it is going. At the moment they cannot.

The work done by Gavin Dufty at the tariff tracker project is actually quite instructive. It is the best work of its type. It follows the actual bills that people have paid over the previous 12 months. It looks at the bills, it breaks them down and it tries to work out what is happening company by company and individual user by individual user. In that sense it is the most reliable information about what people are actually paying in their bills and what small firms are actually paying. Small businesses are being clobbered in the same way, and they can ill afford these additional costs being loaded onto them. Now we have got massive new wires planned across the state, and they are going to jack up the electricity costs of everyone. The wire costs are going up and up and up, and the electricity costs are going to consequently go up and up and up. So Victorians need to prepare for a massive surge in costs that is coming from what this government has done.

The compensation arrangements that are being paid, the local payments that are intended to be paid, will also feed onto the bill, and they will also jack up the bills. So people are paying and paying and paying through the nose, and they cannot see honestly and clearly what they are paying. The time has come for greater transparency, for greater openness and for greater honesty about what people are paying. I think this is a very important point that I am trying to make here, because Victorians are now at the point where they have had too much of this.

We do not agree with the special arrangements the government has sought to make in the bill proper. This is before I get to their amendment that they will move presumably when we get to committee on Thursday. But we do not agree with the special arrangements that seek to sweep aside the proper powers in the environment effects statement, and we do not agree with the arrangements there. So one of our amendments will seek to deal with the special arrangements and fundamentally say energy projects should run the proper gauntlet. This is not to say there should be excessive regulation, but if you are going to have an impact on the local environment, if you are going to have an impact on biodiversity, if you are going to have an impact on large tracts of trees and other vegetation, that should be properly and fairly assessed as part of the environment effects process.

We are troubled by what the government is doing with its special arrangements here. They have got the high penalties that are being imposed in country Victoria, with VicGrid officers having these extraordinary entry powers – extraordinary ability to land people with big fines and big clobbers. At the same time we have got arrangements in place where the normal planning rules have been suspended – VC261; people may remember that in this chamber we sought to revoke it, and we sought to revoke it because the state government is taking all power to itself, to the planning minister, rather than going through the proper process. So we say proper planning processes, proper involvement of local communities, proper ability for people to have their say and proper planning scheme amendments that are put forward that actually have proper council involvement – councils should be central to these matters. And we say that VC261 ought to be repealed. The idea that we are going to give all this power to the Minister for Planning to use to override local community objections I think is reprehensible, and frankly, it is a bit off. That is where we are heading: new powers, extraordinary powers, powers that breach normal conventions in this country that look at community consultation. You only need to talk to many of the people who have been involved with these powerlines to understand the impact it is having on farming communities. We have said there should be proper agricultural assessments. We have said there should be proper environmental effects statement processes. We have said there should be proper involvements for local communities. These are very important steps that we are pointing to.

This bill is a broad bill. It is an omnibus bill, as I have said, and there are parts of it that we agree with and parts that we are entirely neutral about. But some of these parts that seek to put special rules in place that say, ‘We’re going to override local communities’ are problematic, and we are putting on record today the problems that we think are there. We will be saying more about this when we get to the committee stage. We intend to move those two amendments, one of which is about transparency and the other of which seeks to say there are no additional brakes beyond what would normally be the case with an EES. We do not think there is a case being made out by the state government.

We do think that there are some sensible changes and rules that we could put in place. We saw Graeme Samuel’s review just a small number of years ago that looked at the interplay between Commonwealth and state environmental effects processes in description. He says that you could harmonise those state and Commonwealth processes and reduce in many circumstances the complexity that is involved and the timelines that are involved. We think that where you can reduce timelines, where you can reduce complexity without weakening the checks, without weakening the balance and without weakening the oversight, that is something that we should look at, and we do think that that could work quite well. We could have an arrangement where, as the state process proceeds, it actually puts in place a consideration of the environment protection and biodiversity conservation arrangements. We think that makes a lot of sense. It smooths the regulatory process, but it does it in a way that does not weaken the oversight.

The problem with the amendments in this bill is they do weaken the oversight, and the problem with the proposed amendment, which the government is going to brief me on tomorrow, is it appears to jump the EES process completely and sweep it aside. We can start purchasing out there – compulsory acquisition – and we can do that before the EES process is completed. That should chill people. This is a government that is not going through the proper steps. What happens if the purchases are made and the steps are begun and suddenly there is a very clear indication from the EES that the process should not have proceeded? It does not seem that the government has thought that through. We will have more to say about that when the minister brings forward those additional amendments.

I think I have laid out the position quite clearly. The bill itself is an omnibus bill. Some parts we support, some parts we are ambivalent about and some parts we do not like. We will have more to say about our amendments in committee and about the government’s proposed amendments when they come through.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (20:00): Thank you very much for the call and opportunity to speak on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. It is always an honour to follow on from Mr Davis in an energy debate. It is a frequent feature of our time here in the chamber, and what have not surprised me are the amendments that have been put before us today. I look forward to the opportunity to discuss them as I read them with much interest, and I thank him for introducing them to our chamber. What I can see amongst them is that we are singling out an itemised line in the first electricity bill of a customer in a year that says how much has been paid to Aboriginal people, not how much has been paid to shareholders, the CEO or any other group. What we have decided, or what Mr Davis, rather, has decided, with the amendment before us is that we should be singling out payments to traditional owners in the bill. I look forward to examining that in committee. I will just let him know that this one has deeply disappointed me, because what we heard in Yoorrook was that there has been a gross injustice done to First Nations people when it comes to payment for resources in our state. Gold is an example that was highlighted. What we are trying to do with this legislation, amongst other things, is to right some wrongs. Instead what we have got before us is an amendment that will stoke further racial division in our state, and that is actually not what we need.

What we do need is a bill that will hold network providers accountable. It will force them to upgrade their infrastructure so that it is absolutely prepared for significant weather events, and that is what we have before us. What we have is a bill that says regional communities are at the front line of the climate crisis, and we recognise that. We are not here to say that when it all becomes a little bit of an emergency and all too hard after a very, very significant event at some point in the future, then we will do something. What we are saying with this bill before us is that through Energy Safe Victoria we will protect these communities through increasingly fierce weather events and the impacts that they have on our communities.

We know that these increasingly frequent and devastating bushfires and other natural disasters are causing some real damage to our transmission lines across the state and blackouts, because I can tell you from this last summer that climate change is undoubtedly making summers hotter, longer and more volatile to weather events. We have seen the increasing impacts of climate change on people’s lives, on their businesses and, critically, on energy infrastructure, as we are discussing in this bill. Over the last month I have seen these increasingly volatile fires and what they have meant for our state, but I have also seen what happens when you invest in renewable energy. I have heard firsthand – and I know that other members from regional communities that are sitting on this side also have heard firsthand – from communities about losing their livelihoods and losing their livestock and what that means. We know that properties absolutely have been lost, but they are more than just houses; they are homes full of countless family memories, and they have been lost at a time with incredibly soaring insurance premiums for farmers that are just trying to do the right thing by their families and continue long-held family businesses and traditions. The stories of these devastating losses are becoming far too common, and it is the severity of our fire season that we should be looking at. Those communities that are on the front line of the climate crisis need to make sure that network providers are not taking them for a ride but that they are placing that critical investment into the networks that means they are much more resilient for the tough times that come with extreme weather events.

Since privatisation in the 1990s the distribution network has been owned and operated by private companies – that is really important for folks to know – and every five years those companies submit network expenditure plans to the independent national regulator, the Australian Energy Regulator, for assessment and approval. The state government does not fund or control the upgrades to the network, but since 2021, when there were significant outage events due to storms – some of us in this place remember that devastation – this government has taken decisive action. We intervened to ensure that those private network providers guarantee that their networks are resilient and consistent with the national rules. We intervened because we know that the damage done by outages across Victoria can be devastating.

Unfortunately, those outages that triggered that intervention in 2021 are not isolated events. As I mentioned, climate change here in our state has made these severe weather events that cause outages more common and more dangerous, and we are all living with it. In June and October 2021 Victoria experienced two extreme storms which caused unprecedented damage to the electricity network. In February 2024, two years ago, we saw another extreme weather event in which more than half a million homes in our state lost power. Just a few weeks ago Victoria experienced record temperatures and record electricity demand. Whilst we had more than enough electricity in reserves to meet this demand this coming summer, the combination of bushfires burning out our poles and our wires and other heat-related equipment failures saw 100,000 homes lose power.

This government understands that while we cannot control the extreme weather events, despite wishing that we could, what we can do is hold these private companies accountable and ensure that they follow their resilience plans to give Victorians peace of mind about their transmission. Following the event in June 2021 the government took immediate action. Under the leadership of the Minister for Energy and Resources Lily D’Ambrosio an expert panel was assembled. That led to the electricity distribution network resilience review being launched. The panel visited communities right across the state and heard the experiences of people that had lost power because of that storm. And it was not just those who had lost electricity; in some cases Victorians had lost their homes, and they had lost faith that the network providers had the capacity and the resilience to guarantee energy supply in times when people need it most. It is interesting to go out to regional communities and see how many of them are finding their own workarounds for the resilience failures that they are seeing in the network. It is all too common to see generators out there in our regional communities, as Ms Ermacora will know and tell you.

The electricity distribution network resilience review was split into two distinct phases: the immediate measures that could be put in before the summer of 2021–22 and overall measures to improve the resilience of the network but also respond to these extreme weather events. From that review there were eight core recommendations and 35 subrecommendations, with the government accepting all but two of the subrecommendations. This led to a further investment of $7.5 million in critical backup power systems, critically into solar and battery for community centres in those 24 towns hit by the storm. I have seen some of those in action right across the state. It means that in extreme weather events, when these distribution networks fail, our government will ensure that those affected by power outages will always have somewhere to shower, to eat a hot meal, to charge their phones and have access to information. I have had the good fortune of meeting some of the folks in these centres, and I know just what a difference it means to have that energy resilience right there in our community hubs.

I have got to say, we are always looking for ways to ensure that the increased resilience is felt in our energy system in the wake of extreme weather events. After February 2024 and the pretty rough storm, as I recall, the Minister for Energy and Resources initiated the network outage review, again led by experts. This time there was a stronger focus on the operational response of these distribution providers, particularly in prolonged outages. The panel engaged affected communities, emergency services and social and community organisations, but also the distributors themselves, which I think is important. This time the review made 19 recommendations, all of which were supported in full. One of these recommendations was implementing the use of temporary generators in town centres, which this summer we saw AusNet follow through on, and that provided Corryong township with a temporary generator following the fires that devastated the region and destroyed electricity infrastructure. Whether it is ensuring communities in the long or short term can withstand these unexpected outages or ensuring that providers themselves are looking after their customers during these distressing times, the Allan Labor government has taken action and will continue to do so. I have had the good fortune of meeting with AusNet and seeing firsthand their advanced planning with respect to these generators in the areas that they service across the state, and it is really important work keeping power on in these townships during these devastating weather events. It sometimes means that lives are saved.

This bill builds on components of the critical review to ensure Victorians can rely on their distribution networks to continue supplying electricity to them during extreme weather events, and it will ensure that these distribution businesses must publish these five-year resilience plans, as I mentioned earlier. Energy Safe Victoria will ensure that these plans are being implemented – these are not just for the shelf – forcing these businesses to spend money on upgrades that will reduce outages just like the ones we saw over summer and over the last couple of years. From an on-the-ground perspective, that means more batteries, more microgrids and additional feeder lines paid for by these distribution networks, reducing power outages to communities that are already at the forefront of the climate crisis. You see, it is our government that is taking action. We are not just about words but about substantive differences. Understanding how we can support communities when preparing for power outages and holding distribution businesses accountable, we make sure that both are prepared for outages and that businesses respond to their customers when they inevitably do occur.

Whilst we continue to mitigate the effects of climate change through our world-leading emissions and renewable energy targets, which I have spoken about in this place many times before, there is no way to fully prevent volatile weather events, and ultimately this bill represents the steps we are taking to ensure that our state remains resilient in the face of the climate crisis and that our transmission businesses cannot be all talk and no action when it comes to ensuring reliability. What I can say is one of the keys to energy resilience is batteries, whether they are the ones in community centres where residents can go if they lose power or personal home batteries. They soak up the cheap renewable energy from solar panels during the day and distribute it during the night when it is needed or in some cases when there is a power outage. These technologies are fantastic. They are improving every day. Only today I got a message from a very dear friend of mine letting me know that his battery had been installed in his house in regional Victoria, and he is absolutely delighted about it.

We do not know what the Liberals and Jess Wilson believe when it comes to renewable energy technologies and when it comes to climate change. Frankly, I do not know, and I am waiting to hear. There is one thing in the city, one thing in Kew and another in Korumburra; one thing in Hawthorn and another in Horsham; and one thing in Malvern and another in the Mallee. You see, they have already, unfortunately for so many, bent the knee to One Nation and the conservatives, announcing that they will place restrictions on renewable energy if elected, forcing renewable energy projects to undertake independent agricultural and economic impact assessments, and allow projects to be delayed further through VCAT. This is going to slow the uptake of renewable energy, and it means that these communities will be worse off when it comes to energy resilience.

I can cast my mind back to the last time they were in government, but I have got to tell you I have had conversations with a variety of different stakeholders from our state’s regions over the past few months – and couple of years in fact – and in many of these conversations there were clear anger and disappointment at the leaders in these communities insisting on fanning the flame against renewable energy and the resilience so needed in our communities. The truth is that renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy, it is the most abundant form of energy and it is critical to ensuring energy resilience in regional areas. Both our words and our actions matter, and if you cannot be trusted on climate action, you cannot be trusted on securing network resilience for climate-affected communities.

I would like to close today, understanding I am in my last minute, by looping back to a small but significant component of this bill, which I wish I had more time to talk about in fact, which is the impact of climate change and particularly First Nations Victoria. I am really proud of elements of this bill that will ensure the Self-Determination Fund is a fit-for-purpose vehicle to give funds generated through the Victorian transmission and investment network back to traditional owners and to community. I see that that is in fact very much the feature of the amendments put forward by Mr Davis. I know that it is something that I feel very, very strongly about. This bill is about protecting communities at the forefront of climate change, from our beautiful regional towns to Victoria’s traditional owners. This bill is at the very heart of our energy future, and I commend it to the floor.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (20:16): I am pleased to rise this evening to make a few brief comments on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. Indeed in a cost-of-living crisis, when we have been promised for the last eight years, almost 10 years, by Minister D’Ambrosio that costs will go down, down, down, many agencies, the Essential Services Commission being one of them, have regularly reported that rather than down, down, down we are seeing costs spiralling up, up, up. For government members to stand in the other place and in this place to pontificate about what a fabulous job the government has been doing in terms of the energy mix is rather laughable. It would be laughable if it was not so painful for people, particularly out in the regions and particularly for families, individuals and pensioners doing it tough, with their energy bills rising, rising, rising.

We see that there is a lot of lovely discussion and chest beating by government members in relation to energy, but what many of them fail to understand, fail to acknowledge and fail to care about is the fact that whilst people in the city use electricity it is manufactured and it is made overwhelmingly by industry out in the regions. In my electorate of Eastern Victoria Region – and indeed I have said many a time that my office is in Latrobe Valley – I am very passionate about the people who have for over a century kept the lights on in Victoria through coal-fired power stations. I have also said that my grandfather worked for the SEC as a regional manager, putting on power to new locations right across this state.

What I want to acknowledge, though, with the rollout of renewable energies, is that when you talk about renewable energies the government says, ‘It’s free. We’re just trapping the sunlight. We’re just capturing the wind.’ And that is what renewables do, but from the cradle to the grave they come with an environmental footprint. All of those pieces of equipment, panels, structures and blades are manufactured, requiring electricity and utilisation of resources. They function for the term of their natural life, depending on how long that is, and then they are dismantled and decommissioned, and what happens to them then? I know from previous reports, when I have been on committees, that unfortunately Australia only looks to recycle around 10 per cent. I just want to put that on record. When the government talk about renewables, they should talk and be fair dinkum about the from-cradle-to-grave footprint and CO₂ emissions et cetera, because you need to factor that in in consideration; it is a very important element.

Clearly the Nationals have always said overwhelmingly that we are agnostic about energy production, that we want the best value, the lowest environmental impact and the most reliable, dispatchable energy to be able to provide electricity and gas not only for our homes but also to power industry, our hospitals and our schools, and the list could go on. I will get to the bill shortly. But when we think about some of the history that it has taken to get to this bill, we saw the government produce last year the VicGrid bill – I think it was the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid Stage 2 Reform) Bill 2025 – and we were quite vocal in our opposition to that. The primary reason, I have stated before, is because the communities that are impacted by renewables are regional communities, and this government has consistently gone out of its way to disenfranchise, frustrate, distress and create anxiety in the regions where renewables are going through, without good communication and without respect for industries like agriculture which feed and clothe us in this state and are used to create state revenue through export. This government has consistently turned its back on those regional people. We have seen it in terms of VNI West, where we have got transmission lines scheduled, slated to go through. The government has refused to contemplate an alternate route that academics – not Melina Bath but academics – have made stringent assessment of and said, ‘Why don’t you use a different route, plan B?’ We have had farmers rallying on the steps and in communities and in Ballarat, and we saw the Premier down there the other day with not a very healthy reception about this. Why? Because the government is running roughshod over these communities, and we saw that in the VicGrid bill. We saw that there was a power grab. We saw that the government was seeking to undermine property rights. If you buy your farm and you are looking to produce world-class goods from it, now the government can remove that right of appeal, whether it be for transmission lines or renewable energies. They take away your rights and they call that progress.

We believe – the Nationals and the Liberals believe – that people do have rights and that you should be respected and that due process should occur. But we have seen the government call projects in, and there is another one in my patch in Delburn wind farm. They have called it in, and not only have they called it in, they are now funding it through the shambolic SEC. It did not stack up in terms of renewables through a developer, through commercial means; they walked away from that. It was going to cost around $320 million. It did not stack up. The developer walked away. The government comes in and says, ‘That’s all right; we’ll use taxpayers money, $650 million.’ It will be more than that, probably. But this is the amount of money that the government is prepared to spend, taxpayers money, on industry that does not stack up through commercial viability. I raise this issue because we have also got a petition there by the Strzelecki Community Alliance that is saying ‘Stop this farm’. It is not really a farm, it is a set of 30-something turbines. But the concerns they have are very valid. Delburn was shockingly hit, tragically hit, through the 2009 bushfires. These wind farms are going to be across pine plantation. There has been quite considerable consternation about increased bushfire events and the spreading of bushfire in pine plantations, let alone setbacks, let alone noise and let alone amenity. But this government runs roughshod over landholders.

What we also see in the VicGrid bill that has gone through – the precursor of what we are up to today – the government was able to say, ‘That’s all right. Not only will we cancel your application – you can’t go to VCAT – not only will we disregard you, what we’re going to do is we can get our authorised officers to come in and cut your locks. We’re going to cut your locks if you want to lock your farm to say you don’t want the government officials to come on and assess and look at where transmission lines are going. We’re going to cut your locks, and if you seek to defend your right as a property owner, as a farmer, as a landholder, we’re going to provide $12,000 in fines.’ This is the sort of thing this government does, and it is not fair to people in Korumburra or Delburn. And I am sure the Deputy President here has many areas in her Northern Victoria Region where there is great consternation about solar plants and wind turbines. People feel that they are being steamrolled. This government is not giving fair and due consideration to agriculture, and regional people are certainly paying the price.

If we go to the particulars of the bill – and I know Mr Davis has gone through them in quite a significant manner – firstly, it was interesting that I got a phone call from the Victorian Farmers Federation this afternoon at 3 o’clock saying the government was putting an amendment through. I said to VFF president Brett Hosking, ‘Well, Brett, they are putting a bill through,’ and he said ‘No, but they are putting amendments through.’ The government at a late hour has then decided to amend the bill that we are currently talking about this evening, the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill. It is going to amend its own bill. Okay, that is their right; they are in government. They are going to give the opposition, the crossbenchers and the Liberals and Nationals, a look at what the amendment looks like and a bill briefing the day after we have actually started the debate in the upper house to pass this piece of legislation. This is just so typical of what the government is doing in the regions. It does not know whether it is coming or going.

We have just had a report by the Environment and Planning Committee deposited here today – and I am on that committee. That committee looked into communications and consultation. Well, many times during the course of that committee inquiry we heard that people feel that they are being run over and again that they are being consultold, that they are not being engaged with on a fair and honest level. They are not being told, ‘Look, we are going to tell you this, but you have no oversight and no ability to change this. We’re just telling you that we are doing it, and we’re calling it consultation.’ We have seen that time and again, and that is what this government looks to be doing once more.

This bill changes the Electricity Safety Act 1998. It changes the Electricity Industry Act 2000. It amends the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 and makes quite a raft of amendments. One thing I would like to put on record is that community benefits are really important. I have said that the regions will wear these new renewables, they will wear the transmission lines and they will wear the solar farms or the wind turbines et cetera, and they need to have a community benefit. Part of this bill speaks to that – the Renewable Energy Zones Community Energy Funds. It also looks to the Traditional Owners Fund. What we are saying we would like to see with regard to that is that the community does need to have some kickback, some recognition and some understanding. What that looks like needs to be worked through, whether it is cheaper power bills – and we have heard people in my patch talking about that, that the community can obtain cheaper power bills – or whether that money fund goes into a pooled fund. Certainly it cannot go back to another government department to be distributed; it needs to have community input and community control to a large extent. I also say, in terms of the Traditional Owners Fund, that there needs to be localised benefit and locals need to have a say.

What we want to see – and I know Mr Davis is going to put up amendments to do this – is transparency around that. If you think about this, the government is rolling out these, some with the shambolic SEC, others with property developers and commercial entities. I have said that the Nationals are agnostic about energy and renewable energies. We want the best quality, we want the best benefit and we want reliable dispatchable power, but where there are these footprints, communities should benefit and traditional owners should benefit. But there should be transparency and clarity around that. That is only sensible and it is only reasonable. What we do not want to see is a further eroding of property rights. We want to see more transparency, we want to see a democratic process and we will certainly be wanting to see the amendments that the government is putting through sometime tomorrow.

 Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (20:31): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. It is worth making some remarks on this bill because from the outset it is worthwhile to say that this bill is about building a stronger and more robust resilience into our energy grid. We should all know what the impact is, and in fact many of us in this place do know what the impact can be when the grid fails. Certainly as someone proud to represent the outer urban areas and indeed the outer exurban areas of Melbourne, communities such as mine, including Upper Beaconsfield and similar communities right around this state, are only too familiar with the consequences that can flow when the grid proves to be unreliable. I note that on this bill in the other place the member for Monbulk spoke very passionately about this issue and how it affects her constituents in the Monbulk electorate, with repeated power outages that we have seen through a cycle of storms and indeed a pattern of storms that are only becoming more and more prevalent. It is of course a fact that we are seeing these sorts of so-called one-in-100-years or other types of natural disasters occurring far too frequently. I note that colleagues on the Environment and Planning Committee have undertaken inquiries into how we actually best adapt to the climate resilience that we are facing and the challenges faced by our changing climate and how we can make our systems more resilient. This bill is one small part of effecting that change. Indeed I note that the member for Monbulk and Mr McIntosh from this place have both been very active in their pursuit of reforms through the federal level and through our telecommunications operators to provide that resilience, because when those mobile phone networks go down in such an event it can become particularly threatening, particularly dangerous and particularly unnerving for communities who are faced with the challenges of not only not having their power but also no way of connecting. It can be a terrifying ordeal. It is not just something as frivolous as the cost of your fridge being out for a couple of hours; it is much, much more significant than that.

Whilst many parts of metro Melbourne are able to have their power restored relatively quickly, for some communities in those outer urban or further exurban or rural areas it can be a matter of days or, in some extreme cases, weeks. That is why this bill strengthens the Electricity Safety Act 1998 by requiring every Victorian electricity distribution business to develop a detailed network resilience plan every five years, improving that requirement from the single one-off that is required under the current legislation and making that every five years, requiring that constant process of evolution and adaptation to our changing climate and the risks that it presents our state.

Indeed we know of many storms and other events, whether they have been minor outages and upsets or very significant ones, including the storms of June and October 2021 or those storms of February 2024, which wreaked enormous havoc in my electorate of the South-East Metropolitan Region, so much havoc that the roof of our electorate office caved in and the office flooded. That storm is the reason why we are still out of a permanent office two years later. My example is one that we have been able to certainly work around and adapt to, but for many communities, these storms are becoming more and more of a threat as they become more frequent and also more severe. In those particular storms we saw 12,000 kilometres of powerlines and poles from across the state’s electricity distribution network and transmission network fail, causing power outages that impacted well over 500,000 homes and businesses at their peak, including some communities of mine across the south-east, in parts of Knox, in Upper Beaconsfield and in surrounding areas in particular. Talking to the residents in those areas and talking to the small business owners about not only the impacts of the unplanned disruption but the uncertainty it brought them was very profound indeed. It underscores the efforts and the reasons why we are going through legislation such as this today.

It is absolutely incumbent on all energy distributors to do their best not only to make their networks resilient but also to provide that information in a timely manner to their customers. I do acknowledge again the extensive and incredible work of the lineys, who have gone out and continue to go out whenever there are storms and whenever there are disruptions to reconnect people as fast as they can. There were certainly many issues and grievances aired with AusNet, the distributor, at the time in relation to the complete breakdown and failure of its communication systems and its websites directing people to vague and opaque spreadsheets to get some sort of sense of when their power might come on. But I do acknowledge the work that has been done in the aftermath, certainly by AusNet, with significant pressure applied by Minister D’Ambrosio to Victoria’s energy distributors to make sure that their backup systems and their outage trackers are as resilient as can be, because when people do need that information, they critically need it and need it to be as accurate as possible. I do acknowledge the work that has gone on, both from government and from the distributors, to rectify those issues. But it also goes to the point of underscoring why this legislation is so important – because having that continual review, the review at least every five years, of those plans means that Victorians can have more confidence in our energy distribution networks to meet their needs.

It also will create, in the process, a clear and legally enforceable obligation for these businesses to prepare these plans. They will need to be approved by Energy Safe Victoria. They will need to outline the measures businesses will take to prepare for and respond to severe weather events. Indeed the enforceability of these provisions is a very important part of the bill as well. Not only through the implementation of these reforms but through the accountability and enforcement mechanisms with stronger oversight, we will improve the accountability and provide the Victorian community with the confidence that resilience investments are being made and genuinely implemented effectively. Again, that will be particularly profound for the community such as that in the AusNet region, which largely as a consequence of geography – forests, trees and mountains – is uniquely susceptible to these types of outages. It will, I trust, provide those energy customers with a bit more certainty and surety that they certainly deserve.

Civil penalties will apply where a business fails to comply with its obligations, and distribution businesses will be required to take all reasonable steps to implement the projects outlined in their plans. This will ensure that resilience measures are not only planned but also delivered. For households, businesses and emergency services this will mean a more reliable source of electricity, and it will also mean that they are better equipped to withstand the pressures of these more frequent and extreme weather events.

The bill will modernise the life support provisions in the Electricity Industry Act 2000 and the Gas Industry Act 2001. This also enacts another recommendation from the Electricity Distribution Network Resilience Review, supporting priority restoration of power following prolonged power outages.

There are many other provisions in this bill, but I do want to focus on the core element of it tonight, which is the resilience piece. Communities on the periphery, such as those I represent and indeed I know that many regional MPs represent to a far greater degree, do rely on that power being there, and these sorts of storms can cause all sorts of havoc and unplanned disruptions. It is not, of course, just storms. It is also bushfires. It is also flood events. It is also any sort of natural disaster that can befall this great land of ours. It is not reasonable, perhaps, to expect that we can guarantee power to every single household and premises at every single time. But what is reasonable and achievable is to put all the mechanisms in place so that our privatised electricity distributors can provide power so that our phones can be charged and we can play videos at all sorts of different times, whether that may be in the home or in the chamber or wherever else we may find ourselves. Having that power is something that is not just nice to have, it is essential for communities and the peace of mind and the certainty that comes with it. It is of course one piece of the puzzle.

As I said earlier in my remarks, the telecommunications piece, though a federal responsibility, is something that is particularly critical. The state has in other areas invested and jumped again into the federal space due to a lack of action historically and invested in, for example, mobile phone towers in growth areas such as in my electorate in Clyde North and indeed right across the state. I know they are in Ballarat and in other regional cities as well. The state has always been prepared to jump in and make those investments, because we are not prepared to see Victorians suffer as a result of, as in that case, a federal Liberal government that is not doing anything. But when it comes to telecommunications, there is certainly still some work to be done in that resilience piece and ensuring that these mobile phone towers are resilient and in the face of storms they are not losing their generator power within a couple of hours – that they are able to sustain for days at a time to ensure that communities have those vital means of communication at the times when that communication is really critical and paramount.

The other part is the energy resilience piece. These reforms will go a great way towards giving Victorians that certainty that they deserve that we are ensuring that the operators of our privatised distribution network are enacting their responsibilities. We are tightening those responsibilities in reaction to the changing climate and the changing weather that we have, and as we are doing so we are putting those accountability mechanisms and those enforcement mechanisms into place as well so Victorians can expect that their electricity distributors are appropriately and in a timely fashion responding to the changing climate and the risks it poses to our electricity distribution network. With that, I will conclude my remarks, and I commend this bill to the house.

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (20:43): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026 today. We are living in a time of climate change. That is what the science tells us. That is what the extreme weather we have had over recent years tells us, and it is what January just past told us. Our climate is changing. And as chair of the Legislative Council’s Environment and Planning Committee, the evidence that our committees received during recent inquiries – including the inquiry into the 2022 floods, the inquiry we have completed recently into climate resilience and certainly the some of the submissions that have started coming in for our inquiry into the 2026 summer fires – is showing that we are experiencing increasing levels of climate change. Bushfires, storms, coastal erosion, heatwaves, droughts and floods are becoming more common. Average temperatures are rising. There are more days above 35 degrees than ever before.

One of the starker pieces of evidence we received during the climate resilience inquiry was a witness in Mount Macedon who said they were responding to bushfires and floods on the same day. Earlier this year we saw in the Otways that whilst a bushfire was burning one day there was flash flooding the next, and those stark images of cars being carried out to sea I think will live with many Victorians for a long time. These extreme weather events are resulting often in power outages, and these power outages affect a wide number of people and households right across Victoria. They are becoming more common and more prolonged as extreme weather becomes more common. There are nearly 150,000 kilometres of distribution lines in Victoria and more than 1.3 million power poles, all of which are owned and managed by a few private companies. As extreme weather leaves them susceptible to damage – whether that is fire, wind or lightning – they are vulnerable. Following the storms of 2021 nearly 250,000 households and businesses were left without power in June, and in October it was more than 520,000 – nearly a quarter of all Victorian homes. Prolonged outages were experienced in significant parts of Victoria. Obviously this is a time when we are experiencing record demand for electricity in and around our everyday lives, and many of these factors are why upgrading our network and improving the resilience of our network is even more critical.

We were out in Emerald as part of the climate resilience inquiry, and the captain of the local fire brigade gave evidence to the committee that:

… in the aftermath of the storms where houses had no power they hook up the generators and some have candles for light and heat and things like that. One of those was a cause of a house fire. If that was not there, there would very likely have been no house fire.

So we can see the knock-on consequences that people face when they do not have power. Much of the evidence provided to that committee was also about the adverse effects of telecommunications infrastructure being knocked out, and as Mr Galea said, whilst telecommunications infrastructure is obviously the purview of the Commonwealth, resilient telecommunications infrastructure is essential for emergency management and disaster response and for community resilience and rebuilding. But vulnerability was exposed in the evidence our committee received. There is quite a clear need, the climate resilience inquiry found, to address the needs of electricity network outages when extreme weather hits.

Whilst the government, since some sell-offs in the 1990s, may not own the electricity distribution network, we do set the regulatory framework and we can legislate, so this is an important part of this legislation. The bill obligates electricity distribution networks and companies to create and publish network resilience plans and invest in them to ensure the network is resilient to erratic weather and potential power outages. It will do this by amending the Electricity Safety Act 1998 to provide for new obligations for Victorian electricity distribution businesses to prepare resilience plans every five years and submit those resilience plans to the independent safety regulator, Energy Safe Victoria, to monitor and ensure compliance. This will increase Victorian electricity distribution businesses’ accountability by ensuring resilience initiatives are visible and encourage distribution businesses to adopt a proactive network and community resilience strategy.

One of the witnesses to the climate resilience inquiry held by the Environment and Planning Committee, Michael Nolan from Aurecon, said that:

Dealing with the existing assets is probably the biggest issue because the majority of those assets already exist and were designed for past climate, and the effort to maintain these assets under more extreme, regular events – variability degrades the asset, and the maintenance to prop them up may not be as effective or may require more funding in order to do so.

I think that is a nice summation of the contemporary challenges associated with existing infrastructure and the impact of a changing climate.

The bill will enforce private businesses that operate and maintain the network infrastructure to demonstrate they are investing adequately to protect distribution lines and poles from the impact of climate change. Currently, every five years companies submit network expenditure plans to the independent regulator for assessment and approval, which means that the approach to resilience is in many cases backward-looking, with no assessment of the increased effects of climate change. The bill will make amendments to the definitions provided in the framework in the Electricity Industry Act 2000 and in the Gas Industry Act 2001 and make minor amendments to the National Electricity (Victoria) Act 2005 to clarify language in previous bills.

The bill before us today acquits key recommendations of prior reviews that have occurred of outages and responses, and other measures also illustrate the importance of an energy policy which accelerates the transition to renewable energy, which is a fundamental part of ensuring that the effects of climate change are mitigated into the future. Storms, fires and other extreme weather events are continuing to happen with increased ferocity. The costs of outages are severe for households. We need to take a proactive approach to ensuring that our energy infrastructure is resilient to the significant and ongoing effects of climate change, and this legislation does that absolutely.

 Gaelle BROAD (Northern Victoria) (20:50): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.