Thursday, 5 March 2026

 Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:27): (2399) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Energy and Resources and concerns the government’s late amendments this week to the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026, which allow compulsory acquisition of transmission easements to proceed before the environment effects statement process has been completed. These amendments were introduced at the eleventh hour. Members of this house were given minimal notice and limited opportunity to scrutinise what are very significant changes to Victoria’s compulsory acquisition and environmental approval framework. The process alone should concern every member of this Parliament. A briefing that had previously been scheduled was cancelled. Nothing was provided during the non-sitting week. Then suddenly the government produced amendments of a deeply consequential nature with barely any time for proper examination. That is not how serious legislation should be handled.

But the substance of the amendments is even more troubling. The change broadens the power to compulsorily acquire easements so that land may be taken where it may be required, not where it is demonstrably required. More significantly, it allows compulsory acquisition to proceed while the environment effects statement process is still underway. In effect, landowners may now face compulsory acquisition over their property before the environmental assessment has determined whether the project should even proceed or whether the alignment itself is appropriate. That reverses the logic of the environmental safeguards that Parliament put in place. This is not a technical change, it is a massive weakening of the existing regulations. Compulsory acquisition is one of the most coercive powers any government holds. It must be exercised cautiously and transparently. Instead this government has chosen to expand that power while bypassing the very process designed to test whether the infrastructure should go ahead in the first place.

Regional communities were already deeply concerned about the way transmission projects have been rolled out across western Victoria. They feel decisions are being made centrally and imposed on them afterwards. Amendments like this only reinforce that perception. Even for a fair-minded observer, it would now be pretty hard to deny that the government has got it in for regional communities. My request to the minister is simple: I ask that the minister come with me to visit western Victoria areas affected by these transmission corridors and explain directly to farmers, landholders and residents why this change was necessary and why it was introduced in the dishonest way it was. These communities deserve answers.