Wednesday, 26 August 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (09:56): The Liberal–National–One Nation plan to cut transmission and pray for new gas will cost Victorians and cause more climate-killing emissions. Cancelling the VNI West transmission project, as the Liberal Party has pledged to do while chasing One Nation announcements, would kill jobs and investment in cheap renewables and drive up power bills for Victorians. It will not magically stop the busted old Yallourn power station from closing in 2028, but it will stop us building the renewables that we need to replace it. Even delaying VNI West for the four-year term of the next Parliament would cost Victorians $4816 per household in the long term. The Liberals say that instead of building the necessary infrastructure we need for cheaper renewables they will just burn more gas. But there is a problem with that, and not just with the carbon emissions it would cause – the Liberals cannot say where that gas would come from. Victoria has already used up 90 per cent of commercially viable gas reserves. To quote Joy Toose from Environment Victoria:

There’s no such thing as cheap new gas anymore. But what we do have are endless reserves of solar and wind.

The Liberal Party’s anti-renewables ideology will mean more expensive, less reliable electricity for Victorians and more carbon emissions cooking our planet. Labor also continues to approve new polluting fossil fuel projects. Only the Greens stand for a fossil fuel free future powered by cheap and abundant renewable energy.