Wednesday, 23 September 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:31): I move:

That the petition be taken into consideration.

I rise this evening to speak on a petition signed by 3694 people on behalf of the Strzelecki Community Alliance and residents of the Strzelecki district regarding the Delburn wind farm. They call for it to be cancelled. I want to thank Gabrielle, Sindy, Daryl and many others for their persistence, for their dedication and for their respect. Over many years they have become experts in planning processes, environmental assessments and community advocacy – subjects they never imagined that they would have to master – and I am pleased to be their representative, voicing their concerns. They deserve to be heard. As I have said on many occasions in terms of our petitions, petitioners do that work and their voices deserve to be heard in Parliament.

What this is not a debate about is our energy mix or our energy system. It is about fairness and respect. It is about the failure of the Labor government to genuinely listen to communities that raise legitimate concerns about developments that will fundamentally affect their lives, their families and their future. For years these residents have pursued every available avenue for them. They have lodged submissions, they have attended hearings and they have engaged independent experts. They even took their concerns to the Supreme Court. These are ordinary people but beautiful people – when I say ordinary, I mean country people – and they are stars. They are families, farmers, business owners and long-term residents who deeply care about the future of this district.

Their concerns have been consistent from the beginning. They have questioned whether turbines located just 1 kilometre from homes are appropriate – 200-metre-high turbines. They have raised concerns about the noise impacts, the effect on health and wellbeing and the amenity. They have raised concerns about bushfire risk in this plantation landscape within this region, which has experienced devastating bushfires, particularly in 2009. They know well what bushfires are about. Indeed in some of their documents, of which they have multiple, they raise the issue that bushfire expert David Packham OAM raised that a bushfire disaster in extreme weather conditions can create havoc almost, with lives lost and millions of dollars of damage. The planning process acknowledged the potential for major bushfires to affect this project, and indeed back in 2022 in a parliamentary inquiry into renewable energy the Liberals and Nationals minority report specifically outlined their concerns, even back then, and recommended that community concerns should be properly addressed before new land-based wind farm developments are approved.

Even today – let me give you this context – somebody came into my office, a resident of that area. There has been new construction. It is starting out there on the Strzelecki Highway. One resident came in and said they repeatedly raised concerns about noise impacts on their family during the construction phase, through the day and through the night. After repeated contact seeking assistance from the SEC, the family was reportedly offered a single pair of noise-cancelling headphones, for a family of four. That response helps to explain why so many residents are feeling frustrated and unheard by this Carroll government, soon to be Wilson and O’Brien. Residents also want confidence that complaints regarding noise, permit compliance and community impacts will be investigated independently and transparently. What has changed since the project was first approved that the SEC, and therefore the Victorian government, now has direct interest in the project? That makes transparency, accountability and community confidence more important than ever. For years residents have been saying the same thing: ‘Listen to us.’ This should not be a box-ticking exercise. Communities should not have to spend years fighting and going to the Supreme Court.

Regardless of where people stand on this project, I believe we should all agree on one principle: local residents deserve respect. They deserve genuine consultation. They deserve transparent decision-making, and the issue is they need to be listened to. I thank Strzelecki Community Alliance and the almost 4000 people who signed the petition. Their persistence, commitment and advocacy on behalf of their community deserve due recognition. I am pleased to put their concerns on record. Indeed, in terms of this government, so often we have heard over my time in this place that people feel overwhelmingly consultold, not engaged with in a respectful manner. This petition just amplifies what many others across different projects have felt. As I say, this is not about an energy debate; this is about community respect. I am pleased to put their views and issues, in my short time, on the public record.

 Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (17:36): I rise to speak on this petition regarding the SEC Delburn wind farm. Our Labor government made a fundamental promise to Victorians that we would back the SEC to deliver renewable, affordable and reliable energy, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are building the critical infrastructure required to ensure our state hits its targets of 95 per cent renewable electricity by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2045. As a direct result of our investment decisions, the Delburn wind farm will be Victoria’s first publicly owned utility-scale wind generation project. The scale and benefits of this project are significant. Once operational this 33-turbine wind farm will generate up to 205 megawatts of renewable energy, enough to power more than 130,000 Victorian homes. It will create more than 300 local jobs and inject more than $22 million into neighbour and community benefit sharing programs over its 35-year operational life span.

The SEC began carefully assessing this project as an investment opportunity in mid-2024. The Delburn site is an exceptionally strategic location. It sits in close proximity to the current and former Latrobe Valley power stations, meaning the necessary high-voltage transmission lines are already located in the area. The region possesses a wind resource profile that complements other Victorian sites, allowing these turbines to generate electricity at different times throughout the day. Importantly, it capitalises on the established highly skilled workforce in Gippsland and the Latrobe Valley, who already possess deep expertise with utility-scale power facilities.

I know that bushfire safety is a deeply held concern for regional communities, and the petitioners have specifically raised it here. I want to provide some absolute assurance that fire risk is treated seriously. Construction is proceeding under a comprehensive bushfire mitigation and management plan that had to be signed off by the Country Fire Authority before works even commenced. The practical safety measures are extensive; in February 2026 the installation of five 130-litre firefighting water tanks began onsite. Every single one of the 33 turbines features a lightning protection system as well as built-in fire detection and suppression systems. There is fire camera monitoring for rapid location detection and a mandated minimum 50-metre vegetation-free area around the base of every single turbine. All staff permanently based at the wind farm will be fully trained CFA firefighters. To address a specific concern regarding aerial firefighting, the turbines are spaced a minimum of 640 metres apart, which is more than double the CFA recommended spacing, to allow for the safe passage of aircraft.

The petition also raises concerns regarding financial risks and conflicts of interest. To that end, can I say that the SEC operates under a highly commercial governance structure governed by the State Owned Enterprises Act 1992 and the federal Corporations Act 2001. It is led by an executive team and an independent board of directors, and it strictly complies with the Victorian government’s competitive neutrality policy to ensure fair market competition. The investment was assessed against strict criteria, including public purpose, market enablement and sustainable risk-adjusted returns. Those returns will be reinvested directly into more projects to power our schools, hospitals and essential services. It is important to note that so many of our schools will now be powered by the SEC, and so a project like that is just so important to power public entities in our state in future. The SEC will continue to engage openly with the local community, just as they did back in March 2026 when they spoke with more than 200 locals across multiple engagement sessions. Our Labor government absolutely respects the community’s voice, and we absolutely are focused on delivering the jobs, investments and publicly owned energy future that Victoria needs.

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (17:41): I rise to speak on this petition, and I will state at the outset that the Greens will be supporting the noting of the petition by the chamber, as is our usual position. We thank people who bring issues to the chamber for the attention of the Parliament.

I want to put some of the matters raised by this petition into context, and the plainest context here is that we know those opposite, the Liberals and the Nationals, in potential coalition with One Nation, are intent on blocking investment in cheap, clean renewables and will force our state to continue to rely on expensive and polluting gas well into the future. What that will practically mean for communities right across the state is higher energy bills as well as more emissions, and we know that regional communities are on the front line of increased impacts from climate change. I noted in another petition debate recently that the coalition have already told us that they want to cancel VNI West and open up more exploration for gas, despite experts telling us that Victoria’s viable gas is almost already gone. They have a long track record in fact of blocking and trying to rip up clean energy infrastructure. And lest I be too generous with my criticism, we also know that Labor on this side have a long track record of continuing to approve new fossil fuel projects as well, though we are already experiencing climate shocks and worsening natural disasters due to the climate impacts that we are facing from the burning of fossil fuels.

Renewables, meanwhile, are the cheapest form of new energy generation, while fossil fuel prices continue to be volatile and vulnerable to price shocks around the world. In this context, deliberately slowing the shift to renewable energy and keeping us reliant on coal and gas is just completely irresponsible. It will not just cook the planet we all live on but also have the effect of driving up energy prices for every Victorian and increasing fire risk, flood risk and further climate change driven disaster risk. We all know in this place that One Nation are big Trump fans, but it seems that the coalition have also looked at the way Trump’s anti-renewable ‘Drill, baby, drill’ policies have damaged the American economy and said, ‘That’s what we need more of here in Victoria.’

Renewables and transmission projects are not always perfectly done. They have not always gone about the right things in the right way – particularly, private corporations have often failed to deal adequately with some community objections. That is always a place where we need to get better in this state. When that happens, it is unfortunate because it damages the social licence of all those renewable projects that we do need to advance in order to tackle our state’s energy challenge and climate risk. We need to listen to regional voices, we need to take these concerns seriously and we need to provide clear information about the impacts of projects and mitigate the problems when they arise. Most Gippslanders do support this kind of renewable investment. During consultation on the Southern Gippsland renewable energy road map 80 per cent of survey respondents said that it was extremely important to build and utilise the renewable energy assets available locally. The shift to renewables is an opportunity not only to reduce our emissions but to shift away from the extractivist model of an economy based on fossil fuels. Renewable energy projects should deliver at the same time real benefits to the communities that host them not just to investors a million miles away. The Delburn project is great on that front because, as it is owned by the publicly owned SEC, it is owned by the people of Victoria. On top of that, it is going to provide $22 million in benefits to the local community throughout the life of the project, and that is without even considering the jobs it will create.

As it was raised by this petition, let us talk about bushfire risk, which is something that is very important to reassure communities about. Starting at a systemic level again, the more carbon we emit – a message to those guys over there – the more bushfire risk is created. The more our planet warms, the more we will suffer from droughts and bushfires, and again regional communities are on the front lines of those climate disasters. Projects like this, which will reduce our emissions, are crucial for protecting us from extreme bushfires. On the risk of wind farms directly causing fires, it is really important to reassure those who have signed this petition that turbine fires are rare, and even so, these turbines will be equipped with their own internal fire suppression systems as a precautionary measure; they have systems which automatically put out fires within the cells where these occur and prevent fires from spreading to the surrounding countryside. As Ms Watt mentioned, this project has placed large reserves of firefighting water at strategic locations throughout the project site. This is going to be a great project. Thank you to the petitioners, and I hope we have addressed some of the concerns.

 Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (17:46): I want to start by acknowledging everyone that signed the petition that has been lodged here in Parliament. Change in any community is not without complication and it is not without difficulty, and we understand that when that occurs, particularly near where people live, it is complicated and raises emotions. With that being said, when we look at what is going on around the world at the moment, nations are becoming more insular, globalisation is going backwards and economies are competing, and the key thing economies are competing around the world for is energy. Energy is what drives economies. It has with our automotive industry and with various manufacturing industries. It has driven what has given us our competitive advantage, our competitive edge. We know that the industries of this century are more and more hungry for electricity, so we simply have to build energy generation, energy storage and energy transmission, because we cannot be economically competitive if we do not have energy. If we are not economically competitive, then we do not have a hope in hell when talking about things like defence, our place in our region and our place in the world.

We know we need electricity. We need to build. If we look at last century, difficult decisions were made. At Yallourn 5000 people were moved to make way for the generation station, for the pits. For Loy Yang A 15,000 acres were cleared. These were difficult decisions at the time. Under Bolte the Liberals used to make difficult decisions. They built highways, they built transmission lines, they built dams. It was nation-building stuff. I will add that they took on state debt to do it, because these are things that we need to succeed and to thrive as a people. This project is line of sight to the coal pits, to the transmission lines and to the substations. I have been out onsite. I have met with locals from the valley, from Mirboo North, that are doing their traineeships, that are doing their apprenticeships, and we are investing in giving young people skills through TAFE and those that are going through uni to do other degrees, because we need people in the energy sector trained up. We need them to do this work to power our state.

The location is in plantation, and as I said before, I acknowledge those that live nearby. It is a change that is occurring. But this provides, as my colleagues said before, 300 jobs in construction – ongoing work. We are not going to see mass employment on a single site, most likely, like we have seen in power generation previously, but with offshore wind, with various solar, with various wind, with various batteries and as these projects start and are refurbed and whatnot, we have got a continual cycle of work and we have got to be committed to that. Labor is committed to that, and I am proud we have committed to investment certainty for industry, that we have had policies that create investment. My criticism? Ms Bath talked about being consultold. When Peter Dutton announced that nuclear power was the solution, at the last federal election, and the Liberals and the Nationals sat there, had they consulted their communities about nuclear reactors? No, they had not. There have been long pathways of consultation on renewables right around Victoria and indeed around Australia to meet the targets that Labor governments have set.

Let us be really honest about what we are going to do, because we have got an election coming up. We are going to find ourselves in a whole world of pain if in a few years time we have got Yallourn – Energy Australia have said they have taken away the gear that will dig the coal out of those pits; it is already gone, and they have got a limited amount of coal left to go – and Loy Yang A, which AGL have said has a limited life span until 2035. They are not looking to go and bust that. Tell Victorians how you are going to power our state. What are you going to build? What are you going to do? Because you can either talk about nuclear fantasies or you can come and stump up to the Victorian people and tell them how you are going to power our state.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (17:51): I am sure the good people in and around the proposed Delburn wind farm turbines have found this very illuminating. First of all, the debaters. We had Ms Watt. I recognise Ms Watt’s sincerity in life, but clearly she read from the Labor Party playbook. So be it. I then listened to the Greens, who on some levels can be so invested in what community feels and thinks and understands and can represent community, and we have seen it on many other occasions. The Greens then decided to go down into a layer and discuss a president from another country, on a matter in relation to which people who signed this petition and raised their concerns fairly. They have told me that there are around 140 houses where people live between 1 and 2 kilometres from those turbines. The Liberals and Nationals have a policy that, should we get in, we will commit to a 2-kilometre buffer from dwellings, from homes; this, up and running, is a 1-kilometre buffer. We heard that things could be done better by the Greens and there is damage to social licence. Well, social licence matters as long as it fits your agenda. I am here raising the valid issues of those good people in Strzelecki. Then we had Mr McIntosh, who went off on his regular rant, his regular foray into spooky space from over here. Let me tell you those people deserve to be heard. They deserve respect. I commend this petition and the petitioners to the house.

Motion agreed to.

Sitting suspended 5:54 pm until 6:17 pm.