Bill - Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023

BILL

‘BUILDING LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (DOMESTIC BUILDING INSURANCE NEW OFFENCES) BILL 2023’.

Tuesday, 20 February 2024.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (13:55):

I rise to speak on the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023.

I start by saying that the Coalition will not be opposing this Bill that we are considering today. What we have seen over the last week is something I know every Member of this place is concerned about. We saw last week 530,000 people go without power. Today, right now, 3170 still do not have power connections, and 2620 homes remain unconnected.

We must have energy that is reliable, affordable and clean, and what we saw last week was the biggest blackout in our state’s history.

When you listen to the Government, the first thing they will say is, ‘It is not our fault. A weather event was unforeseen, and we could not have done anything about it.’ We know that is not true.

So, when we consider this Bill today, although the Coalition will not be opposing it, we have serious concerns, because we know that the Government is not providing secure and reliable energy for Victorians.

Over recent days we have heard of multiple examples where the Government was warned about the issues that we have in our grid. It was warned by very informed peak bodies of concerns about the grid, the infrastructure and the potential impact of significant events. I refer to just one example, the energy market operator warning last year that:

The story for Australia is becoming more and more clear, but also more and more urgent …

Quite simply, Australia’s energy transition is happening at pace. Our coal fired power stations are closing down at the same time as demand for electricity is increasing and without urgent and ongoing investment in new sources of electricity, and the transmission that we need to connect it to consumers – there are significant risks to reliability.

That is what played out only a week ago with 530,000 people left without power and thousands still without.

We know from media reports that one in seven of the 13,000 electricity transmission towers is damaged by patchy or extensive rust. The system needs investment, and the system needs upgrading, because if we want to ensure that the community is provided with reliable, affordable and clean energy, we must make sure that the system works, and it is not working. And the human costs of the last week was, frankly, catastrophic – the worst blackout in our state’s history.

So, when we consider this Bill, we are not just considering targets. What we are also considering is how we ensure the plan for our energy transition works to guarantee that we have reliable, affordable and clean energy into the future, and each of those aspects I will be speaking to later today. But we know that there are no guarantees when it comes to reliability. We absolutely know that the cost of energy has increased 25 per cent over the last year, so the issues around affordability –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for question time.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (14:52):

Just to reiterate, the Coalition will not be opposing this Bill. What this Bill does at its core is set climate targets and put those in legislation. On principle at the last election the Coalition put a policy forward to legislate targets, because if you are doing 30 years of transformational change in your economy, it is only right that you understand what you are doing, that you track what you are doing and that you also transparently make it clear to the community what you are doing. So at the last election the Coalition put forward a commitment to legislate targets.

I recall in this very place having an argument across the Chamber in question time with the Premier, who said something like it will be a cold day in hell before he listens to the advice of legislating targets. We stand here today with the Government committing to legislating targets, and I note their acceptance of that policy position that the Coalition took to the last election.

We will not be opposing the Bill, but I will be moving a reasoned amendment. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this House refuses to read this Bill a second time until the Government:

1) guarantees secure and reliable energy for every Victorian, noting the recent system collapse which led to 530,000 people without power;

2) commits to energy being affordable, noting the 25 per cent price increase over the last year;

3) details how Victoria will have adequate baseload power, noting the state government’s ban on gas;

4) sets out a plan to upgrade 57-year-old transmission infrastructure, noting that almost one in seven of Victoria’s 13,000 electricity transmission towers is damaged and experts warned the government in 2020 of the risks in extreme weather events;

5) reveals to Victorians exactly how the new planning powers, and ministerial directions, will operate, and why the government is stripping communities from planning decisions;

6) explains what the impact will be on agricultural land, when analysis from the government’s offshore wind policy directions paper of March 2020 shows that to meet net zero targets up to 70 per cent of Victoria’s land will need to host wind and solar farms;

7) provides an update on how Victoria will reach the 2032 wind target, noting the collapse of the flagship project in Hastings; and

8) provides public transparency on climate measures through a website with live measures covering emissions, renewable energy, battery storage, and wind energy.’

The Coalition will not be opposing the Bill, but there are serious concerns around the capacity of this Government to deliver reliable, affordable, clean energy.

We know that because of what we saw last week, and I touched on those tragic events earlier – 530,000 people without power, the worst power outage event in the State’s history. But we also saw frankly one of the most embarrassing State displays at the start of this year with the Federal Government’s knockback of the Hastings project, which is referred to in the Amendment. It was so tragic to see a policy space where a Premier would stand up in front of the nation’s media – because it did become a national issue – and not understand what her own Government was doing.

We must ensure that energy is provided in a reliable way, and part of what this Bill does is legislate targets on wind energy. To deliver wind energy you will have to have projects that are in place, where the turbines are turning, by 2032. There are serious commitments at law for energy to be provided by 2032. Sadly, what we know is that there is currently no plan for wind energy. There is no plan to ensure that we have any projects committed to. The Premier, when she spoke to the media and referred to the Hastings project and spoke to the work that she was doing in lobbying the Federal Government to change their position and approve a project on a Ramsar site, which will never happen, did not understand that her own Minister had referred the matter off for further investigation. The Premier stated at that press conference that her own Government had approved the project, which clearly it had not.

When it comes to how we ensure there is a transition of energy, we need to make sure that there are plans in place to do it. Obviously, part of that work does involve
setting targets and monitoring those targets – it absolutely needs to ensure that there is a transparent overarching plan to do that – but what it means is that all the pieces underneath need to be in place, and they are clearly not in place. We know because we have heard the warnings repeatedly. I referred to some at the start of my earlier contribution, but if I can go back to the energy operator’s warnings of late last year:

To ensure Australian customers continue to have access to reliable electricity, it’s critical that planned investments in transmission, generation and storage projects are urgently delivered.

Further:

The projected electrification of traditional gas loads, particularly heating loads in Victoria, increases forecast consumption and maximum demands in winter. For Victoria in particular, winter peak demands may exceed summer peak demands by the end of the …Electricity Statement of Opportunities horizon.

What the operator has said and warned repeatedly is that we have an imminent and urgent problem in ensuring that we have the electricity that we need, that we have a system that provides reliable and affordable energy, and that is what this reasoned Amendment speaks to.

I spoke at first about the need for secure and reliable energy given recent events but also a commitment to affordable energy. In the last year we have seen a 25 per cent increase in cost. The Government will ignore that fact, but no matter who you talk to in the community, the cost of energy is almost always their first costof-living concern. The cost is crippling people. It is absolutely crippling people, and a 25 per cent increase in cost is not something that any Government should sit idly by and allow.

If we want to see a transition in terms of our economy, we have to ensure that we take people with us, and one of the ways that people are taken with us is for things like affordability to be a priority for the Government, not a point to be ignored by the Government. As the transition is occurring, we are seeing a cost impact that is absolutely devastating people. The Government needs to provide a commitment, and the Coalition is calling for that commitment.

Further, we absolutely need detail from the Government on how Victoria will be provided with adequate baseload power. The ideological obsession of the
Government’s gas ban is frankly dangerous. I think the community are finally understanding both that the Government is intent on this ideological gas ban and the impact that it is having. You only need to look at the impact last week to see what an ideological gas ban will do to communities when they need baseload power. They need to ensure that power is available, and this ideological obsession is frankly dangerous, so the Government needs to be called to account over that gas ban.

I referred earlier to the 57-year-old transmission infrastructure and reports that have appeared in the media around that. If I can refer to a recent media report, one in seven of Victoria’s 13,000 electricity transmission towers is damaged. About 8000, or more than half, are now about a decade or less from the end of their service life. If I can quote the Australian energy regulator:

All failed structures were built to historical design standards with inadequate strength to withstand convective downdraft winds occurring during extreme storm events.

What that was is another warning that we are not adequately prepared for reliable energy. The core of providing reliable energy is an adequate system and an adequate grid to deliver it to people’s homes. I mean, nothing could be more obvious. To know that the infrastructure has not received the maintenance required should concern every Victorian. I know last week, when the weather event hit and pictures of the damage to the towers were circulated, that shock went through the community, to see what was happening across those lines. We need to be prepared. We need to ensure that our infrastructure is ready for the future and, sadly, it is not.

We call on the Government to set out a plan – a plan I do note that at the last election formed part of the Coalition’s policy push. Sadly, since then we have not seen the Government take any serious action in that regard. The Coalition did put at the very centre of their policy platform the two items that I have just mentioned.

We talked about the need for gas as a transition fuel and the importance thereof. We also talked about the need for our grid infrastructure to be adequate and up to date, and part of that policy included working closely with industry to see that happen. You can only look at the last week to see how adversarial the relationship between Government and industry is in these issues. When it comes to upgrading infrastructure, we need to, as Government, partner with industry to ensure that we have a reliable system for the future, so we call strongly on the Government to set out a plan to ensure that our infrastructure is set for the future.

In terms of the planning powers contained in the Bill, there are very wide ranging planning powers which effectively allow the Minister to set out a determination in relation to a Planning Scheme Amendment and take into account climate events in making that determination.

In the Government briefing, which they did kindly provide, they did make it clear that quite a lot of the detailed work around the operation of that Direction is still underway. So, though the power is being provided in a Bill, the work to see what it will do in an operational sense has not been fully done. The Government confirmed that work had not been completed, was still underway, and you are talking about a sweeping planning power which will have significant impacts across the community. I mean, the Bill effectively gives unfettered power to the Minister to make a direction in these matters. That Direction must be considered, and I think that it would be fair to say in practice municipalities will often – even though it is not a requirement – heed to the Direction. To not understand and not know the full details of what that power may entail is concerning, and the community has a right to know what that power will entail.

Unfortunately, as the Bill currently stands the community does not know and the Government was not able to provide that information around how that power will operate, so the Coalition is calling for the Government to reveal how those planning powers – in terms of the Ministerial Directions – will operate and also to ensure that communities are fully consulted throughout these processes. Because at the end of the day community should always be at the heart of decisions about the future of those communities.

We are seeing with the planning reforms more generally a view from the Government that community should be stripped away from the centre of planning decisions, that communities should not have a say in their own future and that planning decisions should be made in Spring Street from an ivory tower, which runs contrary, frankly, to the concept of a democracy.

But the community will see and is seeing through those proposals, and you can see it in terms of the backlash from municipal bodies and peak bodies. They are meeting with the Government through their Government briefings, and then they are putting out media releases or ringing the Opposition and saying what the Government is proposing is just wrong in principle. The wholesale takeover of planning at a centralised level is outrageous, and that will play out over coming months, and so it should. We can see that there is a groundswell, a campaign in the community, to stop the Government centralisation of planning power – and so it should be.

When it comes to this particular power, the Coalition has called on the government to fully explain what that power will entail.

I mentioned previously the Hastings issue; that was just an absolute disgrace to see at a State level the State Government propose something. I am not aware of a single instance where permission has been given on a Ramsar site for a project to go ahead. I am not aware of a single instance, so I do not know how, when that project was first proposed, someone did not just ring the Federal Minister’s office and say, ‘What do you think?’ They would have just poured cold water on it a second later, yet we were months if not years down the track of a project which quite obviously could not proceed. To not only have it fail – have a Labor Government knock it on its head; a Labor Government knocked over the State Labor Government – effectively what they did, the Federal Government, in knocking over that proposal was say, ‘Your wind strategy now has no meat in it.’

Peter Walsh interjected.

James NEWBURY: No wind in it, as the Leader of the National Party says. So, we are considering a commitment to a wind target in this Bill, a target where there is no detail as to how we can achieve it. These projects take 10 years at the best of times from idea to turbines turning. We are talking about putting in place a level of infrastructure in the sea and back to land in an almost unprecedented way, especially when it comes to Australia, so this is a significant project that will require enormous community cooperation and consultation, and to see the flagship project fall over in January says that the Government does not understand what it is going to do.

I reiterate the point with the Hastings project that it is all very well and good to have targets, and it is important to set out measures of where you are going – it is essential to understand where you intend to go, and as Government you should always set out where you intend to go – but what matters is how you deliver it.

We have seen over the last two months two central core components of the energy transition fall over, and the community is rightfully saying that Government needs to do more than set a target, they need to explain to us how we are going to achieve it. When it comes to wind – and we have just spoken to wind energy – what is the wind project that will be delivered by 2032?

Fortunately for the Minister – and perhaps that is why the Minister wrote the Bill in this way – there is not a single punishment in relation to this Bill. When the Government does not meet a target, there is literally no punishment. There is no consequence. There is nothing in this Bill that says there is anything that happens to the Minister. There is no consequence for not meeting it. In fact, on meeting the targets the minister and the Premier just determine them. So not only is there no consequence for not meeting a target, the Minister and the Premier around the corner in the Premier’s office can just determine when it happens. When it comes to things like wind energy, the Government has not done enough to explain to the community how that generation will be provided.

I will also note the transparency component of the amendment. The community deserves to know, frankly in a real-time, easy-to-access way, where the Government is up to when it comes to the targets that the Government has set. You could suggest that the targets are hidden or not reported because the Government does not want people looking at the deliverables on the targets they set, and there is not an easy-to-use, friendly point. I made the point in the Government briefing that primary school kids should have the capacity through school to pull up a Government website which has all of the targets on it and where it is up to at that time. It is not an unreasonable thing. What this Bill does is say the Minister once a year has to come into this place and deliver an annual account for where each of the targets is up to.

Is that really good enough? Is it really good enough that we say to kids in our communities that we are waiting on the Minister to walk into the Chamber and provide an annual account? I think it is only reasonable that this information is kept available. We know why some of it is not.

When it comes to electric vehicles, the Government has a commitment of 50 per cent of new vehicles to be electric by 2030. They are currently at 6 per cent. Is it any wonder that is not being reported? The national average is 8 per cent, and this Government is at 6 per cent. No wonder that is not being reported. When it comes to wind, right now it is zero. When it comes to emissions and renewables, those numbers are available on separate websites. From memory, the last renewables figure was dated early 2023. These are not new figures, but they should be available.

I say again that the Coalition will not be opposing this Bill. We will not be opposing this Bill, but Victorians must have reliable, affordable and clean energy. If we are transitioning our economy, we need to do more than just set targets. I repeat again: the Coalition took to the last election a commitment to legislate targets. The former Premier in this very place – I think the words he used were
that it would have to be a cold day in hell for him to take my advice on legislating targets. But we stand here saying we will not oppose this Bill, because targets are an important measure. They are an important mechanism. However, it is the detail underneath, and what this amendment does is call out so many failures in relation to the detail of how we get there.

If we want the community to follow and to understand where we are going as a state, we need to make sure that each element that is set out in that Amendment is a question that is properly answered. They are not.

530,000 people last week were without power, the biggest power outage in our State’s history. We do not have reliable energy. At the same time, we have a Government that is pushing forward with an ideological gas ban to undermine baseload power security. The Government has serious questions to answer. I call on the Government in good spirit to consider the points in the Amendment and to provide public detail about all of those genuine issues in that Amendment.