Wednesday, 4 August 2021

Environment and Planning Committee

Inquiry into Tackling Climate Change in Victorian Communities

Ms GREEN (Yan Yean) (10:17): It is a great privilege to rise today to speak on the report on what communities are doing to tackle climate change, which was investigated last year by the Environment and Planning Committee of the Legislative Assembly. On the membership at the time, the chair was the now Government Whip, the member for South Barwon. I know he is really enjoying his role as the whip, but I think he was very pleased to be able to conclude this inquiry because it was something that he was really passionate about, with the deputy chair, the member for Mornington. It has been a great opportunity for me actually to work with the member for Mornington. It is one of the great joys of parliamentary committee work that you do actually get to work with people across the aisle, and I want to commend the member for Mornington for his contribution to that.

The member for Box Hill and the member for Burwood and I really, really enjoyed particularly the regional hearings. It is nothing that you would be unfamiliar with, Deputy Speaker, and we indeed did hearings in Bendigo. I think it is our coastal communities and our communities north of the Divide, and particularly our smaller communities, that are really doing the most and actually doing what maybe governments should be doing—that is, really taking action on the ground. It was a fantastic learning experience for all of us on the committee to see what communities were doing.

In particular my memory of Bendigo is of the council but also the sustainability groups there and even seeing the Corr family, who are very active in Bendigo but grew up in my electorate, and their parents as well are very active on climate change matters in the Arthurs Creek and Strathewen communities. Being the Parliamentary Secretary for Sport, I was really interested to see the Bendigo community wanting to ensure that, with increased heat and the impact of climate change, people are still able to undertake sport, and particularly older people, and to see the stadium in Bendigo that has solar panels on the roof and has battery power so the sporting communities there and the clubs are able to continue to play sport with air conditioning but not have an impact on the planet, so they are able to keep good health and able to keep active. It also means that there is a place where on very, very hot days people can actually come and have some respite from their homes if their homes are too hot, so it is really just an example of what communities are doing to assist themselves.

The other community that I would really like to commend is the community of Yackandandah, the ‘Totally Renewable Yack’. Not only have they now formed Indigo Power—across the Indigo shire there is a microgrid—but I think close to 50 per cent of the houses in Yackandandah have solar panels. They are really an exemplar, and I would encourage any members of the house and members of the community to visit Yackandandah and see what they are doing for themselves. The same community group acquired a petrol station, which they have been operating as a social enterprise, and it was indeed this social enterprise together with their community power that was able to save a lot of property and townships from the Black Summer fires the year before last. It has really stuck with me, and I know it has stuck with the member for Benambra, how the township of Corryong was just between a breakdown in generators. There were three generators that blew up, and it was only the fourth that was able to continue operating the fuel station in Corryong so that CFA trucks were able to be refuelled. But in Yackandandah that did not happen because they had their own power and their own fuel station.

I think that tackling climate change not only is good for the environment and good for community health but can also help communities protect themselves, and the recommendations of this report reflect the input that we had from those communities. I really look forward to seeing the response from government in how we can build and grow from the learnings of these great communities that had input into this report. I want to thank the staff involved and thank all the communities and individuals that presented and did a lot of work in presenting to this report.