Wednesday, 5 February 2025

State Electricity Commission

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (17:16): Batten down the hatches, because we are in for a storm of proposed cuts from the new Leader of the Opposition. Straight off the bat, the opposition leader used his first policy announcement to proclaim that the SEC is gone if they win, somehow letting the fact that it is enshrined in the constitution just slip past him. But are we surprised? I am certainly not. This is the Liberals privatisation ideology writ large and in its purest form on display for all to see. It was a terrible decision 31 years ago when Kennett sold off the SEC – all of it – and it would be another terrible decision if the current opposition leader has his way. It actually begs the question: why? Why does the Liberal Party detest public assets so much? What is it about something belonging to the people which offends them so deeply? They were even floating the idea – actually, that is probably not the best expression in this context. They brought a policy to the last election to privatise our poo. Where will they stop?

I grieve today for our state of Victoria because should those opposite come to power the bulldozers will roll on in and tear down everything that our government has built. The Liberal wrecking ball will be taken to the SEC just as it is gathering its strength and becoming a force for renewable energy investment in our state. When they privatised the SEC 1994 the Liberals gifted $23 billion worth of profit to offshore companies. That was at the expense of every hardworking Victorian, who saw their power bills increase 170 per cent from 1995 to 2012. That money should have stayed here in Victoria. It should have never gone to overseas companies. And do you know what else happened when they privatised the SEC? More than 7000 jobs were lost in the Latrobe Valley alone, as well as the jobs of the linesmen who built and maintained the network across the entire state. Do you know what else happened? A record number of vulnerable people had their power disconnected. They were left in the cold and the dark. Merciless for-profit companies did not care and were not required to. Thank heavens we changed that.

There are so many benefits of the SEC, and it is already chalking up runs on the board. Construction is underway on the first two projects, and I have had the pleasure of visiting one of those projects out in Plumpton, the Melbourne renewable energy hub. I visited this late last year with the Minister for Energy and Resources and two fabulous colleagues, the member for Sunbury and Ms Sheena Watt from the other place. Construction on that first investment – it is a 600-megawatt Melbourne renewable energy hub – is now at the halfway point. 650 people are employed there and they are delivering this critical project, and it is on track to be connected to the grid this year.

It is storing enough electricity to power up to 200,000 homes during peak periods. That is not to be sniffed at. That is significant. And the second undertaking is the SEC renewable energy park, also under construction. In November last year they secured the second project, with a $370 million investment to build this energy park, a massive solar farm and battery in Horsham. I have not made it there yet, but it is on my list. It is capable of generating enough renewable energy to power 51,000 homes and create 246 jobs.

The SEC is going to build 4.5 gigawatts of new renewable energy and storage projects, which is enough to power more than 1.5 million homes. And what is the plan for the Leader of the Opposition? Sell it off. Get rid of it. He would love to if he could. Thank heavens we enshrined it in the constitution. We had the foresight to know that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour.

The SEC will accelerate the energy transition. It is already doing it. We have put in $1 billion of initial funds towards delivering that 4.5 gigawatts of power, and from 1 July this year, did you know that the SEC will actually power the Victorian government operations? That is hospitals, schools, metro trains, trams – the list goes on. Victorian government operations will be powered by the SEC, because the SEC will be a retailer from 1 July using renewable energy only generated by solar and wind farms. That is cause to celebrate. Why on earth do those opposite want to get rid of it and do it once again and repeat the mistakes of the past?

The SEC is actually getting on and delivering value for us Victorians. They have engaged with thousands of consumers in the past year, because they have given education showing Victorians how they can switch to electricity and slash thousands off their bills. They are a trusted source of information. The SEC is not a company out there trying to fleece anyone or trying to sell anyone something that they do not need. They are trusted because they are publicly owned.

Over 10,000 Victorians have used the SEC electric home planner pilot to see how upgrading their electrical appliances can help them save money. We heard before about cost of living; the member for Eureka was talking about that. This is another way that we are helping. There is so much to be proud of already with the SEC and much, much more to come.

So once again it begs the question: why do the Liberals want to see it gone? As you would know by now, I am an old history teacher, so I do like to look back in history and I do like to try and understand not just the what and the where but the why. It is interesting, because when I was reading up on this I came across a paper by Professor Sharon Beder and Associate Professor Damien Cahill. This paper looked at the decision-making behind the Liberals’ decision many years ago in the early 1990s. It was spurred on by a report called Project Victoria, which was created by the Institute of Public Affairs, the Tasman Institute and 13 employer groups. This Project Victoria recommended privatising our SEC. It makes for not only eye-opening but terrifying reading, because a 1994 Electricity Supply Association of Australia study of 1000 utilities around the world found that SEC Victoria was in the top 10 for efficiency of resource use and that it was also highly efficient in terms of technical efficiency of distribution. A study by London Economics in 1994 found SEC Victoria’s resource efficiency compared favourably with best practice utilities worldwide.

Was the SEC on its knees at the time? Is that why they sold it off? This is where it gets really interesting, because it was not on its knees. The SEC was profitable, healthily so, and it delivered affordable electricity to consumers. In the year before it was broken up – here is a figure for the member for Polwarth to listen keenly to – it paid $995 million in interest and a $191 million dividend to the state government of Victoria, with a profit of $207 million.

An independent inquiry into the privatisation of Victoria’s electricity industry found that in the year prior to its restructuring, its debt–equity ratio was 342 per cent compared with an average of 382 per cent for the top 20 Australian companies on the Australian Stock Exchange.

A 1994 Bureau of Industry Economics study found that Victoria’s electricity prices to industry were the eighth cheapest out of 40 OECD countries. That the Liberals then decided to privatise, deregulate and corporatise Victoria’s electricity demonstrates that it is ideological. It is purely ideological, and we should all be very, very concerned because it seems that nothing has changed. They have managed to find an old copy of Project Victoria sitting on some forlorn shelf, dusted off the jacket and decided that they are going to use this as their blueprint for the future. We know how that worked out for Victoria. We are still working here on this side of the chamber, as the government, to undo the harm of that era of government across this state.

So I do grieve – I deeply, deeply grieve – for every person in this state because the opposition, under the tutelage of their new leader, is hell-bent on destroying everything that we have spent years trying to repair, after their wanton destruction during the Kennett years and their policy to destroy the SEC.

Richard Riordan interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Polwarth! Unnecessary. Without assistance.

Daniela DE MARTINO: This is our one great shot again at putting power and profits back into the hands of every Victorian where they rightfully belong. This is but one glaring example of what is old is new again for the Liberals.

James Newbury interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Brighton is not helping.

Daniela DE MARTINO: They do say the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour, and that is never more apparent than it is right now. We are seeing the rollout of policies of cuts, sell-offs and closures. This is where we are headed. And now I will tell you something: these are the good news stories, because I had to go into the dark, murky past there and uncover some very, very sad facts about what the Liberals did back in that era. It was distressing, I have got to say.

Now I get to finish things off on a brighter note, because I am talking about the things that we did.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Polwarth is warned! It is incessant.

Daniela DE MARTINO: Due to our record investments in cheaper renewable energy – and this may be another fact which shocks those opposite; they cannot listen to it though, it offends them sometimes I think to hear the facts – Victoria has consistently had the lowest wholesale power prices in the country. In 2024 our wholesale prices here in Victoria were again the lowest in the national electricity market – they were 27 per cent lower than in Queensland and 49 per cent lower than in New South Wales. Future prices show Victorian prices will remain lower than all other states. Lower wholesale prices mean lower retail bills for households and businesses. It does translate through.

Members interjecting.

Luba Grigorovitch: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, there seems to be a lot of heckling from the opposition. However, they are not in their seats.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order, I believe, although I will need to check if things have changed. You are not in your seat, but he is.

Luba Grigorovitch interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, member for Kororoit, I am quite capable of taking it from here. The members are in appropriate seating, so there is no point of order. However, I will take this opportunity very quickly: without assistance.

A member: Take your time.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I can always send you out for a while.

Daniela DE MARTINO: It clearly is difficult for some of those opposite. Their ears are probably bleeding, because when they hear the facts of the good that we have done compared to the harm that was caused by decisions made by their predecessors –

Richard Riordan interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Polwarth can leave for 15 minutes.

Member for Polwarth withdrew from chamber.

Daniela DE MARTINO: it is very, very concerning. Lower wholesale prices mean lower retail bills for Victorian households and businesses. The 2024–25 Victorian default offer for households decreased by an average of $100, or around 6 per cent, compared to the previous year. The average Victorian default offer this year is $311, or 16.2 per cent, less than the average default market offer in other states – once again, inconvenient truths for those opposite.

Those opposite will shut down renewable energy and send Victorians’ power bills skyrocketing. There is absolutely a reason why we enshrined the SEC into the constitution. As I said before, it is a good thing we did, because we knew that at the first opportunity they would cut it where and when they could.

And it turns out that the first policy from the new Leader of the Opposition, straight off the bat, was: ‘We’re going to get rid of the SEC’ – ‘Get rid of the SEC’ he said.

We over here are going to fight to keep publicly owned energy in the hands of Victorians, where they deserve it. It will keep prices down, because the more renewable energy we build, the more we help Victorians as their bills go south.

Tim McCurdy: When’s that going to happen?

Daniela DE MARTINO: It has already happened.

Members interjecting.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Through the Chair. Order on my left!

Daniela DE MARTINO: Unfortunately for those who have just entered the chamber, they have actually missed all the facts. They can read in Hansard the statistics for how Victoria has consistently lower default prices than the rest of the nation, particularly New South Wales and Queensland. But that is okay. With those opposite sometimes there is a bit of a dearth of information and facts; there is just a lot of ideology – which brings me back to my original point. We should be very, very concerned about where they want to take this state, because we have seen the blueprint and how it has rolled out, and it looks like what was old is new again. It is very concerning. It has already begun, and I grieve for Victoria. I sincerely hope that Victorians out there understand that all we will see are cuts.