Tuesday, 18 February 2025

Gippsland East electorate wind farms

Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (19:04): (1003) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Energy and Resources, and the action I seek is for the minister to immediately rule out a second onshore connection point for offshore wind through Waratah Bay and South Gippsland. This is an issue that has recently come up as a result of community consultation by one of the proponents of offshore wind, Gippsland Skies. They have been highlighting the prospect of rather than going through Ninety Mile Beach and Giffard West or a Giffard connection point, as has been promoted by VicGrid, they might come up through Waratah Bay and South Gippsland to connect to the grid at Hazelwood or Loy Yang.

This is the exact opposite of what this government had proposed to do. The government said it was setting up VicGrid to coordinate and to avoid a spaghettification I think is perhaps the word – a spaghetti-like effect of having lots of transmission lines everywhere. To now have one of these companies saying that they have spoken to VicGrid and that they could come up through Waratah Bay and South Gippsland is just disgraceful, and the minister needs to rule it out right now.

I am aware of people in South Gippsland who are already concerned. We have the Marinus Link project coming up from Tasmania through Waratah Bay and into the Latrobe Valley through South Gippsland, but that is being proposed as an underground line. Although there are many landholders who are not happy about it, they are certainly happier that it is underground, not above ground. If Gippsland Skies is to be allowed to connect with overhead 500 kilovolt powerlines, there will be many, many, many people who will be very upset about it. Indeed I know there are some people from South Gippsland in the gallery tonight who would no doubt be very concerned about it. They may not even know about it, because very few people do.

The government has said it established VicGrid to avoid exactly these sorts of situations. It is unconscionable that the minister and VicGrid would now allow this to occur. The whole idea of VicGrid – and I have supported the notion from the start – is to make sure that we coordinate this transmission line. If the government’s idea of these 12 different offshore wind farms is that they can all come where it suits them, particularly on the shortest route, then that is wrong. The government has the opportunity now to work with the Commonwealth and to work with the developers proposing the offshore wind farms and say, ‘No. We have told you through Giffard, one line.’ That is what they should be doing, not exposing the beautiful South Gippsland hills to yet another transmission line. That is not something that the people of South Gippsland will accept. I will not be accepting it, and the government needs to rule it out now.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I remind members that acknowledging members of the gallery is disorderly.