Wednesday, 1 May 2024
Motions
Renewable energy infrastructure
Renewable energy infrastructure
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (15:00): I am pleased to move:
That this house:
(1) notes that:
(a) planning scheme amendment VC261 changes the Victoria Planning Provisions and all planning schemes in Victoria with respect to renewable energy facilities and associated utility installation, including removing the right of impacted Victorians to appeal such planning approvals at VCAT;
(b) planning scheme amendment VC261 was gazetted on 4 April 2024 and tabled in this house on 18 April 2024; and
(2) pursuant to section 38(2) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987, revokes amendment VC261 to the Victoria Planning Provisions.
This is an important motion because the state government has taken a nasty and authoritarian turn in the way it is treating planning and the way it is treating renewable energy. It is prepared to force through both renewable facilities and indeed the associated transmission and distribution infrastructure. The key thing here is that important planning decisions, important renewable energy decisions, should be made with community involvement and community input. They should not be made by a minister alone.
David DAVIS: Well, this strips away these, and you should be very concerned about these matters. You should be concerned that they are stripping away these powers that would normally be there for communities to have their say through a proper process, a panel process, community input and submissions. None of these are guaranteed with respect to renewable energy infrastructure, transmission and distribution and indeed larger batteries. These are all decisions made by the Minister for Planning herself. She has used the powers in the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to create a new decision-making structure, VC261, and to give herself unlimited power to make decisions. She will now be able to make decisions without consulting. She will not need to consult. She could wake up in the middle of the night and make the decision to sweep away the rights of people, to actually make a decision to provide a planning permit for a particular project and to do it without any consultation at all – not even to advise those impacted that the decision is going to be made, is being made or has been made. There is not even the requirement to do that. That is what these extraordinary and undemocratic, draconian powers actually entail.
Furthermore, the impacted parties will not even be able to appeal to VCAT. VCAT is widely criticised by the community with respect to its planning function, but this strips away even the right to appeal to VCAT. It says your only recourse, your only course of appeal, is to the Supreme Court of Victoria. A local community is not going to be in the position to be able to afford a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar legal challenge in the Supreme Court. These are hugely costly and hugely difficult decisions for communities. I have seen this as the state government has rolled out parts of its Big Build and done so without proper community consultation, forcing communities to try and fight. Members from North-Eastern Metropolitan Region will understand what was done at Surrey Hills and Mont Albert with the powers there. The minister took powers to herself, she stripped away the rights of communities, she signed things into planning law and those decisions were made. The community actually started to bring together money to try and start a Supreme Court action, and as I understand it that Supreme Court action is currently stayed. That is a city-based example of a community trying to fight, unable to raise sufficient money and unable to have the full fight that they should be entitled to have in court. The decisions on this VC261 are of a similar nature, and there is a whole stream of these decisions that the government has made with respect to Big Build projects and with respect to social housing and so forth. They have stripped away the rights of communities to have any say at all.
I want to take people to the comments of a number of important commentators. An article that quotes a foremost planning expert with a great deal of knowledge in this area, Emeritus Professor Michael Buxton, RMIT professor of planning, in the Australian on 17 April, after he had reviewed the details of this planning scheme amendment, says that the minister:
… has total discretion over whether or not third parties are notified of renewable energy projects that may impact them …
He termed this a ‘radical’ and ‘most unsatisfactory’ change to the planning scheme. He also pointed out that this fits in with the Big Housing Build and a number of these other decisions where the state government has stripped away planning control. The article goes on to say that the effect of the rules is to:
… leave it up to the minister to notify potential objectors.
The minister can just decide on a whim that she will not even notify potential objectors. This is extraordinary. It is undemocratic. It is totally and utterly undemocratic.
David DAVIS: Well, I am quoting here one of the most eminent planning experts in the state. I sent some of this material to him. He looked at it and he gave me a note which explained some of the details of this and said that this is what it means. I did not leave it up to myself to interpret planning law, I asked a planning law expert to tell me what this planning scheme amendment means for local communities with respect to renewable energy. Many of us support a rollout of renewable energy, but we do not support a role that is fundamentally undemocratic and a rollout of renewable energy that rides roughshod over local communities, that bulldozes local communities and that does not listen to local communities. You are going to get worse projects if you do this.
The article states:
… third parties will not be notified of the proposed amendment or be provided with an opportunity to make submissions on the amendment or be heard by a panel … and the right of objectors to appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal will be removed “enabling more timely decisions”.
Timely decisions – oh, the community should not have any say, should not have the right to speak, should not have the right to object or should not have the right to make suggestions to improve a project. The article states:
“It is a radical change,” Professor Buxton said. “The minister may decide to notify people, but doesn’t have to. That’s most unsatisfactory …
The article states that he said:
… communities, farmers and environmentalists objecting to renewable energy projects faced a “stacked deck”.
That is how we described it. He said:
The real problem is that the Planning Minister controls both the assessment and the approvals process, and developers apply directly to the minister …
If your only strategy is to remove … planning and legal constraints to reach the target … that’s going to mean random, disorderly development in inappropriate places, some of the worst places.
Farmers are worried about this amendment. I see the article states that Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said that the rules when they were gazetted were:
… “even worse” than farmers had feared.
She said:
It seems the government have forgotten that they are there to represent the people of Victoria …
This is what we are facing: planning scheme changes that strip away the basic steps and processes, the basic protections, the basic rules and the basic controls. I think this is a nasty, authoritarian government that is unconcerned with basic democracy and unconcerned with the rights of local communities and people. I think it is actually worse than that because you not only get this undemocratic approach, but you also get worse projects. The projects are not tested properly. It is not made clear. I am just going to read so that people understand the extent of this. Normally –
A member interjected.
David DAVIS: Well, if you go into the planning scheme amendment itself, there is a change made to 53.22–1, which is the normal clause. The provisions of this clause prevail over any inconsistent provision in the planning scheme. Then it goes on – it has a table, and I will come to the table in a moment:
This clause does not apply to an application to subdivide land, other than an application to subdivide land that includes either:
• A renewable energy facility; or
• A utility installation used to:
– Transmit or distribute electricity; or
– Store electricity if the installed capacity is 1 megawatt or greater.
This is batteries. We need batteries and we need to support planning approvals for batteries, but that does not mean that the government should be able to ride roughshod over communities and do this in a way that does not have proper processes.
Under category 1 in table 1 of 53.22–1 there are new insertions of words in this section of the act. Normally a project of this type must have written to the chief executive officer of Invest Victoria confirming the likely financial feasibility of the project. However, a new condition is added in this particular outing:
This condition does not apply to an application for the use or development of land for a renewable energy facility or utility installation.
Nick McGowan: Does that stack up?
David DAVIS: That is right; it does not have to stack up. Later in the amendment, at the end of table 2, there are many things in there that have got special privileges and special fast-tracked and changed arrangements, but these are the latest ones that have been added. For a renewable energy facility:
An installed capacity of 1 megawatt or greater must be proposed.
And for a utility installation other than data centre:
A utility installation used to:
• Transmit or distribute electricity; or
• Store electricity if the installed capacity is 1 megawatt or greater
must be proposed.
I am just being quite clear about what this applies to. It applies to batteries, it applies to transmission, it applies to distribution and it applies to any renewable energy project.
Last night in the chamber we asked a very simple question about the assembly of offshore wind projects and equipment at the Port of Hastings. The minister was not able to give us very good answers. She is not the minister herself, she is the minister representing, so let us cut her some slack. But it is very clear that that Port of Hastings, with an assembly provision related to offshore wind, could well fit in with those matters, and the transmission lines from offshore wind could well –
Tom McIntosh: On a point of order, Acting President, I am just struggling to understand why we are talking about a facility that assembles items when my understanding is what we are talking about –
David DAVIS: Planning approvals.
Tom McIntosh: Yes, but that has nothing to do with assembly.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): There is no point of order, Mr McIntosh.
Tom McIntosh: On the point of order, I do think we are talking about, as has been put, energy generation, transmission and storage, and an assembly port has nothing to do with any of those.
David DAVIS: On the point of order, Acting President, I very simply make the point that the renewable energy facility could be defined broadly, and the transmission of power could be defined very broadly and there may well be planning application there. I am sorry, this was a direct exchange that occurred last night on exactly this point, so it is well within scope.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): Mr McIntosh, there is no point of order.
David DAVIS: The point I want to make in this debate is that we all want more renewable energy and we want renewable energy facilitated. But it is not going to be facilitated by cutting corners, by stripping out normal protections and by having a process that does not knock the bugs out of things and actually deliver a better outcome for the whole community. We need the best projects and we need communities involved, and it is no wonder with the behaviour of the Australian Energy Market Operator and the behaviour of VicGrid that there is so much resistance in the state to the long-distance transmission lines. It is no wonder that social licence has been lost for a lot of renewable projects. We have seen this with some of the solar projects – Colbinabbin is an example. The chamber met in Echuca the other day and that Colbinabbin solar farm was part of the controversy up there, and the mayor of Campaspe drew attention to that solar farm at Colbinabbin. That farm could be given approval – bang, like that – by the minister. She could do it one night. She could do without proper process, she could do it without consulting the community and she would not even need to advise the neighbours that she had made the decision.
David DAVIS: Well, I am sorry. That is what the planning powers allow to happen. You have to read what it says.
Sonja Terpstra: Wake up in the middle of the night and do it?
David DAVIS: She could wake up in the middle of the night and make the decision without talking to anyone, without actually making the decision properly. That is what is allowed by these new planning powers.
There should be proper advertising processes required, there should be proper submission processes to make decisions and there should be a panel process with major decisions and the panel process should actually test these things and get a better outcome. There should be a right of appeal to VCAT, and there should ultimately be a right of appeal to the Supreme Court – of course there should. But cutting VCAT out will have the effect that local communities will not be able to push back against these changes. There is not even a requirement here to tell the municipality that these decisions might be made, so where is the role of the municipality in these land use decisions? That is what planning decisions of this type are – they are land use decisions. We see this authoritarian turn on the Big Build, we see this authoritarian turn on social housing, we see this authoritarian turn on a number of road projects and we see this authoritarian turn of this government with a number of the projects that are being mooted at the moment where local councils will be stripped of planning powers. That means communities do not have a say. It means the minister or some jumped-up panel the minister puts in place makes the decision, and I think the community across this state would be very concerned about the loss of basic democratic rights.
So, yes, by all means have wind, by all means have solar, by all means build the long-distance transmission wires, but let us do that in a way that respects local democracy, let us do it in a way that respects local communities, let us do it in a way that gets the best possible project. This planning scheme amendment that has been put in place, VC261, is unnecessary, it is undemocratic, it is unhelpful and we should revoke it. The Planning and Environment Act allows either chamber to revoke a planning scheme amendment that is put in place by the minister. They are required to be tabled here, as it were, and they can be disallowed under the Planning and Environment Act. That is what I am proposing that we do.
Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:18): I rise to make a contribution on this motion in Mr Davis’s name in regard to amendments to the planning scheme amendment. It will be no surprise that I advise the chamber the government will be opposing this motion for obvious reasons. I have listened very carefully to Mr Davis’s contribution; it is all doom and gloom over there. We are the worst, most evil government that ever existed.
Members interjecting.
Sonja TERPSTRA: See? As soon as I opened my mouth, I noticed the interjections coming from those opposite – the usual suspects over there that give me a constant stream of interjections. I have not even got to the points I want to make yet.
Members interjecting.
Sonja TERPSTRA: See? Over there.
What I want to talk about is not the negative doom and gloom that Mr Davis is predicting, because it is actually very far from the truth. I know, Mr Davis, you have got a job to do, which is to attack government mercilessly. It is the noalition over there, right? As a noalition, it does not matter what the government says or does. It is just ‘no’, ‘bad’, ‘wrong’, ‘wasteful’ or whatever, without any basis in fact to actually make those contributions as well. The business of this government is actually about getting on and delivering our renewable energy targets, and we need to do that in a very efficient and effective way, because what is lost on those opposite is that we cannot waste time. We have got targets to meet. We need to decarbonise quickly. In fact Mr Davis will not like to hear this, but we are decarbonising at the fastest rate in this country, which is something to be extremely proud of.
I am going to get to the point about what these changes actually do, despite what Mr Davis said. It is actually quite the journey I was on while I was listening to that. As I said, we are decarbonising at the fastest rate in this country. That is something to be very proud of. So we have set an ambitious and achievable target of 95 per cent renewable energy by 2035. What is really important about that is that whilst we have got a renewable energy target, we are also going to create 59,000 jobs as a consequence of that. They want to talk about the past, but we remember the past, because we are the custodians of the past, because we know a lot of our people were hurt by those opposite when they were in government, particularly when they shut the SEC – thousands and thousands of jobs went there. Then they attacked teachers, and there were school closures and all those sorts of things. So when we talk about jobs and jobs as part of this renewable energy target –
David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President –
Sonja TERPSTRA: No, no. I am making a point; do not interrupt.
David Davis: On a point of order, Acting President, this is actually a motion about a planning scheme amendment. It is not about schools or anything else. You are heading off into a wide distance, a long way from the narrow matters of section 38 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Further to the point of order, Acting President, I am going to object to the hostility with which points of order are made on me as a female government member on the benches over here. Make your point of order, but do not yell at me in a really aggressive manner from across the chamber. And I will make my point about Mr Davis’s contribution –
A member interjected.
Sonja TERPSTRA: No, no. I do not want to have those sorts of faces made at me either. I am entitled to feel the way that I feel when I am being attacked. The point I was making was that –
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): Ms Terpstra, I am going to rule on Mr Davis’s point of order. I uphold Mr –
Sonja TERPSTRA: I have not finished my point of order.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): I had not ruled on Mr Davis’s point of order.
Sonja TERPSTRA: The interjectors should be quiet. I am entitled to make my point of order in silence. My point was about the jobs that are connected to the renewable energy target, and that is something that is germane to this motion.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): You need to make your point of order briefly and then sit down. I uphold Mr Davis’s point of order, and please, Ms Terpstra, return to the motion.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Further to the point of order, Acting President, I want my objection recorded about the hostility and aggression that is being directed at me when I am making a contribution. It is inappropriate. And I want to continue my contribution.
David Davis: On the point of order, Acting President, I am not in any way hostile to Ms Terpstra. On the contrary, I am certainly very strong and robust on this motion and the issues around it, but I wish her well and I wish her well with her contribution. That does not mean that I will not be prosecuting the case strongly no matter who is interjecting or making comment on the other side.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): I did not hear Mr Davis raise his voice, Ms Terpstra.
Sonja TERPSTRA: It was not addressed to him. It was Mr McGowan that I was referring to.
Nick McGowan: On a point of order, Acting President, I would ask for that to be withdrawn. Most of the members here present could not even hear me say ‘point of order’.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Further to the point of order, Acting President, the clock is running down, and it is a tactic of those opposite to soak up time. I would like to be able to continue my contribution – I have made my point – with no more interjections from those opposite.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Bev McArthur): I think you have made your point, Ms Terpstra. Please continue with your speech.
Sonja TERPSTRA: Thank you. I would like to proceed on my contribution without interruption. As I was saying, what is really important about our renewable energy targets is the 59,000 jobs that will be created as a consequence of people working in renewable energy, and the reason why we need to talk about our renewable energy target is because it is germane to what we are doing in regard to achieving our targets, which is what this planning scheme amendment is actually about, which is helping to fast-track renewable energy projects. Again, those opposite can pick around the edges and say that I should not be allowed to talk about this or that, because they do not want to hear about the things that we are actually going to create as a consequence of decarbonising our economy but also creating those jobs that will power our renewable energy targets. We need to power those renewable energy targets, and Victorians want to work in those jobs to make sure that we can achieve our renewable energy targets.
As I said, we have a very ambitious offshore wind target of at least 2 gigawatts by 2032, 4 gigawatts by 2035 and 9 gigawatts by 2040. That is why we will need 59,000 jobs – for people to work in those important projects in offshore wind and on other renewable energy targets. We talk about solar farms and we have got batteries, and of course then the downstream consequence of some of these projects is manufacturing, which is critically important.
We want to be able to manufacture these things here in Australia, and at the moment we do not have that. We want to create those downstream industries as well to support renewable energy targets, because it is critically important. We cannot get there if we do not have Victorians working in those things. Consequently, what Mr Davis was talking about in his contribution was that the government is trying to cut out the ability of communities to have a say or for them to be consulted along the way with any renewable energy projects that we are proposing. Nothing could be further from the truth, because what has changed is just one component of the process. We are going to be able to make better decisions faster, so instead of being caught up at VCAT in multiple appeals for years and years, removing that step means you still have appeals to the Supreme Court. No other processes have changed. It does not steamroll anyone, despite the fearmongering from those opposite. It does not remove any other processes. It just simply removes one step, which affects the time frame involved. It affects the time frame involved for decisions to be made. Why? Because we have a target that we need to meet, and when our renewable energy targets are going to be caught up and locked up in endless litigation – so a person who might object in VCAT might raise an objection, we might wait a couple of years or two years or 18 months before it gets to a hearing, and then you go to the next step and have it relitigated again.
So again, it is only the time frame for assessment. It does not mean that the land-use framework is changing. You still need to have a cultural heritage plan; none of that has changed. So in regard to these sorts of things, to say that the government is going to steamroll and make it hard for people is ridiculous. You still need to have an environment effects statement, as many larger-scale projects do. That has not changed. As I said, you need a cultural heritage management plan. That has not changed. The changes do not remove the requirement to consider biodiversity, agriculture and landscape impacts, which will be assessed in accordance with the relevant policy documents and decision guidelines.
Because of the constant stream of interjections from those opposite I only have 48 seconds on the clock now, which is typical of those opposite. They do not want to hear what the actual merit of these provisions is and the benefits that they are actually going to bring, not only to the Victorian economy but in decarbonising our economy and decarbonising our environment. In the 30 seconds that I have remaining, what I want to say is this motion is really ill-conceived. I know those opposite have got terrible form when it comes to planning, and we can talk about all the failures of planning that they have had, but this is about getting on with the job of delivering on our renewable energy targets. The government benches will not be supporting this motion, and I encourage other crossbenchers in this chamber to also not support this motion.
Nick McGowan: On a point of order, Deputy President, I would like to call on the member to withdraw her reference to me. I did call a point of order, but that point of order was not called to Ms Terpstra. She knows that. That point of order was called to the Chair. The inference that it was somehow in any way hostile is not the case, and it should not have been taken that way. Members in this place ought to be able to stand up and call for a point of order. I would ask that my name be withdrawn.
Sonja TERPSTRA: On the point of order, I have no idea what you are talking about, so could you repeat the point of order and what your objection is? Under standing orders, what standing order are you referring to?
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I think what the member is saying is that he was offended by your comments, and he is asking for a withdrawal. I am just taking some advice.
Ms Terpstra, on what Mr McGowan is referring to, I was in the chamber, so I did hear you make the inference that he was hostile to you in the debate by asking for a point of order. He is offended by those remarks. I think that in the context it was not hostile, and I would ask you to withdraw.
Sonja TERPSTRA: I will not withdraw.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Ms Terpstra, I have asked you to withdraw. You have defied the Chair. I am going to give you another opportunity, and it is for an unqualified withdrawal. I ask you to withdraw.
Sonja TERPSTRA: I will not withdraw.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Then, Ms Terpstra, I am going to have to suspend you from the chamber, and I ask you to leave the chamber for 30 minutes.
Sonja Terpstra withdrew from chamber.
Bev McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (15:33): I rise to encourage all members to support Mr Davis’s motion to revoke planning scheme amendment VC261. I do so not just because of the content of the amendment, which I believe is deeply anti-democratic and damaging, particularly to regional Victoria, but also because of the process by which it has been imposed. The total lack of consultation has been shameful, as has the inappropriate use of ministerial regulation rather than due parliamentary process, for a change as significant as this.
At a stroke, the Minister for Planning has decreed that renewable energy developments will no longer be subject to the notification, consultation and appeals process which previously existed. In the minister’s own words, the effect of the amendment is that:
… third parties will not be notified of the proposed amendment or be provided with an opportunity to make submissions on the amendment or be heard by a panel …
They are the minister’s own words. We cannot dispute this, even when, more significantly, she says that applications will be exempt from objector review rights in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on any decision to grant a permit. This is an enormous change. Removing the right to be notified, consulted and to appeal to VCAT will make it far harder for communities to oppose renewables projects which could significantly affect their environment, lives and livelihoods. While cases can still be taken to the Supreme Court, this is a far more complex, expensive and risky course and will naturally be beyond the means of most. The minister has justified this decision by reference to the ‘urgent need’ to facilitate renewable energy development and the ‘urgent need’ to maintain Victoria’s electricity supply – urgent need. It is extraordinary – an urgent need to maintain Victoria’s electricity supply. How on earth has this arisen? What happened? There has been no catastrophic event, no unforeseeable development to cause it, just a complete lack of foresight, planning, decision-making and, frankly, competence from this government. Any urgency that exists comes from their failure to act earlier, and it is regional Victoria that will pay the price, with inappropriate, hurried projects steamrollered through by a Labor minister.
As I said yesterday, not so very long ago we had a functional, effective electricity market which delivered inexpensive energy reliably. It has taken a breathtaking act of self-sabotage to move from there to the situation we face today, and it is indefensible that ordinary Victorians should have their rights removed because of the failure of their government to manage change in the energy market supply properly. The minister, in the explanatory documents, continues:
I … am satisfied that … the interests of Victoria make such an exemption appropriate.
The interests of who in Victoria? It is certainly not those of regional communities. In this amendment the interests of Victorians are being used to disenfranchise and override them. This government have failed to consult, failed to plan and failed to achieve the social licence necessary for renewable energy projects, so instead they now invoke the threat of blackouts to ram through unwanted and inappropriately sited projects, misapplying planning safeguards which have protected Victorians for decades and are moving the goalposts when they cannot get their way. To add insult to injury, the minister goes further. She claims the exemptions she grants will ‘allow the community to experience benefits sooner’. I ask you: ‘benefits’? Tell that to the communities whose lives and livelihoods will be blighted by vast generation sites and monster transmission towers. The benefits might be felt by the minister’s suburban electorate in Carrum, but yet again regional Victoria is forced to carry the can.
RMIT environment and planning emeritus professor Michael Buxton, as Mr Davis has referred to, has described these changes as ‘radical’ and ‘most unsatisfactory’, and Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano says they are even worse than Victorian farmers had expected. She said:
It seems the government have forgotten that they are there to represent the people of Victoria.
How right she is. Now, this whole debate feels rather familiar to me, because the process is exactly what the Labor government did with the West Gate Tunnel contaminated soil. Having failed before that project began to properly cost or plan what would happen to contaminated soil when it was dug out of the ground, they simply altered the Environment Protection Act 2017, and as with VC261, they did it without any parliamentary debate or vote. And as with VC261, they exempted themselves even from consultation on the secondary legislation itself.
This change was not simply a technicality; the new regulations introduced a massive watering down of longstanding environmental protections surrounding the storage of potentially contaminated soil. They removed the existing licensing process with its requirements for public consultation and the fact it could be challenged in VCAT. They reduced the buffer zone for sensitive land use from 500 metres to 200 metres and removed safeguards previously placed on contractors. Does that sound familiar? The motivation, the exemption from due process and the anti-democratic impact are exactly the same as with VC261. The same failure to plan leads to the need for botched projects to be accelerated, and the only way to get them through is to displace longstanding planning and environmental protections enjoyed by Victorian communities.
I want to add a slightly different point to this debate. I am concerned, looking at the detail of the amendment, by the impact of 53.22–2. That part states that:
The responsible authority may waive or vary any building height or setback requirement.
This section predates the amendment we are discussing today, which adds energy generation and infrastructure projects to the development facilitation program. Perhaps for the previous types of projects envisaged, the ability to waive setback requirements was desirable, but for those living near proposed renewable generation sites or high-voltage transmission lines it is seriously alarming.
They might say, ‘Well, there’s no intention to use that carve-out for energy projects, so don’t worry.’ If that is true, though, why did they not specifically exclude energy projects from that clause? They did this elsewhere. As Mr Davis has mentioned, the requirements for financial feasibility of proposals have been removed. The existing clause states that the minister:
Must have written advice from the Chief Executive Officer, Invest Victoria confirming the likely financial feasibility of the proposal.
But here it is amended by VC261:
This condition does not apply to an application for the use or development of land for a renewable energy facility or utility installation.
Why was the same restriction not applied to setback requirements? It so easily could have been. Is this a mistake or a deliberate decision to maintain the legal right to waive setback requirements? It is questions like this that the minister’s high-handed decision to exempt herself from consultation has created. Perhaps there is nothing to worry about, but suspicion breeds where transparency is suppressed, and the fact that the minister is already doing the rounds spruiking the changes to investors just adds to the concern Victorians feel. I urge the house to support Mr Davis’s motion to revoke the minister’s arrogant approach and to restore to Victorians the longstanding protections our planning system should provide.
Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (15:43): I rise to also urge everybody to support Mr Davis’s excellent motion to revoke planning scheme VC261, and I just want to compliment my colleague Mrs McArthur for her fantastic speech. I agree with everything that she said.
It appears to me that this government seem to consider that just because they were democratically elected by the people of Victoria that gives them a mandate to ignore the people of Victoria. They treat Victorians’ basic human rights as inconvenient because they are in the way of their targets. It is unscientific, unrealistic, ideological targets versus basic human rights like property rights, consultation rights, due process and democratic representation. But people do have rights, even though they might be inconvenient. Even if they are legislated out of existence in this state, they still exist.
In this modern Labor government’s march of progress there is nothing more important than their targets – their targets for votes, their targets to keep power and their targets on ideology. The worst thing about this is that they pretend to include justice, but they make it so far out of reach that it is only justice for the rich – so much for the party of the working classes.
Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (15:45): I rise to oppose Mr Davis’s motion. Mr Davis, energy is absolutely critical to our economy. Whether it is our businesses or whether it is our homes, we absolutely need it to run our economy. Victoria has a proud history of energy generation. The region I represent, Eastern Victoria, has provided abundant energy for the state of Victoria that has helped us grow and prosper and be the great state that we are today. We know we cannot continue to burn coal in the way that we have. We know that generators that were built decades ago that are taking hundreds of millions of dollars for upkeep cannot continue to run. They cannot continue to run, so this is why the government has put in place a plan to transition our electricity supply, and it is one that we are doing.
We are meeting all of our targets. We are exceeding our targets, which is why we are bringing our targets forward. Minister D’Ambrosio has ensured that investors have had a clear path and security around their investment in this state, so that we are now in a position with the 5000 jobs that have occurred over the last decade as our energy generation from renewable sources has lifted and lifted to a point where about 40 per cent of the grid is coming from renewable sources. We are here because we have a plan, and Mr Davis just made a comment before about that. That is exactly why we are here, and we are continuing on our plan to, in 11 years time, be at 95 per cent renewable generation into the grid.
The opposition want to talk about gas. It is clearly stated that there is not the supply of gas. There is not the conventional gas supply to supply the state. You can kick this issue down the road as long as you want, whether it might be five years or 10 years. You can go and rip up farms, you can poison aquifers, you can take our prime agricultural land and rip it to shreds through your ideological beliefs, but at some point that gas will run out, whereas sunshine hitting panels, wind hitting turbines and water moving through hydro – whatever renewable source it might be – can power us as long as we have got sunshine hitting this earth.
And the economics speak for themselves. Even if on that side you want to ignore the science of climate change, that is fine. But around the world in 2023 there were more renewables installed than the entirety of nuclear generation capacity. We will not get into nuclear just yet, but more renewables were installed around the world. Governments around the world are seizing the opportunity of renewables – Western countries and emerging nations – because it makes economic sense. When we are talking about our economy, we have the dollars and cents. You cannot have them overrun by ideology.
In Victoria we have set this goal, as I have said. We are verging on 40 per cent renewable generation. We have the cheapest wholesale rate in Australia. We have South Australia and Tasmania with incredibly high renewable penetration into their grids following us. We have our Victorian default offer, which is $300 less than other states – or 16 per cent less. So we are seeing that the plan we are delivering is working. For our state, for our continued prosperity, we have to get on and deliver electricity to this state. I am sorry to be rude, but Victorians do not trust the Liberal Party to deliver on it, because you have been ideologically driven for over two decades on this item. I will come back to the state, but very briefly, federally there were 10 years where nothing happened, and here there were four years between 2010 and 2014 where nothing happened. I mean, basically nothing happened in the whole state, but on renewables, wind turbines –
David Davis: On a point of order, Deputy President, this is a debate about a planning scheme amendment revocation. It is not an opportunity for a broad attack on the opposition.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I think we have had a fair bit of debate about the narrowness of this motion this afternoon, so I would ask the member just to return to the motion, please.
Tom McINTOSH: Absolutely. On planning, between 2010 and 2014 wind turbines were basically erased by the Liberal Party. Actions on renewable energy targets, energy generation and energy efficiency were basically erased.
This is too important to Victoria not to get this right. In Europe they are bringing in trade tariffs. Trade tariffs are coming in, and our exports need to be able to enter those markets. As more nations and continents around the world enter into similar systems, we do not want to be isolated like we have been with automotive vehicles, where it is us and Russia left buying the most expensive-to-run vehicles in the world. We have $90 billion of investment ready to go – 15,000 jobs in renewables. We need to keep the power flowing for Victoria.
I spoke this morning on another bill on energy that the opposition Shadow Minister for Energy, Affordability and Security brought forward, which was nonsensical and not something that we could even get to. Not to be personal to the opposition shadow minister, but the Liberal Party, federal or state, show time and time again they are unable to engage on energy discussion, debate or planning in a meaningful way. With an abundant supply of cheap, affordable energy – which is what renewable energy is because you do not have a resource cost to power, whether it be solar panels or wind or hydro or other items – it makes the power more affordable.
It is interesting to hear Mr Davis’s language around ‘nasty,’ ‘authoritarian’ and ‘undemocratic’, because to me what I think about with that is the placement of nuclear reactors into Anglesea, into Morwell or into wherever else that might occur. This ideological drive to go to an incredibly more expensive and an incredibly slow to build system that has incredible waste, as opposed to sticking with the path and with the plan that we are delivering, just absolutely shows through.
When we talk about planning, I do not know if those opposite have too much credibility. Look at the likes of Fishermans Bend, where there were a lot of questions, where community was the last consideration of those in charge and where land for schools was not purchased. When Labor came into government, we had to purchase that land at inflated rates to build schools for communities. So I do not think those opposite have a leg to stand on when it comes to planning.
The opposition talk about this and somehow try to tie it in as bad for regional Victorians. Regional Victorians are seeing jobs. Farmers are able to diversify their income. I do not understand why the conservatives are so absolutely gung-ho on blocking farmers from diversifying their income. You do not want them generating off their land. You do not want them making income from this incredible opportunity that is here. We have talked about the generation of jobs and the billions of dollars of investment, and you want to put red tape in the way of farmers and say, ‘No, no, no.’ The noalition are against it. You want a couple of centralised big nuclear plants on private land that will –
David Davis: I never said that. I never said anything of the sort.
Tom McINTOSH: So are you against nuclear, Mr Davis?
David Davis: I’ve never said that there was a particular penchant for it.
Tom McINTOSH: Okay. That is very vague. We will just stick with the Liberals’ position on nuclear for now, as that has neither been denied nor confirmed by Mr Davis. The key point is: the government is delivering the energy that Victoria needs, delivering the jobs that Victoria needs and delivering the income that regional Victorians need.
Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:55): It is a great pleasure to rise to speak in support of the motion on VC261. If ever a saying were true, perhaps it was no more than with this debate today – that is, ‘The ends justify the means.’ Clearly that is the approach this government takes because, as other speakers have said already today, to strip away in such a bold and undemocratic way the rights of ordinary Victorians to have their say on projects is scandalous; it is actually quite scandalous. I think what I find most disappointing about VC261 is that it actually impacts those Victorians who are the poorest – the workers. It is ironic that yet again we have a Labor government in this state which is prepared to attack the workers of this state and prepared to attack poor people, because there is no way on earth they will be able to afford the kind of money it would take to challenge the kinds of matters that would be under review by the minister in such a case in the Supreme Court. By withdrawing the right of ordinary, everyday Victorian citizens to appeal to VCAT you effectively withdraw their right to appeal at all. That should be taken very seriously. In fact stick around long enough and you soon learn in politics that although the other side argued vehemently against this kind of thing some decades ago, they sit here now and put forward the same kind of policies. It is ironic. It would be more ironic, perhaps even funny, if it were not serious and were not true. But it is true.
VC261 was gazetted on 4 April and tabled in this house on 18 April. Perhaps what makes it even more serious and more disturbing is the fact that, as my colleague Mr Davis has pointed out, the projects that receive this special treatment from the minister do not even need to ‘stack up’. That is quite true. While this is being done under the guise of what is good for Victorians – that is, what is good for the environment and therefore good for the Victorian people – there is no requirement that it actually do what is intended or that people say it will do. Isn’t that an ironic situation to find ourselves in – for the projects that are put forward by corporates, because the corporates say so, the government will simply accept that they do so. What an embarrassment. What a very sad situation we find ourselves in.
I heard members opposite also remarking that it will ‘save time’. Since when did the Victorian Labor Party see democracy and fair process – due process – as such an expedient commodity?
Nick McGOWAN: The answer, as I am offered here by my colleague Mr Davis, is for quite a long time – in fact the entire time of this government. That is the truth. They might not have shown it at first, but certainly in the years that have followed and as we go on, with every year it becomes more and more breathtaking. Here we have yet another example where they take away more rights of the Victorian people, who were already reeling after COVID-19 and who were already reeling after this government took away their right to privacy regarding their own health medical records, with not an ability in this state to be able to actually withdraw their consent in that respect. This is a continuation of these attacks on the people of Victoria – attacks in the form of a government which says, ‘You no longer have this right. We will decide what is good for you.’ Then if the minister puts this kind of decision-making in the hands of a panel, as those of us who have had something – perhaps even just a little – to do with the planning process know, guess what, the minister does not even have to listen to the panel. The minister can absolutely ignore, and has under this government and previous Labor governments ignored, the advice of the panel. Furthermore, this VC261, the planning scheme amendment, puts the Allan Labor government on a collision course with the federal government, because of course the federal government do have certain aspects of their guidelines and requirements that ensure that there is an opportunity for the public to comment.
I understand that they were not happy with the wind terminal project at the Port of Hastings and the outcome there, but to ram through, to undemocratically declare and decree – because that is what we are talking about here, a decree – that the people of Victoria shall no longer have rights where the minister sees fit and your only right of appeal is to the Supreme Court, which is exceedingly expensive and prohibitively so to most ordinary Victorians, is a disgrace. The members opposite on the Labor benches ought to be ashamed of themselves. It is almost like the poacher has turned gamekeeper. Put another way, the Minister for Planning will become the judge, jury and executioner, and there is no guarantee whatsoever that the people of Victoria will benefit in any way, shape or form. It is that serious.
My colleagues here on this side – Mr Davis, Mrs McArthur and even Mrs Deeming – have all pointed in the same direction. It does not matter whether you are in suburban Melbourne or whether you are in the furthest reaches of country and regional Victoria, you will be impacted by the stripping of your basic and fundamental right to have a say on planning applications. No-one in this place is saying that they do not want to have projects which help and assist our environment. No-one in this place is saying that we do not want to support some form of decarbonisation. To conflate the two is a misnomer, it is mischievous, and it is plain wrong. The smart people in the room know that. Nonetheless, here we find ourselves yet again with this government using its numbers and unashamedly ramming through planning scheme amendments one after the other which slowly but surely whittle the rights of ordinary Victorians away.
We should mark this day and this date in our diaries because, sadly, it is yet another example of when the Labor government has betrayed what was once upon a time its own base, the very people who supported it. I will quote from the minister, just so it is clear that these are not my words and my words alone. She said:
… third parties will not be notified of the proposed amendment or be provided with an opportunity to make submissions on the amendment or be heard by a panel.
Wow, it does not get any more serious than that. For all the carping, for all the moaning, for all the legitimate complaining, for all the reasonable concerns that were put forward for successive governments previously, for this government to now step in and essentially, not only essentially but actually say and actually make into practice and reality through VC261 the jettisoning of the basic appeal rights which Victorians have known up until this point, what ensured that they were also delivered due process and ensured that it was a fair process has been completely trashed.
As Mrs McArthur said, country folk, farmers, regional people, regional towns should be concerned, because they will be on the front line when it comes to these kinds of projects, and they will be the first to understand the true impact that VC261 will deliver. It will have them left out in the cold. It will have them without a say. It is a sad outcome. It is an outcome that will not be realised for some time – perhaps months, maybe years – but when it does come, the people of Victoria will realise what has been done here. Perhaps they will look back to Hansard and perhaps they will look back to this moment and reflect that perhaps they could have done more to stop it in the first place. I can only hope that in two years time they do much more to stop this kind of legislation passing ever again, and that were we to form government we would actually address that.
Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:04): I rise to make a contribution on the motion that Mr Davis has moved, which would seek to revoke the planning scheme amendment made by the Minister for Planning, VC261, which effectively enables more renewable energy projects in Victoria to be completed and will assist with the very necessary and so far very successful transition that is underway in the Victorian energy sector as we move away from our reliance, our dependence, on coal-fired and carbon emission intensive electricity generation towards a renewable energy future. It is not a transition that we have a choice about; it is a transition that is a reality. The reality that climate change caused by pollution in our atmosphere is having on our planet is undeniable – we accept that on this side of the chamber. This government understands and accepts that our climate is changing, and one of the big contributors to climate change is carbon pollution, which historically a very significant part of our energy generation sector has contributed to, and that is our coal-fired power stations.
The other reality that we accept is that many of these coal-fired power stations are reaching the end of their lives. They are coming to the end of their cycle; they are approaching closure. So the prudent thing for government to do is to make sure that we have got plans in place to transition our energy sector so that when those coal-fired power stations reach the end of their lives we have got replacement sources of energy to keep the lights on here in Victoria, and that is fundamentally what the government’s policy framework, of which this planning scheme amendment is a part, is designed to do. It is designed to bring cheaper, more reliable renewable energy into our grid to keep the lights on and to keep downward pressure on electricity prices here in Victoria. We know that that is what we should be doing, because the steps we have been taking so far to do that are working.
Not only is Victoria decarbonising our electricity generation sector at the fastest rate of any jurisdiction in the country, we have got the strongest climate change legislation in the country, and we have got the support of Victorians to do it. Victorians have endorsed the policy approach to energy. Victorians have repeatedly endorsed the approach to renewable energy transition. They have supported the targets that we have put into legislation, because not only do they know that is it important for ensuring we have reliability in our electricity sector, they know that it is important to put downward pressure on prices, because, unlike the proposals to put nuclear energy into our sector which are supported by the Liberal Party, which would be the most expensive form of energy that we have got – the Liberal Party’s nuclear power is the most expensive form of power – what we see with renewables are cheap forms of power coming into our grid, putting downward pressure on power prices.
The planning scheme amendments that the motion before us today seeks to revoke effectively expand the development facilitation program to include renewable energy projects within the scope of that project’s approval processes, which is in line with other state-significant economic development projects that operate in a range of areas.
We know that there is a lot of investment in the pipeline into renewable energy in this state. The policy settings that this government has put in place and that this government is supporting have been embraced by those seeking to invest in future forms of energy generation. There is $90 billion worth of investment in renewable projects in the project development pipeline, and it is estimated that that $90 billion of investment will create around 15,000 jobs for our state. That is a huge amount of benefit that awaits us if we have the policy settings that are correct to ensure that the pipeline turns into a reality. That is exactly what this proposal and the planning scheme amendments that were put in place by the Minister for Planning seek to do and what the revocation motion seeks to stop. The revocation motion would seek to throw a spanner in the works of that $90 billion worth of investment in renewable energy projects and stop those 15,000 prospective jobs coming into the Victorian economy.
One of the things that we heard in the debate earlier today was that this is somehow going to fundamentally strip out important parts of the planning and development process, but it is not doing that. It is not doing that at all. What are required as steps in the assessment process remain. If you need to do an environment effects statement, you will still need to do an environment effects statement. If projects need to do a cultural heritage management plan, they will still need to do a cultural heritage management plan. If you need to consider biodiversity, agriculture or landscape impacts that have to be assessed in accordance with relevant policy and decision guidelines, they will still be required to be done. The thoroughness of the matters taken into account in making the decisions remains the same. What changes is the time frames. What changes is the speed with which these decisions can be made.
What it does not do is allow unacceptable projects to be approved, because those unacceptable projects would not meet the guidelines and would not meet the planning frameworks under the Planning and Environment Act 1987. All of the relevant matters that are required to be considered now will still be required to be considered in the future, and Victorians will still be able to have their say. People will still be able under the planning scheme to make their voices heard and have their positions put, but they will not be able to use objections that have been resolved or dealt with through the planning process. They will be unable to take those to VCAT during the final notice-of-decision stage, a mechanism that is being used by a very select few to frustrate renewable energy projects and slow down the transition that we need to make in our energy sector, slow down the delivery of new renewable energy and slow down the jobs that will flow as a result.
What this planning scheme amendment will try and prevent are the one-in-five renewable projects that end up getting stuck in VCAT and at the end of that process overwhelmingly get approved. Overwhelmingly the outcome of the decisions at VCAT is that the projects are approved in accordance with planning guidance and planning guidelines. The only thing that happens is that it takes us several years to get to that point. We cannot slow down our energy transition. We cannot stop the effects of climate change unless we decarbonise our economy. What this does is remove roadblocks from the planning process, remove the ability of a few to throw a spanner in the works of the approvals processes, which slows down project approvals and stops renewable energy coming into the grid.
We have an important set of renewable energy targets here in Victoria. They are critical to making sure that we have both cheaper and cleaner power into the future. What we see by some is a series of objections both to any progress but then also to specific projects, and as a state our economy and households cannot afford for our energy transition to be unduly delayed. It is far too important. Our renewable energy targets are far too important. We are making excellent progress. We are ahead. We have been ahead of our renewable energy targets for the last few years. The momentum that we have built up in this state needs to continue. We need to complete this energy transition towards a renewable future, and these planning scheme amendments will help us do that.
David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (16:14): This is an important revocation motion. This is dealing with a planning overreach by the state government. We all accept that there is a need for renewables. We all accept that there are targets. We all accept that there will be, long term, a declining involvement of coal and we all accept that there will be a need for new energy sources, including, particularly, renewable energy.
That does mean significant planning challenges and it does mean significant challenges to ensure that those projects are brought forward. But the best projects are going to be brought forward where there is proper process. The best projects are going to be brought forward where there is community support. The best projects are going to be the ones where the government and the proponents – sometimes government, sometimes not – go forward with a proper series of engagements with community and where social licence is actually enhanced rather than overridden. The problem is this government has built a very negative perception across the community already. The VNI West and a number of the other projects and a number of the renewable projects around wind and indeed solar have been poorly managed. There has been significant community opposition and significant community pushback because the communities feel that they have been ridden roughshod over by state government and planning and other approval decisions. We need a proper process. We do not need a process that removes the normal rights and privileges. We actually need a process that goes forward and urgently and in an early fashion engages with communities. Proponents need to be supported and encouraged by government to go and engage with communities from the earliest point and to devise ways to deliver these projects without the antagonism, without the angst that has been so much a part of them.
This specific proposal, VC261, strips away the normal planning processes and strips out the checks and the balances that are part of those normal planning processes. It is fundamentally undemocratic, it is draconian and it is a set of steps that is a bridge too far, in my humble view. We should use the powers that are in the Planning and Environment Act 1987 that allow either house to disallow planning scheme amendments – in this case under section 38; using those powers, we should disallow this planning scheme amendment that Sonya Kilkenny as minister has put in place. Ministers, at the end of the day, should not be omnipotent, should not have the powers of God; they should have the powers of decision-making men and women. Those decision-making powers need to be checked and they need to be balanced, and that is why we need a proper process. I am deeply concerned at the turn that has occurred with many of the government’s major project approaches, stripping out the checks and balances and leading to worse land use decisions, which are going to be a part of the future of the state for many decades and perhaps 100 years forward in some cases. That is what is being replicated in this unfortunate set of decisions around VC261. I urge the chamber to support my revocation motion.
Council divided on motion:
Ayes (17): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Renee Heath, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Adem Somyurek, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch
Noes (20): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt
Motion negatived.