Wednesday, 28 August 2024

Motions

Electricity infrastructure

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (17:06): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes:

(a) the Victoria to New South Wales Interconnector West (VNI West) and West Link transmission lines are proposed to be built in Northern and Western Victoria by Transmission Company Victoria (TCV) and VicGrid;

(b) the significant community opposition to these high-voltage powerlines;

(c) the powerlines propose to cross valuable agricultural land which plays a significant role in Victoria’s agricultural production and agricultural exports;

(d) the Paris agreement, a legally binding international treaty adopted by 196 parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France, on 12 December 2015, states at article 2 that the agreement aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by ‘Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development, in a manner that does not threaten food production’;

(2) is of the view that:

(a) the consultation process by TCV and VicGrid has been inadequate;

(b) the impact of the proposed transmission lines on remnant vegetation at certain sensitive locations must be fully and transparently assessed; and

(3) supports detailed independent examination and economic assessment of the impact of the proposed transmission lines on agricultural production, including on individual properties, prior to the granting of any permits or the signing of deals with landholders.

I and many others have had significant contact with the hundreds, indeed thousands, of people in country Victoria who are to be impacted by these high-voltage powerlines and the matters surrounding them. The concerns that people have raised are legitimate concerns. The concerns that have been raised by so many people relate to the future of their community and relate to the future of their property.

Victoria’s biggest export is agricultural products, and indeed we heard today in the chamber and elsewhere one of our other export industries, education, is going to be hit by changes put in place by the federal government. The importance of agriculture cannot be overstated, either the direct export of agricultural products or the value-adding that often occurs with our agricultural products. The government would cover large swathes of Victoria with these high-voltage transmission lines and the renewable energy zones, and I will have more to say about those on future occasions, but on this occasion I am particularly interested in the high-voltage lines that have been proposed by government.

The government’s behaviour through the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Transmission Company Victoria and VicGrid has been very, very ordinary indeed. Individuals have been bullied, individuals have been pressured and individuals have been treated very, very poorly indeed. I think the community is entitled to be angry. The community is entitled to be standing up and saying to the government, ‘Whatever your proposal, it should be put in a way that’s not going to damage our community and that’s not going to damage the quality of our agricultural land.’ This government has not given those guarantees and not gone about it in this way. They have gone about this in a high-handed way, imposing these changes. We saw the National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid) Bill 2024 go through this Parliament recently with a whole swathe of new powers. It will give the government in Victoria and AEMO indeed additional powers to ride roughshod over local communities, over landholders, and to do so in a way where they can simply thumb their nose at what local communities want.

Mrs McArthur has been fighting very hard on this. Mr McCracken has been fighting very hard on this. Others in northern Victoria, Mrs Broad and others, have been fighting very hard on this as well, trying to make sure that their local communities have a fair say and that their local communities are in a position to advocate and to put forward their best proposals and best ways to resolve these issues. But the truth is the government is not listening. The minister is not listening. The government’s agency, VicGrid, is not listening. The national agency, AEMO, is not listening. We know the impact that this is having on local communities. It is causing division in local communities, and the government is in the process of deciding what it is going to do, allegedly with consultation, but we know that the government is not listening to the community. The government is actually just pushing forward in a very unsatisfactory way.

I put on record my thanks to a number of the people in the north-west, coming from Jeffcott down south and further, that hosted me and Mrs McArthur the other day, particularly Marcia McIntyre but others as well who were generous enough to spend time with us to show us some of the issues that are developing. The intrusive nature of these large-scale wires is something to behold. These are very, very large. They will impact tourism, they will impact the property values of people in those areas and they will impact the ability to undertake a whole series of agricultural production techniques. We engaged closely with a number of landholders who pointed to very specific impacts that this will have on agricultural land. I will not get time to detail those today given the shortness of time, but I will use additional time on the next sitting day to actually make sure that I do get all of those agricultural impacts on the record and understood by the community.

There are fire risks. We went to the CFA and heard from CFA brigades about a number of issues that are there. We heard today in the chamber the minister deny that there is any prospect that a high-voltage line will cause a fire. Well, I am not convinced. When I read the evidence from the New South Wales inquiry it is clear that there is a substantial risk, and there is a legitimate debate between knowledgeable people about that risk. But where there is no doubt relates to the issue of firefighting. How on earth do you fight a fire under those wires? How do you take up water and drop it onto territory through some of these areas? There are significant impacts, and there are setbacks and requirements for firefighters to stay away from those high-voltage wires.

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.