I rise today to speak on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. This legislation touches on a key point of division within our community, a key point which has made my community members feel like their voice has not been heard – that you have a government that is simply trying to railroad through energy infrastructure into our region without an appropriate opportunity for people to have their say. I am continuing to receive messages and emails and verbal feedback from my constituents that they feel completely shut out from this process. This is disturbing when we have got a large-scale, government-funded organisation named VicGrid that has got this imperative set out by the Allan Labor government that they must do this, but it is more about the outcome than it is about taking local people along for that journey and also giving them an opportunity to have their say.
Country people are enormously passionate people. They are pragmatic, and they know that when things are not as they should be, they will call them out. But that does not mean that VicGrid should shy away and cut them out from their opportunity to be able to have their say. I want to share an example in the house of how poorly the announcements of the REZs, the renewable energy zones, have been handled by VicGrid across the west of the state, particularly in relation to the addition of the Dundas Tablelands to the south-west renewable energy zone. At no point in time have the entire community within the Dundas Tablelands been notified that they are within the south-west REZ. This has been fed back through VicGrid on a number of occasions. There was an instance where a single leaflet was dropped to some community members, but the vast majority have received nothing. There has been no consultation with the local community, and while there was a single meeting which not many people knew about, and some of the local people were promised a summary of the community feedback, two months later they are still waiting for that information to be provided. Submissions on this renewable energy zone close on 15 March, and so time is ticking. This community needs to be included in the process. It is unfair and I believe it is undemocratic not to listen to them.
They have some really important local issues around what a renewable energy zone would mean in that area. For those of you who have not visited the south-west, the Dundas Tablelands, I urge you to go out and do so because it is home to some of the most beautiful country you will see in the state. There are enormous river red gums. There are undulating hills. There are creeks feeding into beautiful river systems that are largely untouched. These are areas that are not consistent with putting turbines in their midst. It is not the home of extensive transmission lines. It is not on Victoria’s grid.
It is somewhere which has been home to some of the most productive pastoral land in this state. It simply would not be possible to put infrastructure like turbines in some of that area without taking these massive river red gums, these very important 100-year old trees, out of our environment. It is simply not compatible with a renewable energy zone. I quote Claire Wettenhall, who recently contacted me. She stated:
This is an entirely unfair situation for the landholders within this new area of the proposed south-west zone. How can it be a fair and proper process if the community is not even aware it is happening? So I ask this Parliament and all parliamentarians who are listening to this to take this message on board – speak to our community, because there are significant barriers in rolling out renewable energy in parts of this state.
Please do not think about regional Victoria as a place where not many people live and therefore all of that land is open to infrastructure and development, because that simply is not the case. It does not matter whether it is through the Dundas Tablelands and that south-west renewable energy zone or any of the other renewable energy zones in the west of the state, there simply has not been enough involvement and listening to the community. We have even seen legislation through this place related to VicGrid and the VNI West infrastructure project which Labor have introduced that imposes a financial penalty for farmers who, for even simple reasons like protecting the biosecurity on their property, say no to government employees coming on their land. That is a step too far.
There are enormous issues with the rollout of VNI West, and as I stated in my adjournment matter last night, I call on the government to recognise that there are serious issues with that infrastructure. That project must be stopped immediately so that a proper process can be followed and evaluate how much that project will actually cost. How much will the cost, which will be put on energy bills for every single Victorian family and for every single Victorian business, be? How much are they going to have to pay for this project? Because it started off as $7 billion. It is now $11 billion. It is projected to be $20 billion, and we still do not have landholders signed up to it yet. The cost just keeps increasing. This is not taxpayer dollars; it is pushing up the cost of living and the cost of energy bills in this state.
There is a much easier solution in the meantime while you work out what happens with the resilience of the grid, and that is to upgrade the existing lines. We know the lines in western Victoria are aged and brittle and send energy in the wrong direction. It is for that reason that I believe the government should get on with upgrading those existing lines, and of course that would have a flow-on benefit for every single Victorian. Those Victorians who want lower energy bills would get them because there would be less infrastructure required, and there are already existing easements in the west of the state if you look at doing that job first. If your focus is you want to see more renewables in this state, then upgrade the existing lines, because there is far more renewable capacity able to come online by upgrading the existing infrastructure in the west of the state than there would be unlocked through VNI West. It stacks up on every metric, and particularly for people who are farming, where agriculture has always been the jewel in the crown and the driver of Victoria’s economy. That is what we need to see. We need to see that we have agriculture put front and centre for these sorts of decisions, which are around how we use our land and how we prioritise agriculture in this state.
To put agriculture to the side and not give it priority, not consider it as part of the planning process, is negligent by any government. It is negligent of the Labor government to just ignore agriculture and how important it is as a driver of the Victorian economy. That is why the Liberals and Nationals have committed to ensuring that we prioritise and recognise the value of agricultural land as part of planning processes to roll out any project across the state. We do an environment effects study; we value that, and we should too. We do a cultural heritage study to ensure we look at the cultural heritage. We should also value our agricultural land and make sure that that is included in our assessments on where major infrastructure is rolled out and how there are changes to land use across our state.
We have committed to that policy of making sure that agricultural land is protected and that agricultural producers are included in the conversation, but more importantly, we want to make sure we go back to first principles. Let us make sure that all Victorians can access reliable energy.
Let us make sure that all Victorians know what they are going to be charged at the end of the day and that they do not have the cost of energy infrastructure quietly put onto their energy bills and see their bills go up and up and up. As the member for Brighton stated, our energy should be affordable. Without having affordable energy, we are just going to see the cost-of-living pressures and the cost of doing business in Victoria continue to increase. The Nationals and the Liberals understand this. We have got policy which is consistent on delivering for rural and regional Victorians when it comes to energy infrastructure, looking at how we can make sure we can bring online cheap, affordable and reliable energy infrastructure, and that is what we will stand for each and every day.
While this bill is debated I urge government members to consider some of the challenges that are happening in rural and regional Victoria. Farms are not simply vacant blocks that are ready to put whatever infrastructure you want on there. They are very, very important for our Victorian environment. They are very, very important drivers of the Victorian economy. They are supporting very important communities that may not be as big as Melbourne, but they are the heart and soul of Victoria. They are pragmatic people. They should be heard. They are coming to the table with solutions. But please give them an opportunity to be part of that conversation, because at the moment there is wilful negligence and wilful ignorance of key issues, which are going to make it impossible for these projects to go ahead without there being a significant impact both on the environment and on our net agricultural land in this state.