TRANSCRIPT:
I rise today to speak on the Climate Change and Energy Legislation Amendment (Renewable Energy and Storage Targets) Bill 2023, a bill that we do not oppose. The bill makes amendments to the Climate Change Act 2017, Planning and Environment Act 1987 and Renewable Energy (Jobs and Investment) Act 2017.
The amendments to the Climate Change Act alter the act’s title to the Climate Action Act 2017; bring forward the long-term emissions reductions target for net zero greenhouse gas emissions from 2050 to 2045; and legislate interim emissions reduction targets of 28 per cent to 33 per cent by 2025, 45 per cent to 50 per cent by 2030 and 75 per cent to 80 per cent by 2035. The amendments to the Planning and Environment Act require consideration of climate change when certain planning decisions are made about the use and development of land under the act and for other purposes. This includes greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and increasing climate resilience, as well as providing the minister with some discretion and direct planning authorities in meeting the above. The amendments to the Renewable Energy (Jobs and Investment) Act increase the renewable energy target for 2030 from 50 per cent to 65 per cent. This means that the government will now aim to have 65 per cent of electricity generated by renewable energy sources or by converting renewable energy sources into electricity by 2030 – ‘aim’ being the main word in that sentence. They introduce a renewable energy target of 95 per cent by 2035, an energy storage target of 2.6 gigawatts by 2030 and 6.3 gigawatts by 2036 and offshore wind energy targets of not less than 2 gigawatts by 2032, and there is a bit more detail which you have all heard so I will not repeat it.
While I do understand the need for addressing emissions and renewable energy targets in our state, there still remains far too many concerns with energy supply and reliability, particularly in regional areas like my electorate. It was incredibly unfortunate seeing much of our state left without power following extreme weather recently. While this has been an enormous impact on people right across Victoria, this has been what parts of my electorate like Euroa, Longwood, Violet Town, Ruffy, Nagambie and Strathbogie have been dealing with for over four months now, if not years. Barely a week after an outage on Christmas Eve affected 2200 customers, the region was hit by another major outage on 2 January lasting up to three days for some of the 2150 customers impacted. In the two months following that outage there were a further 17 unplanned outages in the town of Euroa alone. Residents in some of the worst-hit towns in my region say they experienced up to 90 hours of power outages in January and December with cuts ranging from several hours to several days in some cases. Of those outages reported throughout summer, just a fraction were blamed on the weather. There have been outages when it is cold, outages when it is hot, outages when it is dry, outages when it is wet, outages when it is windy, calm and still. There is more than just a weather issue. Many of the issues in my region are due to there being a single line of supply running from Benalla to Violet Town through to Euroa and spreading out across the surrounding region, traversing 1200 kilometres of powerlines running off the longest feeder line in the state.
One disruption can cut off 5000 homes from electricity. Despite the fact that this supply line has been known as the most problematic in the state since the 1970s, nothing has been done to correct the problem. Upgrading this infrastructure is essential and will go a long way to preventing the frequency of these outages. People’s health and safety, their ability to operate a business and their general wellbeing are all significantly compromised when there is a lack of reliable power.
I have listened to the distress of residents with a disability being stuck in their motorised chairs; people unable to get their car out of their garage during a crisis; pensioners with expensive medication unable to be refrigerated and expiring; people with sleep apnoea tormented nightly, unable to sleep without a working machine; and businesses going broke because they cannot operate.
Since the outages began in my region I have met with more than 300 impacted community members at local town hall meetings. I have met with the AusNet CEO and the Minister for Energy and Resources to discuss how this matter can be improved and also how this dangerously poor service delivery can even be acceptable in the first place. I will continue to put pressure on AusNet and this government to ensure residents in my region are not left in the dark as these outages continue. During these meetings I gladly shared a binder featuring all the personal stories that residents had shared about the outages, including information from recent petitions. I hope both AusNet and members of the state government have had a serious read about the significant impact this issue is having. Sharing the personal toll that these outages were having on our community was so important, and there are more I would like to share briefly now.
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Natalie in Euroa told me:
My concerns aren’t just for myself but for the elderly, especially those living by themselves. I have a number of neighbours I check on every time the power goes out as they lose all contact because their phones go down and they don’t drive. There are many vulnerable citizens in our area that deserve better, and while many have bought generators, it’s just not possible for some to do this. It worries me that I won’t always be home myself to check on these dear people in my community, and what will they do if they need help? It is long overdue for upgrades.
Irene in Euroa said:
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I use a CPAP machine for sleep apnoea, and I suffer dreadfully the next day from fatigue and brain fog when the power goes off during the night and I am unable to use the machine. My neighbour, who also uses a CPAP machine, sits up all night when the power is out as he is too fearful to sleep without the machine as he might die. For so many our health and general wellbeing are suffering.
Irene is one of 20 people I have spoken to about the torment of not having a working CPAP machine.
Liv in Longwood said:
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The experience of repeated power and mobile outages has both been frustrating and almost unbelievable in this day and age. I have lived and worked in remote rural communities throughout South Australia, central Queensland and Victoria in the past, and never experienced the number of power outages I have in the last seven months since moving to Longwood.
Judith in Nagambie said:
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My husband is quite disabled and suffering from terminal cancer. Our main issue with the constant power outages is that we lose all our phone and internet connection. AusNet advised to keep our phones charged, which we do, but this doesn’t help when the whole system goes down. As we are elderly, in our 80s, and have health issues, this becomes quite stressful and frightening. We have been promised upgrades constantly over the past few years, to no avail.
Ross in Violet Town said he recently moved from Melbourne to Violet Town and works from home for a global organisation. He said:
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I’ve been here for just over a month, and the power outages have been numerous and causing some honest for my employer.
When I say the outages are dangerous, I am not exaggerating. The ongoing power outages in my region have highlighted how dependent our community is on a reliable energy supply as well as showing the serious risks that come into play when outages happen. With our phone lines and internet connections being impacted, emergency services like CFA and SES have struggled to communicate and respond to emergencies. We saw the same thing happen when the floods caused havoc on the energy supply in previous years. Residents are unable to contact each other and are left in the dark as they struggle without power, light and in many cases water or a regular food supply.
Sadly the solution is not as simple as asking everyone to use a generator. Hospitals like Euroa Health are running off generators in order to provide essential health services to the region; however, they require diesel to run them. Most fuel stations in the region do not have their own generators, and their bowsers have been rendered useless when the power is out. This is forcing the hospitals to travel long distances to larger towns that are still able to keep their petrol stations open. It is ludicrous.
We had situations this summer where local brigades were not able to be notified of nearby fires and residents were not getting critical emergency warnings. Locals were literally required to walk outside, hope the wind was blowing in the right direction and smell the air to see if there were bushfires nearby. This is simply not acceptable and not sustainable. It has to be fixed, and it is a matter of urgency.
In Victoria a recent study shows that electricity prices have increased by 28 per cent compared with July 2022 prices. It also reports that in Victoria gas prices have increased nearly 100 per cent, and 170 per cent since 2009. These rises are hard to justify when people within my electorate are not even able to get reliable power, as they deal with outages every other day. This is having a significant impact on rapidly increasing cost-of-living pressures, which are already made worse by outages. They are shutting down businesses, eating into food storage and preventing residents from being able to work from home. Addressing our unstable power system must happen soon, and preferably through a public and transparent inquiry.
These are just a few of the hundreds of responses I have received directly from members of my local community. As you can see, the issues and impacts felt by these outages are varied, but all are equally concerning and there are far too many, forcing my community to live in dangerous and unhealthy conditions, whether it is loss of business, risk to health or general stress and impact on wellbeing. These outages must stop, and our energy reliability must improve.