Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In August last year, Minister Bowen announced six proposed regions for offshore renewable infrastructure, including 'the Southern Ocean region off Portland in Victoria'. Until recently, I'm not sure knew this zone also included South Australia. In fact, according to a BlueFloat proposal, the 77 wind turbines will only be located off the coast South Australia, at Port Macdonnell, often referred to as the southern rock lobster capital of Australia. While the minister stood in Portland recently, boasting of how this project would power eight million Victorian homes and produce energy for Portland's industries, I'm not sure that he gave much thought to the community of Port Macdonnell, just 90 kilometres away, who will see absolutely none of the very expensive power generated but will potentially lose their sustainable fishing and lobster industry and tourism industry and have long-term damage to the marine environment.

Despite my requests for the minister to come to visit Port Macdonnell and see firsthand the coastline and hear firsthand from the community, I'm here instead in Canberra with a delegation from Port Macdonnell to meet with the minister at his convenience. I facilitated this because it's vitally important that the views of the community are heard not just by the department but by the minister. Let's hope he now has a better understanding of this proposal, where it is and the people it'll impact.