Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) recognises that:

(a) regional Australia is playing a vital role in hosting the infrastructure needed to facilitate the energy transition;

(b) there is a patchwork of community engagement and benefit obligations across and within states that makes it difficult for regional communities to know what to expect when dealing with renewable energy proponents;

(c) regional communities have varying experiences engaging with renewable energy proponents, with some proponents undertaking best practice community engagement and others, poor or absent engagement; and

(d) poor community engagement and benefit processes are bad for communities, and undermine the energy transition;

(2) notes that:

(a) the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) data centres has increased national awareness of the importance of community benefit for communities impacted by new largescale infrastructure developments; and

(b) regional communities have been calling for a fair share of community benefits commensurate to their role in hosting Australia's energy transition, long before this conversation started about AI data centres; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) establish a permanent, nationally consistent community benefit framework that sets out minimum mandatory community benefit contributions to be paid by renewable energy proponents to community benefit funds that:

(i) deliver intergenerational community benefit to regional communities who host their infrastructure; and

(ii) support local governments to navigate their increasing responsibilities in facilitating the energy transition; and

(b) assign the implementation and oversight responsibility for this framework to the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner.

Regional and rural Australia are playing a vital role in hosting the infrastructure that powers the energy transition, yet many rural communities feel overlooked. Too often, they feel the transitioning is happening to them, without seeing clear benefits flowing through as things like lower energy bills or investment in key local priorities.

Regional Australia is not antirenewable. Many people in the regions are embracing the opportunity. Farmers are increasingly hosting energy generation and storage projects to diversify their income and help them continue to farm. Local governments are working with proponents to create future funds and deliver infrastructure that would otherwise be out of reach. Households are taking up batteries at record pace through the cheaper home battery scheme, a policy that we drove from the electorate of Indi. More than two in three regional Australians believe local communities can benefit from hosting renewable energy generation projects, if done right. That's where the disquiet is right now. There's a patchwork of rules and requirements between and within states and territories, making it hard for communities to know the benefits that they can expect from renewable projects.

In Victoria, there are community engagement and social value guidelines, renewable energy zones community benefit plans and payments in lieu of rates. These are all different schemes and guidelines that determine what proponents pay to local communities and councils. But, in practice, two neighbours either side of a REZ border or state or territory border can face major differences in what proponents are expected to bring to the table when the system is this complicated. It's the communities, the regional communities, that lose out.

I hear time and time again that communities are frustrated. They can't see the long-term investment in their towns, and they're unsure how to secure lasting benefits from the energy transition. Right now, in my electorate of Indi, there's a proposal in Euroa that would power as many as 40,000 houses in Melbourne without addressing local reliability and brownouts. The council and the community are in discussions right now with the proponents to see if they can fix this. That's what I'm talking about.

My motion proposes a solution: it calls on the government to establish a permanent, nationally consistent community benefit framework with minimum mandatory contributions paid by renewable energy proponents to communities hosting their infrastructure. The details—including payment value, recipients and governance—should be developed with those regional communities, the Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, the proponents themselves of course, RDAs and all levels of government. But two principles must be included if this framework is to work.

First, funding must flow into the communities hosting renewable energy infrastructure. It should be flexible enough to support local priorities and deliver long-term intergenerational projects, projects that actually improve the quality of life for the people who live in that area. We can still see the legacy of the gold rush and the wool boom in regional infrastructure today, and this new era of regional resources should also leave a lasting legacy for good for future generations. It should look like cheaper power or investment in childcare services, reliable telecommunications or key-worker housing. And some of these things are already happening in places like Dubbo and Armidale.

Second, the framework should support local governments to manage their growing role in delivering the energy transition on the ground, because councils are under increasing pressure to manage community concerns and engage with proponents, yet they lack the funding, the staff and the specialist expertise required. So a portion of community benefit funding should help councils access that expertise. This will support better outcomes for those strapped councils, for the communities, for the proponents and, ultimately, for the nation in the energy transition.

By and large, renewable proponents also support minimum community benefit expectations. Only this month, the Clean Energy Council called for a consistent, permanent, minimum renewable resources payment, similar to a royalty, to help rebuild trust. When communities and proponents alike are calling for this solution, it's really time that the government listened.

I welcome the growing recognition that communities should benefit when they host major infrastructure, and this conversation has become more prominent recently in relation to the proposed AI data centres. As that debate continues, we must recognise that regional communities have long called for a fair share of benefits for the important role they play in hosting renewable energy infrastructure. We can't ignore reality: the energy transition is happening. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make sure we get it right, and we owe it to the regions to get it right.

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I second this motion and reserve my right to speak.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk about regional development and the enormous economic potential across the Northern Territory, and it goes to a few of the things that the previous speaker touched on. But the reality is that potential doesn't create jobs; investment does. The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility helps get projects off the ground in northern Australia, where distance, remoteness and higher infrastructure costs can make attracting that private investment all that much more difficult.

Under the Albanese Labor government, the NAIF is here to stay, extended for another decade, and we can see what that backing delivers. Arafura Rare Earths' Nolans project, 135 kilometres north of Alice Springs, is a good example. The Nolans project will mine and process rare earths, right here in Australia. The NAIF has been instrumental in making Nolans a reality, helping to unlock around 600 construction jobs and 350 ongoing jobs. That means jobs for Territorians, opportunities for local businesses and regional development.

But that Commonwealth investment needs to be matched by delivery from the CLP NT government. Its own budget papers show net capital investment was underspent by $376 million in the 2025-26 financial year.

I've been advocating for a Territory economic development zone, to bring together investment in infrastructure, housing and, importantly, workforce measures, to get projects moving and to unlock more private investment—and I do welcome the NT Chief Minister finally getting on board with that approach. But now we need to turn that rhetoric into collaborative action. The Territory cannot afford to stand still.

I recently convened meetings in Darwin with senior members of the Australian Defence Force, members of Defence NT from the NT government, and National Intermodal, a government business enterprise whom we have funded to assist with the rollout of our $440 million federal government contribution towards establishing logistics hubs across the NT. These key federal government investments in logistics infrastructure will help drive resource and renewable energy development in the Territory. In this place, many times before, I've spoken about 'Territory gold'—the best solar radiation in the world. The Territory is at the forefront of Australia's energy transition, and projects like SunCable and Energy North are tapping into the incredible potential of solar energy to power local industry and meet the energy needs of our region and our neighbours.

Big IT players like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are very interested in 'Territory gold' to power their data-centre activities for AI and the cloud; they always have been interested. I encourage the NT Chief Minister to give up on continually saying no to Commonwealth support and to say yes to renewables and their rightful role. It is important that this AI demand in the Northern Territory taps into the geographical and institutional stability of the Northern Territory's place in Australia, our nation's membership in Five Eyes security arrangements along with access to the required telecommunications and other important infrastructure. But these investments must benefit the community, must deliver for the regions and deliver for the national interest. To achieve success, these operators must deliver ongoing acceptance and approval from local communities, stakeholders and the public—that is to say, they need social licence.

The federal government has set out expectations of data centre and AI infrastructure developers of what Australia requires from these data centre companies so the community can have confidence in their role and ensure that AI is sustainable and underpinned by strong social licence. These expectations put the needs of the Australian people ensuring our communities benefit directly through jobs, investment in skills and innovation, while strongly supporting Australia's clean energy transition and safeguarding our long-term water security.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this motion, and I thank the member for Indi for moving it. We are at a critical juncture. First, we need to build power in this country, across the country, including in regional areas. This is critical for all of us, for the cheap energy of all Australians. It is critical for new and emerging energy needs such as in AI infrastructure, which is critical to our sovereignty as well. It's critical to our future opportunities. We need to build it fast and we need to build it predictably.

Second, the communities who host this energy infrastructure should receive a benefit from hosting it. This is obvious to most Australians but we do not yet have the proper legislative environment to make sure that actually happens and that is why this motion is so important. Regional mayors have told me of communities plunged into blackouts, unable to access the very energy infrastructure their towns host. When Broken Hill lost power after a storm destroyed transmission towers in 2024, the residents reasonably expected that the big battery powered by the solar and wind farm nearby would be able to keep the lights on. But it didn't. It took 10 days before an agreement was reached to allow the community to tap the source of energy they had been hosting in their own backyard.

Many communities in regional Australia are not opposed at all to the development of renewable energy and of batteries. Many support it. They see it as an opportunity. But what they do object to is being run roughshod over. Community benefit is a humble request for a partnership, one developers tell me that they are happy to meet. Community benefit isn't new. New industries have always struck grand bargains. In the past, those bargains have looked like investment in anchor infrastructure—roads, ports, dams, pipelines, assets with positive spillovers that outlast the boom that built them. It looked like a town pool and jobs for the locals. Today's infrastructure is more dispersed and passive—solar batteries, data centres—so the bargain will look different. Communities should have genuine agency over what that benefit looks like, shaped by their own needs.

But we also need national minimum standards. Clear expectations mean fewer fights and fewer delays, and a faster and fairer transition leaving host communities stronger. This is where the national government needs to step in, because we must go faster. Renewables reached 43 per cent of our electricity last year, so to reach 82 per cent by 2030 means almost doubling that in four years, yet just 2.3 gigawatts of new generation reached financial close in 2025. We are not building anywhere near the speed that is required.

Data centres bring new opportunities and new community concerns. Australia has a competitive advantage in our ability to house them with our abundance of land and our relative ease with which our continent can harness renewable energy. From a sovereignty point of view, from an economic point of view, I believe that we should take advantage of this opportunity to host these data centres. But we can only do that in a way that builds social licence and where we can build that quickly and efficiently, and that's where community benefit comes in.

Social licence is not a nicety. Its absence is not just bad for communities. It makes decisions less predictable and investment more uncertain. Merit appeals routines add more than a year to a project, with real costs in contract negotiations and financing and option costs, and those costs fall on all of us. The Productivity Commission found faster approvals reduce emissions, reduce costs for developers, attract investment and make energy cheaper, all supporting productivity growth. Accelerating wind farms and accompanying transmission by a single year could reduce electricity prices by seven per cent over the decade—seven per cent. That is the price of the fights we do not need to have.

So this is why this motion is so important. We need to manage this energy transition, we need to build abundant energy in this country, and we need to do that with the support of the communities that are hosting this. I come from the city. Many, in political terms, would say, 'Well, why do you care about this?' I care about this because the regional communities are hosting energy infrastructure that benefits me and my community, and I think it is fair that those communities that are hosting that get community benefit too. There are those in the parliament and across the country who seek to divide the city and the country. That is wrong and unnecessary, because if it's not fair to the communities in regional Australia then it's not going to be fair for this country either. So this is why all parliamentarians should be getting behind community benefit for this infrastructure in a way that gives better predictability and better speed of development and can actually accelerate this energy transition in a way that benefits communities.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the member for Indi for moving this motion about community benefits and the role regional Australia is playing in our energy future. There is one thing I want to make very clear from the start: regional communities deserve straight answers, proper consultation and a fair share when they are asked to host major new infrastructure. It's just fair.

In the Hunter, we know what it means to power this beautiful country. For generations, our coalmines, power station workers, tradies and local businesses have helped keep the lights on here but also around the world. And, as our energy system changes, the Hunter will keep playing a big role here. But if we're going to ask communities from Wyee, Cameron Park and Cessnock through to Singleton to host new transmission, solar, batteries and other energy infrastructure then those communities need to be part of the conversation from day one. They can't be treated like an afterthought. We've seen what happens when engagement isn't good enough.

At Mitchells Flat, near Singleton, local people raised real concerns about a proposed solar farm on prime agricultural land. Farmers spoke up. Community groups spoke up. I spoke up. In the end, the developer decided not to proceed at that location. I said at the time that it was a great project; it was just the wrong location for that one. And that's the point. Supporting renewable energy doesn't mean every project belongs everywhere. We've got mining land and industrial land right across the Hunter. We should be looking hard at places like that before putting pressure on good farming country.

Good engagement means listening before decisions are locked in. It means talking to the people who live there, not just sending them a brochure when everything's been decided. And community benefit has to really mean something. It should mean local jobs. It should mean local apprenticeships. It should mean work for local contractors. It should mean opportunity for local manufacturers, truckies, and cafes and other small businesses. It should mean support for local roads, sporting clubs, community facilities and services, because, when a region hosts infrastructure that will operate for decades, the benefits should last for decades as well. We're already seeing that approach around the Hunter Transmission Project, where work is underway on a benefit-sharing package and opportunities for local businesses and workers.

Regional communities have been asking these questions for a long time. Long before the recent debate about AI data centres, people in places like the Hunter were already asking a simple question: if we're hosting the infrastructure, what does our community get back? The Albanese government has been working on that question. Through the Capacity Investment Scheme, the government is delivering more than $1.7 billion in shared community benefits, $1.9 billion in First Nations benefits and an estimated $35.8 billion in additional spending on local content and businesses. We've also strengthened the social licence requirements for projects supported through the Capacity Investment Scheme.

Importantly, the Developer Rating Scheme opened to industry in March this year. That scheme is about something I hear regularly from people in the Hunter—who are the good operators? If a developer engages early, deals honestly with landholders and treats the community with respect, that should count for something. And, if they don't, that also should count for something. The rating scheme gives communities more information and gives developers a reason to lift their game. We've also strengthened the role of the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner and released national guidelines for community engagement and benefits for electricity transmission projects. But I do agree that we have to keep moving.

There are different rules across different states. There are different approaches between different projects, and that can be confusing for communities. Whatever framework we use, the test should be simple: Does the local community get a genuine say? Are landholders treated fairly? Are local workers and businesses getting opportunities? Are there real and lasting benefits for the towns doing the heavy lifting? And are developers held to a high standard? That's what matters to me. The Hunter knows better than most that changes must be practical. The Hunter has powered Australia for generations, and we're proud of that history, and we're proud of the workers who built it. But the next chapter has to be done with regional communities, not to them. If we get consultation right, put projects in the right places and make sure communities share the benefit, then we'll build stronger projects, stronger communities and stronger systems as well.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for bringing this motion forward. I support strong communities, and I support communities receiving their fair share when they host infrastructure. But this motion does address the symptom and not the disease. The real problem is that Australia has built an energy transition around increasingly complex regulation before properly asking the most basic questions: Does the project work? Is the power reliable? What will it cost? And what happens to the land when the project is finished? Look at the Mt Challenger Wind Farm proposal in Dawson. Families around Proserpine and Kelsey Creek spent months living in needless uncertainty over massive turbines placed right next to their homes and also being developed on prime agricultural farmland. After six months of testing, Alinta finally confirmed what should have been obvious from day one—the site is not suitable. It should not take half a year of community anxiety to reach a conclusion that common sense should have dictated from the start. The community deserved better sequencing—test the site; establish the economics; establish the feasibility; and then ask communities to engage meaningfully with a serious proposal.

This is where the coalition offers a different vision. We believe in energy abundance, not energy scarcity. We support coal, gas, hydro and renewables where they make sense and are in the right place. We will also lift the prohibition on nuclear energy. Our policy is explicitly technology neutral and focused on affordable, reliable power—the source that will generate the most cost-effective and reliable electron—because net zero cannot be the destination at the expense of security and prosperity. Energy-intensive industries need electricity when they need it, not only when the sun shines or the wind blows. Look at Tomago Aluminium. The New South Wales government have bailed them out with a $2½ billion support package to secure the smelter's future. This proves the grid cannot deliver reliable and affordable industrial power at scale so billions are being spent propping up an energy transition that squeezes out manufacturers.

There are clear lessons from overseas. Let's look at Germany. It pursued an enormous energy transition built largely on renewables and imposed extraordinary costs on the energy system. The result is a country where consumers face some of the highest electricity costs in Europe while an energy-intensive industry faces electricity prices more than twice those paid in the United States. It is an economic story of ideology over people and prosperity. When energy becomes more expensive, everything becomes more expensive. Manufacturing becomes less competitive. Investment leaves. Jobs are put under pressure, and, eventually, the middle class starts asking a very simple question: how do we work this hard and somehow become poorer?

Australia is already heading in that direction. Two parents are working—two incomes in the household—and yet the mortgage, groceries, insurance, electricity and fuel consume more and more of what they earn because energy is the economy. We have the opportunity to learn from Europe's mistakes before we repeat them. We should not spend trillions of dollars building an energy system that makes Australian industry less competitive and Australian families poorer. And the question must be asked: Who pays later? Who pays to dismantle the turbines? Who restores the land? Who carries a liability when a company disappears, is sold or walks away?

Regional Australia must not be the graveyard of infrastructure, and prime agricultural land should not be permanently compromised. The coalition has already committed to protecting our farmers, requiring a social licence for energy infrastructure. That matters because food security is national security. Australia must be able to feed itself. We need reliable power, affordable power, securable power—power that supports manufacturing, agriculture, jobs and prosperity—and we need security before symbolism and prosperity before ideology. Net zero should never be the destination at which we sacrifice the things that actually make Australia prosperous. (Time expired)

Zaneta Mascarenhas (Swan, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired.