Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is an honour to speak on this motion on behalf of Senator Dean Smith. I will read the matter that is before the Senate. It is:

The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner's 2024 Annual Report demonstrates that regional Australia is shouldering the burden of large-scale renewable projects, transmission lines and storage developments, while Labor fails to provide a framework to deliver affordable, reliable energy to Australian households and businesses.

This one is fairly self-explanatory, and we're seeing it play out. We're seeing it play out on our television screens. We're seeing it play out in the anger of regional communities ignored by this government's renewables-at-any-cost approach. These communities feel that they are being bullied, coerced and ordered into taking a particular approach to our energy grid with no consultation. There has been no impact assessment as to how these massive renewable energy projects and the transmission lines that accompany them will impact on the economy of local communities, the agriculture in local communities and the environment in our regional communities.

As I have said in this place before—I have on many occasions, but those opposite choose to keep on ignoring this fact—the energy in large part is not supporting those regional communities. Almost all of the energy is being pumped into our capital cities. But who bears the burden of these large-scale energy projects, the destruction of the environment, the destruction of prime agricultural land and the inability of farmers to farm in the way they have been? It is of course those regional communities.

In a previous report it was suggested that between 10,000 and 20,000 kilometres of transmission lines were going to be required to meet Labor's renewable-at-any-cost approach to our energy grid. They're not putting 10,000 to 20,000 kilometres of transmission lines through inner cities. They're not putting 10,000 to 20,000 kilometres of transmission lines through outer suburbia. Those 10,000 to 20,000 kilometres of transmission lines are going through regional and rural Australia. They're going through people's farms. Is it any wonder given these communities haven't been consulted, haven't been included in the way these decisions are made and haven't been included in the way these projects are decided upon? Sometimes the actual energy project can be literally hundreds of kilometres away from the transmission lines that are destroying people's farms.

Transmission lines going through people's property is of course not a new thing. This has been going on for generations, and they have always been problematic. But what we are seeing now—what has changed—is that this Labor renewables-at-any-cost approach to our energy grid has put those transmission lines on steroids. It is 10,000 to 20,000 kilometres of new transmission lines in this country. Is it little wonder that we saw the protests in regional Victoria that we've seen in the last week? Is it little wonder that we've heard of property owners who do not understand their obligations and the legal risks that they face for now maintaining their agricultural pursuits under those transmission lines? They never asked for them. They never wanted them. They were never consulted about them. Now you see draconian Labor laws in the state of Victoria to enable the people putting up those transmission lines—entry to property with no restriction. They can go on when they like. They can do whatever they like. This is not the Australia I know and love.