Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the work of the member for Indi on this, and also for all the amendments that she has put forward on this bill. I represent a community which is, physically, one of the smallest communities in the country, and probably one of the least rural or regional in the country. But what my community constantly tells me is that they care about regional Australia and that they care about rural Australia. They don't only care about their own patch. Across this parliament, we always need to be looking just outside our own patches and making sure that we don't try to create divisions between different parts of the country, but use opportunities to bring these together. I think that the work the member for Indi is doing in this is excellent, because what she's doing is saying, 'This transition will benefit the whole country.'

In my area, we don't have the capacity for the solar farms and the other changes required to power my area. We will get benefit from this, but we want to make sure that regional communities get benefits too. Otherwise, it will fall down. This is beyond asking for social licence; it's saying, 'Let's use this as an opportunity to bring real benefit to our communities and to build the next evolution of our thriving regional communities.'

I thank the government for supporting these amendments and I urge it to consider the other very useful amendments the member has put forward, because I think this is about building community engagement across the country in this absolutely vital change.

Question agreed to.

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