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

I am absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to speak about the Albanese Labor government's reliable renewables plan in this MPI. This morning, I visited the Majura Community Energy Project with the Minister for the Environment and Water. We announced the environmental approvals for Sun Cable. Sun Cable is a project in the Northern Territory. It is massive.

It was great to speak with the folks at the Majura Community Energy Project. It was commissioned in 2021. It's a 1.2-megawatt solar farm that was funded by more than 350 investors from the ACT community, who each contributed between $500 and $100,000. What an awesome community and a fantastic renewables story right here in Canberra.

However, with all due respect to our territorian brothers and sisters here in the ACT, the Majura project is tiny compared to Sun Cable. Sun Cable would be the biggest solar farm in Australia and one of the largest renewable projects in the whole world. The project was assessed and approved by Minister Tanya Plibersek under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, the EPBC, and is an absolutely incredible milestone, a landmark moment, in this project's journey. This follows last month's environmental approval granted by the Northern Territory government and the NTEPA.

Sun Cable is one of the largest energy infrastructure projects to ever receive EPBC Act approval, covering a project footprint from the heart of the Northern Territory to Darwin and extending to the Australia-Indonesia maritime border. The potential of this project is massive. It is expected to generate up to four gigawatts of renewable energy to power new green industries in the NT. This is the equivalent of all the renewable energy currently in the NEM, the National Electricity Market, that serves the east coast and South Australia.

Capturing the territory's reliable sun will be economically and socially transforming for the Northern Territory. Essentially, this project turns territory sunshine—which there is heaps of—and some of the best solar radiance in the world into electricity and sends it parallel to the Stuart Highway to Darwin. It will enable a green manufacturing sector, producing renewable solar power for Darwin and for potential export to Singapore. It will include industries like green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, critical minerals processing and data centres. It will generate $20 billion in economic value, almost 7,000 indirect and direct jobs a year and a peak workforce of more than 14,000. It will provide a long-term source of ongoing employment in remote areas.

That's the incredible thing about this: it is activating regional areas of the Northern Territory where we are desperately looking for employment opportunities, including for First Nations people in remote areas. They can stake a claim in this industry of the future, with 70 years of stable, long-term, intergenerational jobs providing intergenerational empowerment of people in those communities along the 800 kilometres of poles up to Darwin. The traditional owners and local communities have been involved in this project from the beginning and welcome the opportunities that the project will unlock. This approval, the approval that we announced this morning, comes with strict conditions to protect nature, including requirements to completely avoid important species and critical habitat. Power cables have been diverted where necessary to mitigate the environmental impacts. This project is proof that we can have it all with renewable energies in terms of reliable power. We've got all the land that we need. We can have the jobs and a good environment as well.

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