Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Health, Aged Care and Indigenous Health Services) Share this | Hansard source

As I rise to speak on the Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, I do so with a certain amount of frustration for my constituents on the north-west, the west coast and King Island in the great state of Tasmania, a state which you will know, Deputy Speaker Freelander, is renowned for the production of renewable energy. It has done so for the past 100 years. Tasmania is already net zero. It is the only state or territory in the country to have such a status. It is a status that we are very proud of in the great state of Tasmania.

Along with that is our beauty. Tasmania is a beautiful state. Those who have visited my state will attest to that. Those who haven't need to get their backsides down to the great state of Tasmania and take all that in—our rugged coastlines, rainforests, arid farming regions and mountainous areas. It is a beautiful place of which I am profoundly proud. As I look out across my farm, I see the rolling green hills of north-west Tasmania, with the rich arable and volcanic derivative soil, growing potatoes, peas, beans, broccoli, carrots, onions and opium poppies, with black cattle off in the distance. In the far distance is the beautiful Bass Strait and our coastlines, coastlines that we are very proud of.

That leads me into this issue and aligns with this particular amendment, which seeks to put a smear on the face of our beautiful coastlines. In Tasmania, we have already taken the liberty over the last more than 100 years of making ourselves, as a state and as a community, 100 per cent renewable, as I stated at the beginning of my speech. We've done the right thing. We are the only state or territory to have done so. Why, then, do we have to look out our windows at our beautiful coastline and have that blemished by wind towers, some in excess of 280 or 300 metres tall? Why do we have to do that? Why do our shipping lanes, with currently unimpeded access both in and out of our great state, need to be impeded by such structures? As you would know and as you would appreciate, Deputy Speaker Freelander, everything in our state comes by boat, by ship. Very little is flown in and out; it mainly comes by ship into either Burnie or Devonport.

Our port in Burnie, which is Tasmania's largest port, is approximately five million tonnes, including woodchips that go to the Chinese market; minerals that come from our west coast; polymetallics, lead, copper, tin, zinc, silver, manganese, tungsten and many other minerals. These are loaded and shipped out through our Burnie port. Five million tonnes of containerised freight.

If we move to Devonport, the second-largest port in Tasmania, it is 3.7 million tonnes. It is the home of the Spirits. That's where our ferries come in and out of our passenger terminal, come in and out of the great state of Tasmania. These are both great ports, No. 1 and No. 2, in Tasmania. We don't want them impeded by 300-metre wind towers everywhere when we've already done the right thing and gotten ourselves to 100 per cent renewable. We are producing in excess of 10,400 gigawatt hours. That's enough to power one million homes and small businesses. We can do that. What we want to do is to develop the Marinus Link project, which will provide us the ability to trade excess renewable energy with our mainland colleagues who so desperately need it.

The other thing with hydro that people don't understand is that it is a base load energy. When you turn the tap on and the water runs down the hill, gravity does that—it's a great thing in Tasmania; we've got gravity! Heaven forbid, when that happens that energy can be used at any time. That means it is dispatchable and that means it is the sort of energy that the remainder of the country needs.

What we don't want to see is this renewable religion creeping into our great state, creeping along our coastlines and our beautiful outlook. I fear the government is pushing this legislation through so that they can achieve that religious ideology—

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