Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I concur that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has not used the right process—a terrible process, in fact—for the Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. But I just want people to consider the burden that Labor's massive renewables-only energy policy is having on regional and rural Australia. Just think about this: Labor's plan includes nearly 60 million solar panels, over 3,500 new wind turbines and 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines, all in rural and regional areas. We know that the government will need to double the size of the transmission grid just to connect all of this new renewable energy, but, if it's double the size, I suspect it will be double the price and the cost—cost that will be added to families' and businesses' power bills. As we know, these endless kilometres of wind turbines and solar panels and 28,000 kilometres of additional transmission lines are impacting rural and regional areas, and farmers and food production. This is also, sadly, dividing neighbours, dividing friends and dividing communities. That's appalling.

I'm also concerned about reports regarding the fine plastic coming off turbines over time and farmers having to make declarations that will affect their businesses, their markets and their profits in time. I read that farmers who graze livestock under solar panels, wind turbines or other renewable energy infrastructure must now declare it under the national on-farm livestock assurance program. Equally, I understand that this change to the Livestock Production Assurance program was quietly introduced in September. Farmers and producers are rightly very concerned about the potential consequences of this. Meat & Livestock Australia contracts a company called Integrity Systems Company to manage its Livestock Production Assurance process. This process requires farmers to identify any chemical or physical contamination risks to livestock from equipment or infrastructure that may be degrading with age. Solar panels and wind turbines are both cited as examples, because solar panels degrade as they reach end of life, and it will be farmers who bear the cost and the risk of these solar panels and wind turbines as they degrade. I just hope they're actually aware of these risks. We've even recently seen the collapse of a wind turbine.

I also read that the Minister for Climate Change and Energy has appointed Tony Maher as his Energy Infrastructure Commissioner to deliver the government's wind tower and transmission plans in regional and farming areas. Tony Maher, as we know, was the CEO of the National Farmers Federation for many years. I'd say to farmers, 'I hope you're aware that the role of the Energy Infrastructure Commissioner will be to deliver the wind, solar and transmission plans for the government, not for you.' I also wonder whether farmers will be made aware of all the current and future costs and responsibilities they will have, and I wonder whether their obligations under the integrity systems will actually be explained to them at all.

On top of all of this, farmers and small businesses will now have to report their scope 3 emissions. This endless green tape process will cost each one of us, those of us who are farmers. I can see this also, maybe, as a mechanism the Labor government will use to impose methane and additional carbon taxes on the farming sector once they actually announce their 2035 emissions reduction targets, which they haven't done and were supposed to do in February.

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