Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

Last Thursday, I and the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, gave a clear-cut commitment to the electorate of Wannon. We will rescind the offshore wind farm which is proposed for off the coast of Warrnambool and Port Fairy—no ifs, no buts; we will rescind it. The reason we're here this afternoon is another reason why we made that decision—because Chris Bowen has a piece of retrospective legislation that he's trying to rush through this parliament that will change the rules around offshore wind farm zones. Once again, we're seeing that Minister Bowen makes a complete and utter mess of everything that he touches when it comes to energy and, in particular, when it comes to offshore wind zones. There has been no consultation, no environmental impact statements, no economic benefit statements—nothing—and that is why we are committed to making sure that that offshore wind zone is absolutely rescinded if the coalition wins the next election.

Let's go to this piece of retrospective legislation, the Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. What is a government trying to do when it puts in place a piece of retrospective legislation? It's trying to clean up a mess—a mess of its own making; a mess made because it rushed things; a mess made because it doesn't have a clue about what it's doing; a mess made because the minister has an ideological bent towards a rushed, renewables-only approach which is devastating this nation. Why is the minister going down this path? He is going down this path because he's trying to do everything he can to disguise a commitment that the Prime Minister made on over 90 occasions before the last election—a commitment that now shall not speak its name, not from the lips of the Prime Minister or anyone on the Labor side of politics—and that was that your power bill would go down by $275. And they said that they would do that by 2025. Well, guess what year it is? It's 2025. And has anyone seen their power bill go down by $275? No. What has occurred? Everyone has seen their power bill go up. In Victoria, it has gone up by, at a minimum, $750. That means they've been more than $1,000 out. That is why the minister is rushing around, trying to do all this stuff, because he knows that, if he's going to be honest with the Australian people and look them in the eye, he cannot say to them, 'Yes, we have honoured that commitment.'

The minister will make a range of excuses to do with what's happened here and what's happened there et cetera et cetera, but the fact is the fact is the fact—they committed to reduce your power bill by $275 and have not been able to honour that commitment. They don't even have the guts to say to the Australian people that they won't be honouring it. That is why the Australian people have woken up to this Prime Minister. They know that he will not be straight with them. As for Minister Bowen, to be kind to Minister Bowen, he'd be more at home in a circus than he would be in this federal parliament. It is incredibly hard to take anything he says or does seriously.

Let's look at the offshore wind farm proposed off the coast of south-west Victoria. Firstly, it was going to be around the Portland area. When he realised that he'd messed that up, he said, 'Alright, I'll put it on the coast off Warrnambool and Port Fairy.' Guess where he made the announcement that he wasn't going to do it in Portland and that he was going to do it off the coast of Port Fairy and Warrnambool? He made the announcement in Portland. He didn't even know where he was when he was making the announcement. It was beyond a farce. Then, with the community consultation process, the community said they didn't want this offshore wind farm, and a petition was presented to the parliament, which had 4,000 signatures and now has 7,000 signatures. Did Minister Bowen listen? No, he did not. Did he go to the communities and say, 'Okay, we've done the consultations, and therefore we've heard you, and we're not going to proceed?' No, he didn't. Guess how the consultations went? And I'm sure the member for Mallee knows a lot about this type of consultation. When all the officials came down, did they meet with the community as a whole? No. What did they say to the community? 'Oh, look, we want to meet you one by one. We don't want to front up to a public meeting where there might be 200 or 300 of you and where you might say, "We don't want this," and there might be wild cheers and might say, "Well, maybe you should pack your bags and head back to Canberra with a clear message we don't want this."' No. It's almost like a drafting race: you go over to that corner and you go off to that corner so that we can deal with you one by one, so there is no sense of the community coming together and being heard. It's a tactic they always try and use when they're trying to ram something through that isn't popular and that the community does not want. Well, the community wasn't going to buy that.

There were representatives of the community who met with Minister Bowen and said quite clearly, 'No, we don't want this to go ahead.' Yet, what did Minister Bowen do? He said, 'Well, I'm going to be tricky; I'm just going to redraw this offshore wind farm in a part of the south-west coast where I think everyone will say, "Okay, that's fine."' Did it have any details around where the transition line might go? No. Is the transmission line going to go through Port Fairy or is it going to go right across the seabed to Portland? We hear absolutely nothing. Does the minister come forward to say whether an environmental impact statement would take place? Does the minister let the community know that there are already deep concerns within his department about where the offshore wind farm zone is proposed? No, he doesn't. So what did we do? We put in an FOI request to his department to ask: 'Have there been serious concerns raised about migratory and rare whales? Have there been serious concerns raised about migratory bird species?' And guess what the answer was from that FOI request from within his own department. 'Yes, there have been.' Quite clearly, the area in his department which deals with this had already raised serious concerns about these issues.

Did Minister Bowen stop and think and listen and say, 'Alright, I've got community opposition from south-west Victoria, and I've got opposition from within my own department because they're worried about the environmental impacts; therefore, maybe I should just say, no, this isn't an area where we should be looking to put an offshore wind zone'? No, he didn't. He, in his purely ideological fashion, just kept on going and said, 'We will ram this over the heads of the local community.' Well, we've made it very clear that we are happy to listen and we are happy to act. That's why I and the Leader of the Opposition, Peter Dutton, made that announcement last week. This is quite clear an issue. It's an issue which has been on the agenda since last May. I would say to all candidates in the seat of Wannon: come forward and tell us what your position is. You've had nearly a year to do it. Are you for it or against it? Or, if you're going to sit on the fence, why are you sitting on the fence? What is your hidden agenda? That is what we need to know, and that is what we need to know quite, quite clearly.

Just so everyone is clear about what we're trying to achieve here, we're trying to make sure that a local community and their views are protected. This isn't something which is political. Do you know who did exactly the same thing? The South Australian Premier. This wind farm zone was, in its first iteration under Minister Bowen, going to go into South Australia. It was going to go across and into South Australia. Right across the shoreline, out from Port Macdonnell, there was going to be, also, a proposal for this offshore wind zone. And what did the Premier of South Australia do, along with the local community? They made it very clear to Minister Bowen they didn't want it. They didn't want it. So this isn't anything which is political; this is about local communities standing up and saying: 'We want to be heard. We want to be listened to.' I say to Minister Bowen: the best thing you could do, rather than putting forward retrospective legislation which shows how much of a mess you've made of this, is get the bit of paper which has put in place the offshore wind farm zone in south-west Victoria—get the bit of paper that has put in place the offshore wind farm zone off the coast of Port Fairy and Warrnambool—and rip it up. That is what listening to the local community would be all about, and that's what you should be doing, not trying to put through retrospective legislation which shows that you have made a complete and utter mess of this whole process.

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