Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, noting that as the national electricity grid is rapidly transitioning to more dispersed methods of generation, transmission and storage, and acknowledging that such transitions will transgress on agricultural, Indigenous, national or marine parks, and protected environmental land, the following matter be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee for inquiry and report by 11 June 2024:

The compulsory acquisition of land, including interests in land, for purposes related to electricity generation, transmission, distribution and storage with particular reference to:

the interaction and efficacy of compulsory access and acquisition powers and responsibilities of Commonwealth, state and territory governments;

the adequacy of Commonwealth, state and territory legislation, policies, programs, schemes and funding relating to compulsory access and acquisition of land (including an interest in land) from landholders;

the provision, and disbursement, of compensation under Commonwealth, state and territory governments’ compulsory access and acquisition legislation and policy;

identifying best practice approaches to the development and implementation of a fair national approach to compulsory access and acquisition consultation and compensation;

measures required to secure the rights of landowners, farmers and fishers to maintain and safeguard the continued productivity of agriculture and fisheries, including emergency management;

the efficacy of consultation processes between Indigenous landholders, farmers and fishers, and Commonwealth, state and territory governments and energy companies seeking to compulsorily access or acquire agricultural, Indigenous, National and marine parks, and protected environmental lands; and

any related matters.

Here we are again: 'transmission Tuesday'. Many in this room will say, 'Why are we bringing Ross in again?' I'd say to be thankful that we haven't started our 'wind factory Wednesdays' yet!

This is a problem, and this particular reference looks at a very specific part of this: the rights of landholders. It's about property rights. We understand that for this process of Rewiring the Nation—this policy for diverse energy going forward—to be successful it has to have almost bipartisan support. With the changes of government over a long time, many of these things won't be built for six, 10 or 15 years. But what's happening now is not being done well. We see EISs of 28 days; the hamstringing of the AER regulation on the lowest cost to consumer; and that it sometimes costs more to do minor changes than to buy entire properties.

What this inquiry seeks to do is put up a long-term sustainable model by having an investigation, by talking to these people and coming up with an answer so that this policy can happen over the long term in a way that doesn't disturb farming, doesn't disturb environmental land and doesn't disturb marine parks, and in a way that all parties of government can get behind. What do we want to talk about? We want to talk about the people in Dunedoo, Oberon and other places. All these people have concerns. There's enough money going around in this process to do it better. There is enough organisation there. When we were talking out west, we talked about two 330-kVA lines, which cost $3.2 million per kilometre to run straight.

But when we bend them, they cost $7 million per kilometre. What do we do? We bend them all around, we take longer, we spend twice as much and we still don't meet the farmers' needs. We talk about the Hackneys but the only area on the farm that stays non-boggy when there is heavy rain, where they can load animals and where they can put their silos, will be taken. Why do they take that land? Because it is the best place for these transmission lines. Their farm becomes non-viable, and what do they get paid for—the narrow corridor it's in.

We want this inquiry to look at the fairness, the just terms of compensation. New South Wales has no legislation, nothing in the constitution about compulsory acquisition. They are not able to buy anything on the land, not able to buy the business. They are not allowed to do these things.

Looking at transmission in Oberon, do you remember that two-kilometre exclusion zone of houses from wind farms or wind factory towers? That was put in place when towers were 84 metres high. The towers in Oberon are now going to be 285 metres high, 400 of them. There is only one building in Sydney taller—Sydney Tower—and they are going to build 400 towers bigger than that out there. What's worse, they are not down low; they are on a mountain. They are on a ridgeline. The entire vista will be these wind factories. Where is the just compensation for all those people affected? It does not exist.

Let's get down to tin tacks. This is about property rights. This is about a person owning their property and having the right to say what goes on it and how you can do it. When they ask you to move the power lines a little bit so they can farm, if we can't compensate, why can't the owner trigger a must-buy for the entire property? Why can't the owner trigger a clause where they have to be bought out at the federal just terms rate for their property so they can continue farming unhindered elsewhere? We are seeing the community rise up about this because it is not going the right way. Up in my patch in the Hunter, we have the proposed Port Stephens offshore wind farm. There is not a commercially viable floating offshore wind farm in the world—not one. So to all those who say, 'Nuclear is not viable because it is not built anywhere,' it doesn't matter. We are doing something less viable in Australia right now, and we are up in arms again because of 28 days of EIS. How can a community come together to understand what is going on in 28 days when it has been foisted upon them?

My personal view is these things don't have to stop. They need to be done better if they are to be done at all. So how can we push ahead? I know there is a tinpot little very-narrow-scope inquiry from the electricity infrastructure ombudsman out there, but he is not hearing all of those. When someone connected with that office says the pilots like the challenge in aerial agricultural flying near lines, it is rubbish. These people deserve a voice. No-one is trying to overthrow anything here; it is about trying to find a policy that all parties of government can support in the long-term.

I sat in estimates and I heard how Snowy 2.0 is drawing out, how these transmission lines are taking longer than they thought they would. There is a 24 per cent decrease in investment in renewable energy this year compared to last year in FIDs. We know new generation is going slower. We know the New South Wales government is talking to businesses about keeping Eraring and all these other places open. It is time to admit the goals of renewable for 2030 are gone, so don't rush to fail. Slow down and succeed. Talk to these people about what is fair, about a way to do it. If you went to the Hackneys and said, 'We have to go here, even though we are bendy'—7.7 kilometres, with a 2.9 kilometre run through their land—and offered them $10 million, I don't know what their land is worth but I think they would be interested, and they could go and farm without this hassle.

When you're talking to people down around the Riverina about VNI West, it's the same thing. The Victorian government have managed to reroute the entire plan because they wanted to for political reasons. New South Wales has to pick up how it connects because it's got to connect to Snowy. These things are going on as we speak.

I keep bringing up this two-tier economy. It's like Upstairs, Downstairs. If the people in the cities can turn on their aircon, turn on their flat screens and charge their electric cars, they don't care what happens out there in the world. But the people that make things, grow things, mine things and care for things are out there, almost as the servants' quarters for the city, and it's not good enough. It's not good enough for them to be told how they have to live and what they have to deliver to be part of this country. It's like The Castle: 'It's the Constitution; it's justice; it's the vibe.' It's about doing something in a fair way and not telling them how to suck eggs. That's the real problem with this country at the moment. Too many of us people in towers, in corporations and in places like this think we know better than others how they have to live their lives. We tell them: 'Hand over your land; it's for the good of the country. We're going through here. You don't need that dry patch. You don't need that vista. You don't need anything, because we need power.' You say to these people, 'You just want more money.' No, they don't. Most of them would take no money and no powerlines or no money and no wind farms. This isn't about money; this is about justice. This is about doing something right.

And so we come for the seventh time to this chamber to try and help the country with a long-term plan that won't get rolled back. I guarantee that I will not be sitting and supporting us in government if we don't do this better and roll this back, because it is wrong the way it is. Many of the people up there in Port Stephens are environmentalists who would have voted 100 per cent for people who are going to vote this motion down today. When they feel the pain, they see what we're talking about, and they are feeling the pain right across Australia—in New England, on the coast, in Queensland and down in Victoria. This is a problem that is spreading across Australia, and it will bring us all down. We come here as leaders to bring Australia together and build a better Australia. We don't come here as politicians to divide the haves and the have-nots. This inquiry is an opportunity to give people a chance to come together for a solution that will build a better Australia. It is nothing more than that. If you tell this increasingly large number of people that they don't deserve that by voting this down again, we'll see you in the last sitting fortnight, and we'll do the same thing again. And we'll see you next year, and we'll do the same thing again. And we will bring them here, and they'll be out the front, and we know what will happen. They'll be ignored out there, just as they're ignored in here.

The people that made this country great did things. They didn't market things, they didn't insure things and they didn't sue people over those things. They built things, they mined things, they made things and they grew things. These are the people that are suffering here. It's the people that grow your food and your fibre. We are taking their water with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We are taking their land with this. We're taking their names for products under trade deals. We're taking their staff with visa deals. We are taking everything off them and still expect them to feed us and clothe us. And then we expect to tell them how to live. We say: 'You've got to have an E zone on your property. You can't farm here. You've got to protect this. There's a left-handed butterfly living in your cactus plant; you can't do anything there.' These are the things that people in towers do. You can't virtue-signal your way to a lucky country. You can't wish your way to posterity. It has to happen. We in this chamber get it. I'm a talker. I'm here, not making anything. I'm a part-time mechanic for my son's go-kart, and that's as real as I get nowadays. But, out there, people are doing the hard yards.

They are sowing, they are ploughing, they are shearing and they are milking. Dairy farmers have the hardest job in the world. Try telling a cow you can't milk it twice today because you want to go on holidays. See how that goes for you.

I urge everyone—this is nothing other than finding a path to do something you want to do better and finding a way to look after rural and regional Australia so that they will be happy to join us in the way that you want to live and do the things you want to do. Why do we not deal with the consequences of this change? There will be 285-metre towers instead of 84-metre towers on top of mountains, acres of solar farms instead of a few solar panels and structures on whale migration tracks off Port Stephens. All of these things are happening, and no-one seems to give a damn, because we're trying to get to a number that we already admit we can't get to. Isn't it better to do it in a way that lasts forever than to do it in a way where we have to overturn it and do it the right way when we get there?

You won't get final investment decisions when there is no certainty about bipartisan support. You won't. I'm not going to invest $2 billion on something when I think that, in six months time or three years time, the government is going to change it and I'm going to pull everything on it. Come to the table. That's what we're here to do. Senator Colbeck is sponsoring this with me because it needs to be done right. It is nothing more than that. The people suffering out there deserve it, and I urge your support.