Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Scarr, you broke Scarr's law right off the bat! I will try to be an exception as well, Senator Scarr—I certainly don't intend to take the full 15 minutes, but I think it is very important reflecting on my role as a senator from Western Australia, particularly as a senator who focuses on everything outside of Perth city.

The really serious concerns that people in regional Western Australia and Australia have about this move—let's call it the 'transition'; that's what the government wants to call it—to put thousands and thousands of square kilometres of activity into regional Australia—22,000 kilometres of transmission lines, thousands of wind turbines and thousands of solar farms—not to power the bush, not to power jobs in the bush but basically to power our cities. Our regional communities, our farmers, are being asked to bear the burden of these new forms of electricity generation, but they're not being allowed to have a say. They're not being allowed to comment. Perhaps even more shockingly, in this place Labor, the Greens and the crossbenchers are not even allowing them to have their say via a committee inquiry.

Senator Cadell and Senator Colbeck have put up this motion nine times. Every time I speak on this, I'm shocked that members of the Senate who take their role seriously would vote against a very nonpartisan worded inquiry into the impact of new energy developments in regional Australia. This is not an area of partisan conflict; this is about local communities being able to be heard. This Senate, through its committee system, has a right to look into those communities and to hear their voices as we put in place the frameworks for these massive changes to our energy grid, the cost of which—and when I talk about cost I don't just mean dollars and cents; I mean the impact on the environment, the impact on landholders and the impact on communities—is being borne by regional Australia. You don't put 22,000 kilometres of transmission lines through the middle of Sydney; it just can't happen. The transmission lines are running from the bush into the cities. They're impacting people who live in the regions. The developments, the wind farms, the solar farms—these are not going to be plonked in a suburb of Sydney or Melbourne or Perth; these are going to be put into our regional centres, and not in very remote communities because the cost will be too high. Even if they were in very remote communities, those people have the right to be consulted as well. And this Senate has the right, and should take the right, to look into these issues.

The fact that those opposite, with their alliance partners the Greens and the crossbenchers, continue to block what is a very straightforward inquiry, the likes of which this Senate passes almost literally on a daily basis—this one is a bridge too far for some reason. This one is a bridge too far for the government and the Greens because they know there's a lot of disquiet out there.

In my home state of Western Australia there is a proposal for an offshore wind farm along the coast, basically between Perth and Bunbury. It is a magnificent stretch of coast that Western Australians love. Many of them choose to live along that stretch of coast. I suspect, if that proposal ever gets closer to being developed, there will be a significant amount of community concern, because I've already talked to people in those areas that will be potentially affected and they are very concerned. They want their say. They have a right to have their say.

All this motion from Senator Colbeck and Senator Cadell does is set up an inquiry. It doesn't force the government to do anything. It doesn't force the Greens to do anything. It doesn't require that particular issues be canvassed—though it has terms of reference. But they're broad terms of reference. They're very standard terms of reference for an inquiry of this sort. Yet Labor and the Greens keep on blocking it. There is only one reason, and that is that it is about politics. It is about the fact that Labor and their alliance partners, the Greens, know that communities are deeply concerned about these projects and want their say on how they will work and how they will look, and to make sure the costs are not borne unfairly. Communities want to make sure that all the costs are not borne by regional Australia, that costs are actually spread out and that regional Australia is looked after.