Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): It is with pleasure that I rise to speak in support of the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2020. This has been a big week for Victorians. We have recorded 26 consecutive days of zero coronavirus cases, and yesterday our Treasurer presented a state Labor budget that will secure a stronger, fairer and more sustainable future for Victoria. So it is perhaps fitting that this bill is being debated this week, in a week in which the budget has made renewables and emissions reductions a key feature of our economic recovery. This bill, which relates to the regulation of wind farms, is an important part of that ongoing commitment and that ongoing effort to address climate change.
The amendments allow for a much more appropriate regulatory framework for dealing with noise complaints in relation to wind turbines, pulling the responsibility for addressing these complaints away from local councils, who do not have the capacity to deal with them, and placing it with the Environment Protection Authority Victoria—the EPA. I have heard the debate around these amendments go right to the heart of what it means to invest in renewable energy—and we have heard arguments on both sides of the house on that—and what happens when we do not.
Just a fortnight ago in this place I spoke about the unique opportunity we have to build on our strong track record of investment to deliver bold, tangible climate action as part of our pandemic recovery. Victorians have not been disappointed. Our state budget, delivered yesterday, will invest an unprecedented $1.6 billion to create renewable energy hubs across the state, improve grid infrastructure, decarbonise our energy system and support our work to move homes away from gas. Victorians know that these initiatives are only the latest elements of Labor’s strong track record on delivering bold climate action in Victoria. We are now well on our way to achieving our goal of zero net emissions by 2050 and our renewable energy target of 50 per cent by 2030. And we are leading the nation when it comes to renewable energy, connecting more renewables than any other state over the past year and more than doubling the amount of renewable energy generated over the last five. We are leading the nation when it comes to sustainable jobs, with over 30 per cent of Australia’s renewable energy job share right here in Victoria. And critically we are delivering the energy grid of the future. These are sensible, tangible and transformative policies for a better future, because it is one thing to take—
Ms Britnell: On a point of order, Deputy Speaker, on relevance, this is not a bill about spouting how much renewable energy the government is funding. This is not a discussion about whether renewables are right or wrong. This is a discussion and a debate around the complaints process. I suggest that the member would be best placed to talk about the bill more specifically.
Ms Spence: On the point of order, Deputy Speaker, during this debate yesterday there was extensive debate on that point. In fact members opposite were quite happy to talk about how proud they were to be living off the grid, and the discussion went quite specifically to renewable energy and the like. I would suggest that the member is quite appropriately talking to points that were in debate during this debate yesterday.
The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the member is being relevant to the bill, in relation to the extensive subject matter in the bill. I do ask the member to return to the bill.
Ms THEOPHANOUS: Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It is one thing to take a view that renewable energy is the way forward, and it is one thing to make declarations, but it is quite another to make climate action a reality. That is not done by demonising communities and it is not done through alarmism; it is done by supporting communities and by marrying the benefits of renewable energy with jobs and economic growth. Moral posturing and heavy-handed idealism get us nowhere when it comes to real policy reform. In fact they risk sending us backwards because we simply preach to the choir. We are failing to do the hard work—the hard policy work, the hard legislative work, the hard work to make the compelling case to those that need to hear it.
Just a few weeks ago in the other place we were all subjected to the Greens patting themselves on the back for passing a feel-good motion, a motion which offered nothing and which delivered nothing. What concerns me most is that ultimately this kind of hollow posturing plays into the hands of conservative agendas and leads to policy back-stepping. We have seen it in this debate, where those opposite jump on careless phrasing by the Greens, perhaps rightly calling it out. But ultimately what Victorians need, what our planet needs, are outcomes, not words. And, in that, only Labor stands with a tangible record.
This bill is another example of how the Andrews Labor government is delivering for Victorians, this time through supporting the growth of wind power. Wind energy is a vital part of our renewable energy mix. It requires no fuel inputs, and every megawatt hour of energy generated from the turbines saves around 1 tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact one typical turbine is capable of powering around 1200 homes and reducing emissions by the equivalent of over 1800 cars taken off the road. The benefits of wind energy are immense.
Despite this, both the Liberals and the Greens have a shaky history when it comes to growing wind power, and this is important in framing the context of the amendments of this debate. The opposition is opposing this bill, and they have argued it is not out of an ideology against renewable energy, but I am not sure. We have heard in this debate their members speaking with disdain about the rollout of this government’s renewable energy agenda and the imperative to remove barriers to investing in renewable energy in Victoria. The member for Ivanhoe gave a very good outline of exactly what happened when the wind industry was brought to a grinding halt through the creation of exclusion zones so large that no turbines could be built. As for the Greens, it is hard to know exactly what their position on wind energy is, because their messages at a state and federal level remain confused and divisions keep creeping to the surface.
In 2018 Victoria had 25 operating wind farms and around 9 per cent of electricity for the state was generated by these. We are not slowing down. It is therefore critical that we have a regulatory framework to match, and this bill supports that important goal. Currently under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008 nuisance complaints are administered by councils. All complaints must be investigated, and this includes complaints about wind turbine noise from wind energy facilities. Nuisance laws have a very long history in Australia and are generally related to local issues like noise and odours that do not fall under any other regulatory framework. They have therefore traditionally fallen to councils to investigate and enforce. These laws and the council structures that support them were not designed with the scale and complexity of wind turbine noise complaints in mind. This has resulted in a significant burden being placed on local councils who do not have the capacity to deal with the complexity, the cost or the technical difficulty of these nuisance complaints. Indeed, for this reason, a number of impacted councils and the Municipal Association of Victoria have called for changes to the nuisance provisions in the Public Health and Wellbeing Act. They have asked for these amendments and for a more appropriate framework for regulating these circumstances, and that is what this bill delivers.
This bill recognises the EPA as the appropriate body to regulate wind turbine noise, and these changes make sense, because the scale of wind farms cannot be chalked up to the same type of activity as, for instance, a neighbour playing their music too loud or burning off their rubbish in the backyard. As I have said before in this place, bringing people with you on the journey is important when it comes to climate action. Community concerns should not be dismissed. Instead we should always seek to share information, increase transparency and work with communities to achieve progress. Concerned residents will still have legitimate avenues for complaint under the new framework, particularly through the EPA under environment protection legislation, and from 12 months after the commencement of the Environment Protection Amendment Act 2018 Victorians will also have third-party rights to take action directly against duty holders. That means the court can order the EPA to act if they find they have not taken action where they should have, providing critical access to justice for the community.
Importantly the changes supported by this bill will also provide greater certainty to the wind farm industry, and we know that with certainty comes investment. It may seem inconsequential to those on the other side, but this bill and the regulatory change it supports will play an important role in driving investor confidence, and that is important in building more wind farms in Victoria.
Year after year Victorians have been disappointed by the federal government’s inaction—its failure to push back on conservative interests when it comes to renewable energy generation. And year after year Victorians have been disappointed by the Greens’ prioritising politics over policy. Well, we are not waiting for the Morrison government to catch up and we are not waiting for the Greens to wake up. We are getting on with the job of delivering more renewable energy in a way that creates jobs, secures our energy network and cuts energy costs for Victorians. This bill delivers on an important part of that work, and for that reason I commend the bill to the house.
