‘CHEAP AND NASTY’ HUMELINK PROCEEDS OVERHEAD
Disappointingly, the Legislative Council Standing Committee on State Development has recommended that HumeLink should proceed as an overhead transmission line project.
This lays the ground for more than ten thousand kilometres of transmission lines to scar rural NSW by being installed above ground.
This means we will get a cheap job and a rushed job.
A cheap job that ignores the very real concerns about bushfire risk.
The devastating impact on agriculture.
The scarring of our beautiful country.
The damage to the environment and native habitat.
And that ignores the international standard for transmission lines being underground.
New South Wales is poised to adopt cheap and nasty electricity transmission infrastructure that is out of date, dangerous and has no social license.
I believe that the current state government has inherited a blind-by-design regulatory framework that fails to serve the interests of communities.
What is clear is that the framework for deciding the future of electricity transmission in this country is outdated and that Governments have outsourced their decision making to backroom bureaucrats and private corporations; where the only thing that really matters is the bottom line.
There is no account of social license and little regard for the communities impacted by this technology and this is at a time when social license is being laundered as a key consideration and something that is needed.
The Committee has also recommended that community consultation processes be improved by requiring planning frameworks to include:
“a comprehensive cumulative impact study to be undertaken before any renewable energy zone (REZ) is declared
community consultation on any proposed REZ to start at the scoping stage to allow adequate consideration of viable alternatives.”
And also that
“the NSW Government consider the creation of an independent ombudsman to oversee consultation upon, and rollout of, renewable energy projects and transmission infrastructure in New South Wales and to receive and handle complaints about these processes”.
While I support these recommendations it would seem to me that they have come too late for the regional communities that are in the pathway of these damaging projects.
I note that the Committee was divided with four members of the eight person committee producing dissenting reports. This is not a common occurrence and speaks to the importance and complexity of this issue.
I support calls by the dissenting members to establish a Select Committee into this issue without an automatic government majority.
I also support efforts in the Australian Parliament by Senator Ross Cadell to establish a federal inquiry into transmission infrastructure across our nation.
The transition to cheaper renewable energy is a historic opportunity for Australia and one we must get right.
We must build a transmission network that our communities want, deserve and need rather than adopt the technology of the past hundred years for the next hundred years.