Jac
Davey. Hello.
Senator Davey
Hi, Jack, how are you?
Jac
Very well, thank you. We’re going to have a chat about something that happened in parliament yesterday, because you’ve, you’ve released a press release. And you say that the Senate has shown a blatant disregard for regional communities by voting against the establishment of an inquiry into the impact of transmission lines running through properties. Tell us why do you think this was voted down?
Senator Davey
I wish I knew I’m quite surprised that it was voted down, I’m very particularly surprised by the Greens not supporting it. We know that as part of the rewiring the nation program that the Labor Government’s working on around 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines are going to need to be built across regional Australia to connect renewable energy to the cities. And some of these, some of these proposed routes go through National Parks, they could potentially have a significant impact on our landscape, our flora and fauna, as well as industries like agriculture and so we wanted to have an inquiry to open it up and have a look at how decisions are being made, how the decision of the routes are being made, and what analysis they look at when they’re deciding whether to overhead or underground power lines and just open it up so that people could better understand how the decisions are made and how it will impact them. So, can’t understand why the Greens didn’t support it, was very surprised by Canberra independent Senator David Pocock. These people are very pro renewables and we thought that they would also like to understand how we link the renewables to where the power is going to be used.
Jac
We’re seeing lots of land use conflicts around renewable energy that’s emerging in our regional areas especially. Why can’t they just be put underground, these transmission lines?
Senator Davey
Well, there are various reasons and, you know, the most often heard about is the cost, according to TransGrid, it will triple the cost of a transmission line to put it underground, but there are also geological considerations, some rock bases aren’t suitable for them but that’s what we wanted the inquiry to do and have a look at and workout whether is it just a cost consideration, or is there something else involved? And if it’s just cost, when they’re looking at the cost benefit, and the cheaper route of going overhead, but they’re not taking into consideration any economic losses from loss of agricultural landscape or change impacts on communities.
Jac
So, what process will it go through then? will it just be individual community consultation for each stage of the transmission lines? Is that what we think we know?
Senator Davey
What we think we know, yes, in New South Wales and Victoria, there are two projects that are proceeding down the process, Hume Link, which connects Snowy Hydro to South Australia and then Western Victorian project that will go from Coleambally in the Riverina, down to Bendigo and back into Melbourne. The communities that have been raising concerns with me say that they don’t feel like they’re being consulted well and they also don’t think the financial offer on the table is realistic considering the impact to their businesses as well as their livelihood. So these are real concerns that people have and they’ve raised them with myself and my colleague, Senator Ross Cadell, as well and that’s why we wanted to have this inquiry to actually have a look at it and see whether things can be done better.
Jac
In New South Wales, land holders were introduced to a scheme by the New South Wales Government. It was announced in October of last year, $10,000 per year for 20 years for every kilometre of transmission lines built on their property. Do you know if that financial stimulus or package is available to land holders in New South Wales now?
Senator Davey
I don’t know what the new Government is proposing to do with it. It was certainly a package was more appealing or more attractive and more realistic than what previously occurred was a lump sum payment upfront with no consideration of the ongoing impacts. But still, there were landholders who felt that it also didn’t go far enough to recognise the actual impact on whether they had to change how they use their land, their farming practices for farmers, and any additional costs that they may have to wear to reconfigure their properties.
Jac
Currently, those in regional areas that I hear about a lot in Bathurst and surround – is the impact from renewable energy projects that are chosen on parcels of land or in areas that are close to existing transmission lines? Because there’s a cost benefit to the company to build close to existing lines. Do you support the broad concept and the broad idea of rewiring the nation from Labor?
Senator Davey
Well, we do and I want to make it clear this committee was not an effort to try and stop the transition to renewables. It was just our purpose was to better understand what is actually going to be needed and what the impacts of it are. So, we do support renewables. We do, however, think that we need to ensure that we do least harm and that’s least social and economic harm as well and looking at where we, where we are putting our renewable hubs and our energy zones to make sure that we can, as you say, use existing infrastructure where possible and do the minimum intrusion to people’s lives as it takes and also we’re Nationals we are also very supportive of looking at having a nuclear power industry and potentially looking at when you have to close a coal fired power station, which is already in connected to the grid, why aren’t we looking at putting a new small modular nuclear reactor on site and linking it straight in. Clean, green energy, but that’s another one where I scratch my head because the Greens are the most vocal opponents of nuclear power.
Jac
Well, that goes into that argument about will renewables be able to maintain that level of baseload power we need?
Senator Davey
That’s right. And we know that batteries are getting better, but they are still – certainly can’t fill the baseload power grid and we also need to look at when a battery reaches the end of its life, how do we dispose of it? Lithium is also quite a toxic waste at the end of our battery life and we have not even begun to have those conversations.
Jac
So overall, do you get the feeling or a sense that the Federal Labor Government are listening to regional communities?
Senator Davey
Oh, no, not at all. I think they want to rewire the nation, they want wind and solar, wherever someone’s going to put it, regardless of whether it’s taking really highly productive agricultural land out of use to put solar panels on and they just want to plug it into Sydney. I don’t think they’ve put any consideration onto the impact it has on the lives of the people who live in the regions
Jac
we’ll continue to follow this. Thank you very much for your time on the program.
Senator Davey
No worries. Thank you.
ENDS