Australia has learned the true cost of the Albanese Labor Government’s globally unprecedented, renewables-only approach to Australia’s energy grid.  The PM’s plans are so financially undercooked, you wonder if they ever left the mixing bowl.

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Labor claimed their renewable transition would cost $112 billion, however independent thinktank Frontier Economics revealed on Friday 15 November in fact the cost will be at least $642 billion.

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Labor might be the kings in the Canberra counting house, counting other people’s money, but in the electorate of Mallee it’s worse - Labor are acting like feudal lords.
Mallee farmers are being treated like peasants. Farmers thought they had private property rights.  However, Victorian Labor has pointed at Mallee from high in their Melbourne ivory tower, knocked over the safeguards and - lo and behold - the energy sector raiders have swooped in to carve up Mallee farms and stir bad blood in small local communities.

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In Mallee alone, over 50 energy projects are enticed by a proposed 350-kilometres of huge towers to transmit energy south from Warracknabeal through Bulgana (the ‘WIRES’ project) then north through Charlton and Tragowel (VNI-West).  If those 50-plus wind and solar projects all get up, there’ll be many more transmission lines.  Nationally, Labor’s energy plans are estimated to require 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines, turning regional Australia into a metallic spider’s web.

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In the Pyrenees region, the 39 turbines at Crowlands wind farm are operational, but I am told that the VNI-West transmission line will only have the capacity for around 4 major projects. Limited capacity on VNI West could spell trouble for the so-called Navarre Green Power Hub. I am also told that 60% of farmers – that’s 140 kilometres of the proposed 240-kilometre VNI-West transmission line - will not allow Transmission Company Victoria (TCV) on their land.  Lawyers will be packing their picnic baskets.

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Energy project companies are dividing communities and families, offering dollars wrapped in secrecy and non-disclosure agreements. Proposals may never fit within the capacity of the transmission lines.  Worse still, the existing companies that landholders are dealing with may no longer be around when future liability arises.  For instance, the cost of removing wind turbines at the end of their operational life is now estimated to be $750,000 each. Landholders better stash away that annual payment if they’re unclear who pays to decommission the turbines.

 That’s why I prepared a Private Member’s Bill in Canberra, moved this month by my Nationals colleague the Member for Nicholls, to impose the same requirements on energy companies as mining companies: they will have to put down a huge rehabilitation bond to clean up at the end of the project.  If renewables are about saving the planet, they need to take responsibility for the local environment as well.