Energy and Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen sits down for an exclusive interview with ACM. He discusses the roll-out of renewable energy infrastructure that is dividing communities and the government's response.
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00:00So, to start us off, I think the day after you were sworn in to your portfolio, you said
00:06that the climate wars are over. Two years on now, are they?
00:11Well, we've tried to end the climate wars by giving Australia sensible policy, but of
00:16course, for a war to end, both sides have to come to a sensible view. One side has.
00:22The other side is still fighting, you know, the battles of 15 years ago. In effect, they're
00:29arguing for no action on climate change. They've got a little bit smarter than denying climate
00:34change. You know, they used to just outright deny it. They don't do that so much anymore.
00:39Some of them do. But the smarter ones say, well, yeah, climate change is real, but we
00:44shouldn't actually do anything about it, or at least not until the 2040s, which is pretty
00:49explicitly the Liberal and National Party's point of view now. Hence, they can't come
00:52up with a 2030 or a 2035 target. I guess when we're talking about taking action
00:58on climate change, particularly with the rollout of renewable energy projects, we get
01:02quite polarised, quite a polarised debate, particularly in those regional communities
01:07where a lot of this infrastructure is located. Why do you think we're getting these, both
01:12ends of the spectrum, really an antagonistic debate?
01:16Well, I mean, I guess I'd say a few things. Firstly, they are, those two extremes of the
01:23debate are, of course, the most vocal and the most prominent. But I don't think that
01:27the majority, the majority of people, including in regional Australia, have sensible views
01:33where they want to have a say, and they want to have concerns, and they want to make sure
01:37that those concerns are met. But they're not saying don't do it. You know, they're saying
01:41get on with it. And I think the sort of general attitude of most people could be summed up
01:46that way, both in the cities and the regions. Get on with it. Get it right. Stop talking
01:50about it. Get on with it. That's the overwhelming feedback I get.
01:56Because we're here today in Ilawarra, I think for this particular consultation there was
01:59something like 14,000 submissions. That's huge for something like this. People that
02:06are motivated to make those kinds of submissions obviously have strong views. How do you manage
02:10those quite disparate views on a project such as this?
02:14I think by being straight with people, by recognising you're not going to please everyone.
02:18I mean, those 14,000 submissions had all sorts of views in them, from straight out climate
02:22change denial, why would you do this? To, okay, maybe climate change is real, but wind
02:26farms don't work. To, okay, but here's our concerns about whales and fishes and fisheries
02:31and bird life. To concerns about amenity, to please get on with it and build it because
02:38we want the job. So, I mean, all the above views are there. I mean, my job is to sort
02:43of sift through, try and find the genuine concerns, and try and take them on board and
02:49deal with them as best we can, ignore the disinformation, sort out the misinformation,
02:55and get on with it. It keeps coming back to getting on with it.
02:58You mentioned disinformation and you mentioned it earlier today as well. Are you kind of
03:02suggesting that there are bad actors who are involved in the process here?
03:05Of course there are. There's people who, for political purposes, whether they be Liberals,
03:10Nationals, One Nation, Palmer, go down this road and spread lies about climate change
03:16or renewables, including on whales. Peter Dutton's never cared about whales for the
03:22first 22 years of his time in Parliament. Now, all of a sudden, he says, what about
03:25the poor whales? Well, he's not caring about whales when they were putting in oil rigs
03:29and gas rigs. And you've got people who maybe have believed misinformation and disinformation
03:37and propagated it. And we've got to try and make sure that people are getting the facts
03:44and not propagating that disinformation. And as I've said before, also, of course, there's
03:49also genuine concerns. The Dyer Review found that there was quite
03:54broad dissatisfaction with the way in which these consultations are carried out across
03:59all of Australia. What's been going wrong? Why is there such a...
04:03So the Dyer Review was about not just offshore wind, to be clear, about all sorts of things,
04:08including most particularly about transmission lines, but not just about transmission lines.
04:12And that's right. I mean, the consultation process that we inherited wasn't up to scratch,
04:17particularly around transmission. It happened very late. And by and large, decisions have
04:22been made when communities were consulted. And communities are pretty smart. They can
04:26say, well, these decisions are being made. This consultation's not real. So we've been
04:30fixing all that. And also, I think you've got to see consultation and community benefit
04:36as different sides of the same coin, because consultation often leads to community benefit.
04:39Okay, if this is going to happen, what's in it for us? And I don't mean what's in it
04:42for us in a disparaging way. It's a perfectly legitimate question for a community to ask.
04:47What's in it for us? And we've got to have a better answer. And, you know, so we've changed
04:51the rules about community benefit too. And, you know, here is an example on offshore wind.
04:55Community benefit will be one of the key criteria in determining who gets a licence, who's got
05:00the best plan for local jobs, who's got the best community benefit fund. Big key criteria.
05:04The report also talked about a lot of projects were going to communities and seeking feedback
05:09were probably never really going to happen. And people were getting fatigued by this.
05:13And proponents also were maybe, you know, also having their own interests at play there
05:18as well. Yeah, and that's part, I mean, that is true.
05:21The Dyer Review found that, yeah, some farmers are being doorknocked by solar farms or wind
05:26farms. It's probably never realistic, but, you know, less credible, less established
05:34proponents are coming and saying, oh, let's just whack a wind farm there. Let's go and
05:36talk to the farmers. It's never going to get approval. And so what we're doing is adopting
05:41the Dyer recommendation of accreditation. And, you know, it's voluntary, but it will
05:47be a factor in getting government support. It's sort of a star rating system sort of
05:52thing for developers to show who the good ones are so communities can see and governments
05:58can see and everyone can see, oh, these guys are seriously credible. They wouldn't be coming
06:01here with a nonsense plan. Oh, these guys, well, maybe they, maybe they aren't quite,
06:06you know, the sort of serious company that we would expect. So that's a good proposal,
06:11which obviously it's got some complexities, but we're working that through and we'll implement
06:14it. Does the government though need to take a
06:17stronger role in terms of coordinating this and saying, you know, rather than having every
06:21single project and every single proponent, for example, here, we'll have multiple proponents
06:27doing their own consultations. Does there need to be more government led?
06:30Well, I don't think you can stop somebody proposing something, you know, you can't say,
06:34oh, that's a silly idea. You can't propose that. You can have pretty clear guidelines
06:39that these are areas where, you know, proposals are likely to get approval in these areas
06:43where they're not. I think we can do more there, but we, there's already a lot of that.
06:47There's, I mean, renewable energy zones are in many ways that, you know, inside a renewable
06:51energy zone, which are state led, not Commonwealth led. Not every state has them, but where states
06:56do, it's basically saying, well, here, here's where proponents should be looking because
06:59here's where we support it. Maybe if you're going outside a renewable energy zone, you're
07:03less likely to get approvals than support.
07:05There was also some money in the budget for changes to the consultation process around
07:11renewable energy. What's this money for and how are you going to spend it?
07:14Well, that was really money to implement the Dyer Review. So $20 million to implement the
07:18recommendations of the Dyer Review. So, you know, you can, you can read the Dyer Review
07:23and that's what the $20 million is for, to get that, that work underway.
07:26Because are you thinking more broadly though about how consultation occurs and ensuring
07:33that people aren't feeling dissatisfied and also distrustful of the way in which they're
07:37using renewable energy?
07:38I find that when people complain about consultation, sometimes that's because the consultation
07:41is no good. And sometimes because they don't like the proposal and it doesn't matter how
07:46well you consult and it doesn't matter how much consultation you do, if it ends in approval,
07:50they're not going to be happy. So I think, you know, yes, we can always, and we have
07:57improved the consultation for transmission. The consultation on offshore wind is done
08:02in accordance with the Act, which the previous government, Liberal government passed. They're
08:06not so loud about that these days. They're the ones who said, you know, you go out for
08:10community consultation first, 60 days and then declare a zone. Well, in most zones now
08:16I consult for much more than 60 days because 60 days I've determined is not long enough.
08:21But that's what the Liberal Party left in terms of the proposed consultation period.
08:25You talked about consultation and benefit being two sides of the same coin. For regional
08:30communities who are the hosts of many of these renewable energy projects, how will they start
08:37to see the benefits of that renewable energy transition as this accelerates?
08:40Well, they'll see jobs, both construction and ongoing. And they'll see community benefits.
08:49You know, proponents are going to have to really invest in communities to get ongoing
08:53support from government. I've recently put out the guidelines for the capacity investment
08:59scheme, which underwrites 32 gigawatts, and we've got strong requirements in there for
09:03social licence for local benefits. And I was very pleased to see sensible groups like
09:12Renew who've come out and said, this is great. These are groups which have said, which are
09:19pro-renewables but pro-community benefit, who said, yeah, the capacity investment scheme
09:22ticks the box and gets it right for assessing community benefit in programs. So I'm very
09:27pleased about that. I guess you mentioned as well that you yourself
09:32have been targeted by some of these groups in terms of, and you've become this figure
09:36for some people. How do we kind of, as a community, say, perhaps this level of debate has gone
09:42too far? Or do you think it has gone too far? Look, I've got pretty broad shoulders. And
09:50I talk to my international colleagues about this, other climate change ministers who say,
09:55yeah, we're right in the gun. You know, we're right, the most controversial figure in our
10:00party, the hard right that hates us, you know. And some on the environmental left hate us too,
10:08because they say we're not doing enough, you know, the opposite. Climate change is
10:11controversial. When you're a climate change minister, you're going to be controversial.
10:14You can't worry about that. You can't let it get to you. You're just going to have to accept,
10:18I'm doing a controversial job. Some people are going to hate the job I'm doing. And,
10:23you know, I respect all views. And yes, social media does get very vicious. But,
10:29you know, I've got a job to do. And that job is to make our economy decarbonised so that we
10:35protect our planet. I'm not going to worry about a few Facebook posts as I go about that task,
10:41because it's the most important job I've ever done and ever will do. I've got to get on with it.