Interview with Mim Hook, ABC Gippsland

MIM HOOK: We're going to speak now to Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy here in Australia, and has just visited Gippsland as part of the Gippsland New Energy Conference. Good morning, Mr Bowen.

CHRIS BOWEN: Good morning, Mim, how are you? Call me Chris.

MIM HOOK: Well, it's ABC protocol, I have to call you,I can't be too friendly, so I've got to call you Mr Bowen, Chris.

CHRIS BOWEN: Okay, all right then. If you insist, that's better.

MIM HOOK: Mr Bowen, you've been to Gippsland. Tell us your thoughts on Gippsland. In your speech you call us as one of the most important places in Australia for energy transformation.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, absolutely. It was great to be back in Gippsland, and there are a number of regions very important for Australia's energy transition and industrial transition, but none more important than Gippsland, and you know, as I often say, Mim, the regions that have powered Australia for generations for whom we owe a great debt of gratitude will be the same regions that power us for generations to come, just in a different way.

So really, I was talking about two things when I was in Traralgon; the opportunities for offshore wind and a bit of an update there and helped launched the local offshore wind alliance, which is designed to not only support offshore wind but make sure the region gets all the jobs benefits that it possibly can and work together across industry, Local Government, unions, community groups, to make sure that's the case with us.

MIM HOOK: I understand-  

CHRIS BOWEN: And secondly-  

MIM HOOK: Just so we understand.

CHRIS BOWEN: And secondly just-  

MIM HOOK: Just so we understand what the alliance is-  

CHRIS BOWEN:-there's an announcement too that we can get to as well, yes.

MIM HOOK: Yeah. Just so we understand what the alliance is, that's 'cause it does get confusing as a Gippslander here. There are little sessions every week from some different wind farm or organisation. This is so there's one clear line of communication about what's happening, is that right?

CHRIS BOWEN: I think that's right, I think that's right. I mean obviously this has been organised locally, I was happy to participate, but not something that we've sort of engineered, and that's the way it should be. It's locals taking control together with the industry.

We've got 12 different proponents, different companies developing offshore wind plans for the Gippsland region, for the offshore wind zone, and that's a good thing, but I do understand completely that that can be a bit confusing and bewildering that you've got so many companies doing so many things.

So I think the alliance will help bridge the gap with local government and with other community groups to try and get one sort of clearing house with how we're going to work together to make all this work, not just for the country, it will work for the country, but how we really ensure that we're not missing any opportunities to ensure Gippsland itself gets the jobs benefits, the local content benefits and everything like that.

MIM HOOK: Now before I interrupted you, you had a second thing.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, just briefly, also made a second announcement of what's called the Capacity Investment Scheme, but importantly for Gippsland, one of the projects is a local project, a big battery. But a part of our criteria is we make sure that the communities that host the battery, and any other projects for that matter and future auctions, actually benefit. We don't just for the cheapest or the most energy, we go for community benefits.

So this Wooreen battery will also have a half million dollar community benefit fund, also 10 per cent of the construction jobs must be locally engaged to apprentices, so providing some jobs opportunities for people trying to get into construction trades. Also half a million dollars for First Nations training to participate, and a 20 per cent local content requirement, so that, you know, the things that they use are actually sourced in the Gippsland, creating other jobs as well and flow on jobs.

And that's really, you know, an increasing part of what we're doing to ensure that the regions that are hosting this infrastructure, you know, obviously there are certain benefits, but we want to make sure that those benefits are maximised, and there's also certain challenges, and so we've got to make sure that it's genuinely in the best interests of the communities that are hosting.

MIM HOOK: You're hearing from Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change and Energy, and Mr Bowen's just visited Gippsland and has spoken in Traralgon. As part of your speech, you give the example of the closure of the Hazelwood Power Station as being one of the best examples in Australia of a disorderly transition of communities being ill treated-  

CHRIS BOWEN: Getting that wrong, getting it wrong.

MIM HOOK: -and then you say that right now it's one of the best examples of an orderly transition. Not everyone, I can safely say from my experience here at ABC Gippsland, not everyone in the community is on board with how the transition is happening in Gippsland.

Yallourn is set to close, it's 22 per cent of our electricity at the moment, mid 2028. Wind farms are not coming on, and it's only a small amount of power from 2032. Is it an orderly transition? A lot of people are frightened there's going to be a bit of a period where there's not a match up of enough power for everyone.

CHRIS BOWEN: No, I get that, and this is a big change, and not everyone's going to feel exactly the same about a very big change. But, yes, my point was that Hazelwood closure was, you know, terrible, terribly handled.  We don't do that anymore, we don't allow that anymore in terms of a company saying, "Well, we're out", and you don't get much notice. That's not allowed anymore, and now there's a lot more planning goes in across all levels of government.

But if it was only offshore wind we were doing, then fair cop. You know, if it was just offshore wind   now let me just say offshore wind is massive. I mean of those 12 proponents, those 12 companies we have out there, that's 25 gigawatts, that's 100 times more energy than industry in Gippsland currently uses; that's more than all of Victoria currently uses. So that's a lot of energy that's coming with offshore wind.

Yes, that's further away, much further, you know, the Victorian Government's got 2032 plans for two gigawatts, and the rest will come afterwards, but it's still happening, and everything else we're doing.

I mean the Capacity Investment Scheme announcement I made when I was in Gippsland is enough to power a million homes, and a lot of people say, "Oh, batteries only last a few minutes." With respect, these days that's not true. I mean these are four hour batteries we're talking about, and if you think about the sort of challenges that we have, if when solar, you know, stops operating in the afternoon and we're not relying on that anymore, if we need a bit more extra support, it's that period through the peak we need.

But that's not all we're doing. Hydro is ultra long duration, storage. So it's not just renewables. Renewables are very important, we're getting to 82 per cent renewables, but it's renewables backed by storage, backed by transmission and backed by gas as a peaking form. So gas is the ultimate peaking, because it's flexible, you can turn it on and off. So it's a very holistic plan.

MIM HOOK: And there is the Hazelwood Solar Farm that's on the way as well. Is that part of the puzzle?

CHRIS BOWEN: Massive. Yeah, and that's massive as well, but also, it's just one of the many, many projects. I mean we've seen renewable energy up 25 per cent since we came to office. It's very, very important that we keep going on that.

MIM HOOK: With the Hazelwood Solar Farm, many people some farmers are nervous around farming land being used for things like solar farms. Can you still run, like, for example, the Bald Hills Wind Farm in South Gippsland, you can still run cattle underneath. Is it the same with solar farms? Can you still run livestock?

CHRIS BOWEN: You can run sheep; you can't run cattle. You can run sheep with solar farms, you can run cattle with wind farms. The cows sit on the solar panels, which is not great, but sheep don't do that.

But on that point, you know, we know that we need 0.1 per cent of agricultural land for the renewable transformation underway. A lot of people might think it's a much, much higher figure. It's not. It's 0.1 per cent. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful, and we shouldn't plan carefully, and it doesn't mean that every proposal is right for every site, because it's not, and food security is an overriding objective for us, criteria for us. But 0.1 per cent, as much as it needs planning, is manageable, and co-existence is 100 per cent possible.

You know, every region is different, and what I'm about to say doesn't necessarily apply in Gippsland, but you know, Australia's largest solar farm, which is in Uralla in the New England in New South Wales, also runs 6,000 sheep, and it's very hot there, the sheep gather under the solar panels for shade, they're happier. And in terms of wind farms, you know, I've spoken to cattle farmers who say their farm is now much, much more profitable because they live next to a wind farm, and the wind farm operators don't mind, they let them agist their cattle on their property for no fee, and their profitability's gone up.

So these things can co-exist, and we have to make sure they do co-exist.

MIM HOOK: You're hearing from Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate and Energy who has just been in Traralgon. You mentioned just earlier that $500,000 has been set aside for the training of First Nations people in skills for our renewable energy industry that will be here in Gippsland under your Government.

Traditionally here in Gippsland, these high paying jobs in the power industry, in the timber industry, have been jobs for the boys, and often we know that jobs for women are much more lowly paid, childcare, for example. How are you going to make sure that the women of Gippsland get a cut of this industry that's coming in; single mums, women getting access to this money coming into Gippsland?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, yeah. I agree. It can be blokey, to be honest. But increasingly I'm finding that changing. You know, I'm meeting a lot of female apprentices as I move around the country, more and more young female apprentices who are getting into the trades in renewable energy, in renewable energy associated projects. This is great, you know, and we need options for young people, and indeed mid career people looking at apprentices, male, female, people who are in existing industries, so that's very important to me.

You know, I met, when I was there, workers in coal fired power stations who are looking at offshore wind and say that their skills are very transferrable, and they're right.

But we also need to ensure that young people   the way I think about this, Mim, is I want young people who currently live in Gippsland, if they want to keep living in Gippsland, I want them to have the option to, by having good paid jobs, whether they're male, female, whether they're working at the moment in traditional industries or they're leaving school, and I believe we can do that, and increasingly it will be the criteria that we apply to these industries to say, okay, making sure everyone's getting a fair go.

MIM HOOK: We're running out of time, Mr Bowen, but just a few questions quickly. The Port of Hastings was meant to be the port for offshore wind. The Federal Government stopped that, saying it's a Ramsar wetland. I know that there's still a push for the Port of Hastings to be the port. Can State and Federal Government work together on this? Will it be the Port of Hastings?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, we have to work together. Now, we're continuing to talk to the Victorian Government about what the port is, whether it's a multi-port strategy for offshore wind 'cause it's such a big undertaking. We'll always environmental laws will come first so, you know, we're not going to compromise on internationally listed wetlands, but we will work very have been and will continue to work very cooperatively with the Victorian Government to ensure that there's a very sensible solution to this, whether it is a modified Port of Hastings or a different proposal; that's a conversation that we're continuing to have.

We do have a little bit of time to work this through because construction is not imminent, but we do need to get cracking, and we are continuing to talk to Victoria about getting cracking.

MIM HOOK: Mr Bowen, we've just had these huge storms here in Gippsland, towns like Inverloch, Loch Sport, along our coast are being affected by erosion, storm surges, car parks, roads, infrastructure under threat from storm surges along our coastline.

As Minister for Climate Change, what are your thoughts, or what are you doing to protect our coast lines?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, thank you for raising that, Mim, 'cause that's very important, and we talked about some of the challenges about renewable energy and there are challenges. It's important to remind ourselves why we're doing this, 'cause climate change is real and it's having an impact on communities today, and we can't just wash our hands and say this is all the responsibility of other countries. Every country's got a stake in this, and that's why we're doing everything we're doing.

But we also have to acknowledge that it's too late in some instances, that the world is already warming and we need to slow that warming and stop that warming, but it has already happened, and we're already seeing natural disasters become increasingly frequent and more severe, and that's impacting on communities, whether it's flooding or storms, or coastal erosion.

So what we're doing is developing a national   two things   a national risk assessment and a national adaptation plan. And the risk assessment will help us talk about which communities are most at risk, and then the adaptation plan will be how all governments it's not just the Commonwealth but the States and Local Government need to work together  

MIM HOOK: It sounds lengthy.

CHRIS BOWEN: It is. It is.

MIM HOOK: That sounds like a lengthy bit of bureaucracy, and it's happening now. We can tell you; you just ask us; we'll just tell you which towns are being affected.

CHRIS BOWEN: It's not all we're doing, but it is a lengthy process because it is such a big deal, and it's different across the country. You know, we Australia owns some small islands in various oceans, we have coastal communities, we have remote communities where it's already very hot and getting a lot hotter. It's different in every place. We've got communities where there was once a once in a hundred-year flood which is now happening every five or six years. So, you know, there's no sort of one size fits all solution to this.

Now, that's not all we're doing, we're also funding various things for different communities, including coastal erosion across Australia, but, you know, we also have to see it in part of the broader picture.

MIM HOOK: Mr Bowen, thank you for your time. Minister for Climate and Energy, speaking to you here at ABC Gippsland.