Press conference with Mayor of Glenelg Shire, Karen Stephens, in Portland, Victoria

KAREN STEPHENS: Welcome, everybody. My name is Karen Stephens, the mayor of the Glenelg Shire, and I have great pleasure in welcoming our Federal Minister for the Environment, Chris Bowen. Thank you, Chris.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thank you very much, Karen. It's great to be back in Portland for the third time this term of government. Today, I'm very pleased to be here at the Portland smelter, which is so important for this region and so important for Australia's industrial future, to announce the next stage in the Southern Ocean offshore wind development. Previously, I've been here to launch consultation on the zone and declare the zone. And today I'm here to issue the first preliminary feasibility licence to Spinifex, to go to the next stage to develop the energy and jobs at this region needs, that this smelter needs and that our country needs. Today I've issued a preliminary feasibility licence, as I said, to the proponent known as Spinifex. This project now can go to the next stage after 60 days of consultations with First Nations people, of continuing their work to establish the feasibility of the project and moving to full commercial licence.

This project is 1.2 gigawatts. Now, that might not sound like much. That's enough for 650,000 homes. That's 10 per cent of Victoria's energy needs in one project to be produced here. It has been established to produce $1.6 billion of local economic benefit and $40 million a year, over 1700 construction jobs and 300 ongoing jobs - just on the offshore wind, putting aside the multiply effect and the impact on local industry. And importantly, a smelter like this to compete around the world will need to be able to call on renewable energy investors, consumers, insurers who will want to know that these smelters are converting their energy over the longer term as it becomes more viable, to renewable energy.

And, of course, offshore wind is important because it's constant, it's constantly windy off our shore, which means it's in effect, a permanent source of energy.

So, this is a good day. This is a good day, and I want to congratulate Spinifex for their work. I also want to say that the work is really beginning to ensure ongoing local community benefit. I talked about those community benefits, $1.6 billion of economic benefit. I want to send the message very clearly to local workers and to local businesses that I want to ensure that each local government area benefits from this investment, that the jobs that are created will be filled to the greatest extent possible by locals, by young apprentices, by mid-career apprentices, by people looking to transition from other industries. I want to ensure that local small businesses know that as far as I'm concerned, they will get a fair shot at the contracts, at the economic activity that will be created.

So, today I'm also announcing the establishment of a task force which will consist of my department, Spinifex, the mayors, Mayor Ben, Mayor Ian, Mayor Karen, with other community leaders and the unions to ensure that we are all working together. To ensure that not one job that can be filled by a local, not one contract that can be filled by local businesses goes elsewhere. Of course, this is a huge, massive nation building task force. I think people understand that there is going to need to be, obviously, big investment and things coming in from outside the region, but every single potential benefit for locals will be fueled by locals, local businesses, local employees. There's a lot of work to go on that, but we're going to do it together. Working together. Unions, components, the local councils. If we need skills that currently need development, we'll work together to build those skills over the coming years. We have time to do this. This isn't a project which will start next week or next month or next year. We're talking about early 2030s, so there's time to build the infrastructure locally to support this project. And by infrastructure, I mean skills, I mean jobs, I mean investment.

So, this is a good day. The proposed area is here. It's smaller than the declared area, as you'd expect. That's the way this process works. You start big and as you develop, you fine tune down. So, this is a smaller area, which I think will be of some, you know, be welcomed by people who have had genuine concerns that have needed to be worked through. But what we haven't reduced is the jobs, the investment or the energy. So, I'm pleased to declare that Spinifex has received their preliminary licence and I look forward to coming back many times to this region, right across the region, to celebrate milestones and to work with the community to ensure real local community benefit. Thank you.

Does anybody want to add anything? Any of the mayors? All good? We're all good, thank you.

JOURNALIST: Just some questions. Sorry, Minister.

CHRIS BOWEN: Oh, questions. Okay. I forgot about that bit.

JOURNALIST: In recent days, there's been a lot of discussion about proposals to potentially cut back negative gearing. What do you think of reforming negative gearing, given you were the chief architect of such a change during the 2019?

CHRIS BOWEN: What I think about reform is that I'm here producing energy and jobs for this region, and that's what I'm focused on today. I'm going to leave others to comment on about broader national issues.

JOURNALIST: Just in regards to electric vehicles. How likely is it that Australia could ban Chinese-made software and hardware in cars?

CHRIS BOWEN: We won't be banning vehicles made in any particular country. We'll continue to work with all the relevant agencies to ensure that all are necessary arrangements in place. But I want Australians have more choice of vehicles to buy, not less, more choice. We're seeing a big improvement in range available to Australians. Range of choices, cars available to Australians. You're going to see much more of that in the next few years as we introduce new vehicle efficiency standards. You're going to see more in the next few weeks with some announcements coming from manufacturers. I'll leave them to make about new vehicles that are going to be available in Australia. Very exciting options for Australians for electric and hybrid vehicles which are coming to Australia even in the next few weeks. That involves choices for Australians so I want Australians to have maximum range of choice as to what vehicles they buy. We won't be reducing that choice.

JOURNALIST: And how closely are you monitoring what's happening in the United States with electric vehicles?

CHRIS BOWEN: I monitor what's happening in all markets, but we won't be reducing the choices delivered to Australians.

JOURNALIST: You talked about the Southern Ocean Wind Industry Committee. When will that convene?

CHRIS BOWEN: Urgently. Urgently. Because it couldn't convene before today because the proponent hadn't been appointed. I've appointed the proponent today and now they'll start work with the local community.

JOURNALIST: What's it going to entail?

CHRIS BOWEN: What's what going to entail?

JOURNALIST: Well, how's that committee going to work?

CHRIS BOWEN: What the committee's going to do is the proponent will outline to the mayors and to the unions and to the community what their needs will be employee-wise, local content wise, components wise, and how we can work together to maximise, absolutely ensure that businesses know this work is coming so they can prepare for it. Local businesses, if you don't know the work's coming, you can't prepare for it. Local workers can prepare their skills. We can work with local TAFE to ensure that the training is fit for purpose, for the jobs to be created in the future. If you don't do that work, you're going to miss out on opportunities, we're not going to do that.

JOURNALIST: A community fund? What's happening with that?

CHRIS BOWEN: There will be a community benefit fund which the proponent will fund. So, that is guaranteed that there is a community benefit fund which will then distribute investments around the community. That's another thing that the proponent will work with the mayors on in particular to identify needs. The - Spinifex has a bit more work to do to announce the quantum of that fund, but it will be substantial.

JOURNALIST: Timeframe for your feasibility study.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, the feasibility study can take several years. The licence can get run up to seven years. But obviously, people will be working to have this identified as quickly as possible. But they're going to get it right. There's a lot of feasibility work to be done to ensure environmental impacts are minimised. And they'll get that work right. We'll work with them on that.

JOURNALIST: So, you said early thirties, so we're seven, eight years. Ten.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well it's, you know, you don't, you don't build an industry from scratch in the next few months. This will take several years to build. Well then. All done?

JOURNALIST: Minister, great to have you in the Southwest. Yeah. Just wondering, producing the energy here, we've got to get it to Melbourne. Major transition transmission requirements. Any plan for that, that you could –

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, one of the benefits of this region, as you know, Ian, is there's plenty of transmission already. So, one of the things we determine in determining where to put this is where's the infrastructure best fit for purpose. Now there's more work to do about where it will come out, out of the ocean, but there's major substations in this region already supporting the smelter. There's large transmission. So, that's one of the big benefits that we don't need to build huge amounts of transmission to get the energy out of the offshore wind farming.

JOURNALIST: Yeah. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Minister, when is a final decision expected to be made for the feasibility licence?

CHRIS BOWEN: I think I answered that question before. We'll work it through. It can take some time, but this will be an industry that we're getting up and running here in the early 2030s. All right, now we're done.