Press conference with Minister Ed Husic and Minister Lily D'Ambrosio, Gippsland Offshore Wind Declaration

CHRIS BOWEN: Well for more than 100 years Gippsland has powered Victoria and Gippsland will power Victoria, and indeed a big part of Australia, for 100 years and more.

Today we're announcing that I am officially declaring Gippsland as Australia's first offshore wind zone. This follows months of consultation, preparation and work.

The Gippsland offshore wind zone will be the first in Australia and that's appropriate, because in Gippsland people know how to make energy. The grid is strong. The skills are here. And the opportunities are enormous.

Offshore wind is rich in energy and rich in jobs. And I'm delighted that Gippsland will share in thousands of offshore wind jobs over coming years. Offshore wind turbines make a lot of energy, they need a lot of maintenance, they need ships to take workers out there. This is jobs rich.

Australia is currently behind the world on offshore wind. It's been illegal for too long. Other countries around the world have been doing it. Australia can lead the world in offshore wind. Victoria can lead Australia in offshore wind. And Gippsland can lead Victoria in offshore wind.

Now importantly, as I said, this announcement comes after months of community consultation. We want to ensure the community benefits from this. So, we've made changes. The area that I am declaring today will start 10 kilometres from the shore, not five kilometres as we previously consulted on, taking into account community feedback.

Also, I am declaring the area east of Wilsons Promontory, not the area west of Wilsons Promontory today, in response to community concerns, environmental concerns and feedback.

I look forward very much to working with Lily and the Victorian Government to further consider that area west of Wilsons Promontory over the coming 12 months to see if those community concerns can be dealt with and those environmental concerns can be dealt with. But it's important we get this right and it's important that we continue to work closely with the community.

In addition, Ed Husic and I are particularly interested to ensure strong local content and very strong local community economic benefit from these offshore wind farms. And so, I'm also announcing today that we'll be receiving applications for licences from January to April next year. As we work through those licence applications, we'll be looking very strongly at the amount of community economic benefit from offshore wind.

I just want to say before I hand over to Ed who's going to make a related but separate announcement in relation to offshore wind in Gippsland, just what a pleasure it is to work with Lily D'Ambrosio and the Victorian State Government.

Congratulations, Lily, on your recent re-election and congratulations for your renewable energy plans being such a big part of your re-election plans.

The Victorian State Government here in Victoria has the nation’s leading offshore wind plans and it was no small part of the reason why we chose Gippsland first as the forward leaning visionary approach of the Andrews' government and of Lily, and there is much, much work to do now to bring this to reality and it'll be done in close partnership between the Albanese Government and the Andrews Government to make sure that this Gippsland offshore wind zone becomes a reality and we see energy being generated for Victorians for the national energy market and jobs being generated as well.

So, this is a great day. A very important announcement I'm very proud of. We have prioritised offshore wind in the first six months of the Albanese Government and it's appropriate as we wind our way to the end of the year to make this important announcement of the declaration of the Gippsland offshore wind zone, together with the announcement that Ed's about to make and the partnership between the Andrews Government and the Albanese Government to ensure energy and jobs in Gippsland into the future.

I'll hand over to Ed and Lily and then we'll be happy to take any questions.

ED HUSIC: Thanks Chris, and it is great to be here with you and with Lily and Raff for this manager announcement because it is a big deal. Being able to get these zones set up is really important because what they do next is critical. I'm pleased to let you all know that as a result of setting up the regulatory framework under Chris' leadership, in terms of what the Australian Government's been pushing for, we can then unlock the jobs and economic opportunity that comes with that.

And so, the Australian Government is pleased to announce that one of the first projects that we'll be able to get to work as a result of what we've announced today is Star of the South and we've attached to that Major Project Status, which means we will work with them as a significant investment to the country to ensure that they get up and running as quickly as they can.

There are two great things that come out of projects like this: they generate a lot of energy, and they generate a lot of jobs. So, we need to be able to get the framework right and to work with people to make that happen. Projects like this are big regional job boosters, they're a shot in the arm for local industry and they also ensure that regional economies get a slice of that action. And what we want to do as a Federal Government is make sure that we squeeze every drop of local industry involvement in projects like these.

Earlier this month we brought in the legislation to create the $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund. One of its priority areas is to establish support for renewable and low emissions technology manufacture so that we can provide the capital that can help support projects that bring onshore manufacturing to life, create jobs and can also see us reduce emissions in the process as well. And as part of those priority areas, we want to develop co investment plans, again to make sure that we squeeze every drop of local industry involvement and job creation that we can.

Now working together, we can get this right, but it does take an Australian Government to recognise the huge economic power of renewable projects, and to be willing to work with state governments to make that a reality. And echoing Chris' point, I want to congratulate not only Lily in terms of reappointment and her re-election, but the reality is you've got two levels of government that are working together to be able to generate the type of economic activity that comes as a result of renewable projects.

We need to work together to get the job done and that is exactly what we're doing. I might hand over to Lily to talk through the Victorian Government's focus on this as well. Thanks.
 
LILY D'AMBROSIO: Thanks very much, Chris and Ed. It's fantastic to be here today with you. Of course, here in Gippsland, the home of energy for many, many decades. In fact, the home of energy and of course our economic wellbeing here in Victoria, and certainly it's been a powerhouse of our state for many decades, powering the manufacturing industry, powering the jobs and the way of life, if you like, that has supported so many families, so many people right across our great state.

Today's a fantastic day for Victoria. It is an important milestone on our journey to meet some significant milestones of targets that we've set in renewable energy. In particular of course the nation's first offshore wind energy targets that we established.

I'm absolutely delighted that Chris and Ed have come here today, one of course to declare the country's first offshore wind energy zone, but also of course to declare Star of the South as being the important first project to take full advantage of the facilitation program that the national government is providing to actually help a new project, new proposals get off the ground, building those critical supply chains, creating those new jobs of tomorrow, today.

And of course, this is a major milestone towards us contributing to delivering our two gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2032, growing that to four gigawatts by 2035 and delivering nine gigawatts of new renewable low emissions offshore wind energy by 2040.

These are fantastic milestones, ones that of course are really needed by industry to actually have the confidence to go to the next step of delivering these projects here in Victoria.

We're very proud of course as a state to have plans to grow renewable energy to 95 per cent of our electricity by 2035. That's going to be creating 59,000 jobs, including 6,000 apprenticeships and traineeships here for Victorians. And that is important also because we know that this technology is a technology that we absolutely need to tackle climate change with real action, not just words. There's lots of words that are said about this but actually delivering is only what Labor Governments can do, federally and the state working together to deliver real action on the ground. Creating the jobs of the future, the skills of the future, the traineeships, the apprenticeships, and also all the while our government is absolutely committed to a return of the State Electricity Commission which will have public ownership as its mantra, which will have training and accreditation, support for local supply chains. All of those will be about publicly owned renewable energy 100 per cent.

This is absolutely a critical way for us to own our future. Owning our future when two levels of governments work together to create the future, the future that we want to see for our young people.

Of course, I do want to commend Chris and Ed for the foresight, but also of course not wasting a single day in government in reforming our approach to the energy transition. We're forming it in a way that Victorians for sure, and of course the rest of the country, will have the great hope that we are finally a league player, a national player, an international player, not just someone that drags its feet towards this technology and the absolute transition that we need to have here in this country.

So, I do want to commend Chris, I want to commend Ed. This is fantastic news for Victoria, and we're absolutely delighted that we have now a critical world leading partner nationally to help us deliver our world leading targets in Victoria. Thanks Chris.

CHRIS BOWEN: Thank you, Lily. Just before I invite journalists to ask any questions can I thank everyone for coming today, the mayor, leaders from around the community. As I said before, Ed and Lily and I are absolutely determined to ensure that the community benefits, traditional owners benefit from these projects and I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and look forward to working with Traditional Owner groups over the coming years to ensure community benefit as well as broader community benefit so there's industry here, there's unions here, there's local government, there's Traditional Owners. Thank you all for coming.

We'll take some questions. It's previously been agreed between the three of us that I'll take the easy ones, Lily will take the hard ones and Ed will take the really hard ones.

ED HUSIC: Sorry, wait, what?

CHRIS BOWEN: Any questions?
 
JOURNALIST: Yeah, so I noticed the South Gippsland zones are being removed, can you explain why that's the case?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yeah, because I take into account community concerns. The area west of Wilsons Promontory did not receive the same level of community support as the proposal east. And also, there's environmental concerns with the famous orange bellied parrot which need to be worked through.

It's very important that communities right around Australia know that when we start a community consultation process it's real, that we will listen. It doesn't mean that everybody will be happy with the decision, but we take everybody's views on board. I read through the submissions to the consultation process. My department held six open house sessions right across the community and we've listened.

Now that doesn't mean it will never be declared. It means that we will continue to work with the community, take issues on board, work with Lily, work with proponents, think about how we might be able to take those issues on board further. I didn't want those issues to slow down the declaration of the zone, hence I've declared the zone today; 15,000 square kilometres I'm declaring today. That's no small zone, 15,000 square kilometres is lots of room and those remaining areas we'll continue to look at over the next 12 months and see if those community concerns can be dealt with.

JOURNALIST: And when you talk about that zone in particular just here, is there any risks to migratory bird species or anything like that and have studies been done to ensure there's no risk?

CHRIS BOWEN: As part of the consultation we've taken submissions about bird life. We've consulted very carefully with the environment side of my department which answers to Minister Plibersek. We've talked to the state environment department. All those issues have been considered, yes, of course.

Offshore wind, like onshore wind, needs to consider its impact on bird life. That is very important. Of course, more birds die from windows and communications towers and cars than offshore wind around the world, or onshore wind for that matter. But that doesn't mean that we don't work through those issues carefully. And one of the reasons I haven't declared that area west of Wilsons Promontory today is concern about the orange bellied parrot which needs to be worked through. There's not a clear understanding of the migratory patterns of that parrot so there's some work yet to be done.

When I declare an area, that means the work's been done. I'm fully satisfied with the issues. I don't sign the declaration before I'm fully satisfied. I'm fully satisfied about the 15,000 square kilometres I'm declaring today. I'm not yet fully satisfied about the other area; hence we're going to take a little bit more time to work that through.

JOURNALIST: Can you provide any guarantees to Waratah Bay residents and Inverloch residents that turbines won't go within 30 kilometres of the coast?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, the original proposal we consulted on was five kilometres from shore. The area I'm declaring is 10 kilometres from shore which I think strikes the right balance.

JOURNALIST: Yeah, obviously it's the first offshore wind development zone, it must be an exciting thing to have down here?

CHRIS BOWEN: Certainly, is exciting, as Lily and Ed said, and as I said before. Australia can lead the world in offshore wind. Victoria can lead Australia. And Gippsland can lead Victoria. Hence Gippsland can lead the world. I want to see we are the world's largest island, and we have no offshore wind. I mean that's the lunacy of the situation this government has inherited. The world's largest island has no offshore wind. Offshore wind is jobs rich, energy rich.

Working through those community concerns we can make this a big winner for Victoria. Lily's determined to do that. Her leadership and Dan's leadership has ensured that we're here today. We had a choice of where we would go first. Because we work these issues through very carefully, we consider one zone at a time. My department doesn't have the capacity, the resources to consider more than one zone at a time. Hence, we've chosen Gippsland first because it is the one with a huge amount of potential and with support of the Victorian Government as well as the local community, and the good work done by proponents like Star of the South.

JOURNALIST: Is the Federal Government considering compensating any of the commercial fishers off the Gippsland coast?

CHRIS BOWEN: No, but one of the conditions that we will have on licences when we consider licence applications between January and April is that we will require proponents to consult carefully with the fishing industry, to take into account impacts on both commercial and recreational fishing and to ensure sustainable co-existence.

JOURNALIST: These projects will take between seven to ten years to develop and in that time some coal fired power stations are meant to close so how's the government going to make up for that shortfall in energy?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well because this isn't the only thing we're doing. This is very important but it's far from the only thing we're doing. On the weekend, I announced more than $170 million of investment in grid scale batteries by the Federal Government which will unlock $2 million of investment in grid scale batteries. I mean that's just one thing.

Lily and I and our State and Territory Ministers agreed two weeks ago to deliver the Capacity Investment Scheme, and which the Commonwealth will underwrite an options system, a risk management system which will unleash at least six gigawatts of renewable energy across the country, dispatchable. So, if we were just putting all our eggs in offshore wind your question would be a very fair one. But when offshore is about one of 10 things we're doing at once to catch up on 10 years of denial and delay. And yes, we've had four gigawatts of dispatchable energy leave the grid over the last 10 years and only one gigawatt come in. That's a problem. That's a problem we've inherited. That's why we're not wasting a day. We’ve wasted a decade. We're not wasting a day now and getting on with what I call the all the above approach. We don't have the choice to say offshore wind or onshore wind or solar. It's all the above.

JOURNALIST: Coal fired power stations make about two gigawatts of energy per day whereas your goal for offshore wind is two gigawatts per year by 2032, so where else is that energy coming from?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well Lily might care to add in terms of the Victorian plan, but across the country as I said, it's offshore wind, it's onshore wind, it's solar, it's pumped hydro, which is dispatchable renewable energy. It's all the above.

It will be 82 per cent renewables across the country in the grid by 2030. In Victoria there's also plans in relation to 2035 which are, you know, excellent plans. And we're not going to get there with one particular form of technology. As I said, if it was just solar, we'd fail. If it was just offshore wind we'd fail. If it was just onshore wind we'd fail. If it was just pumped hydro we'd fail. With all the above we can and will get there.

Do you want to add anything?

LILY D'AMBROSIO: No, thank you, Chris. Just some specifics around our commitment made just recently for 4,500 megawatts of new build power generation coming into Victoria. That's more than enough to meet the shortfall, if you like, of Loy Yang A leaving by 2035.

Now that's certainly one instalment but we have grown our renewable energy supply in this State at the most rapid rate in the country. The most rapid rate in the country. Creating the most number of jobs in renewable energy in the country. And you don't do that by accident. You do that with a plan, and you do that with ambition.

Every single renewable energy target that we've set as a government we've more than met. That's why I can be absolutely confident that every renewable target that we've committed to into the future will absolutely be met, ensuring that we put downward pressure on power prices, and we get clean energy coming into our system and creating those 59,000 jobs, more of those coming into Victoria through all of the supply chain and of course those ongoing jobs.

We have put aside a billion dollars as a first instalment towards that 4,500 megawatts that we'll be building, and of course that is the first instalment. But there are thousands of megawatts of energy that can be built here in Australia. When you just look at of course offshore here in Victoria we've got the best offshore wind energy resource in the country. We've got the ability to build just in terms of fixed towers out on the coastline here of Gippsland, also in Portland, 13 gigawatts. When you then think further in terms of floating wind turbines you can probably double that.

So, it's a massive, a massive amount of resource that we've got that we've actually created already a massive supply of new energy coming into Victoria. More to come. Like I said, every target has been very ambitious here in Victoria. When we came into government, we only had about 10 per cent of our power coming from renewable resources when we were first elected in 2014. We're now at 34 per cent, 34 per cent of our energy comes from renewable energy here in Victoria. That will grow to 65 per cent by 2030, and of course to 95 per cent by 2035. We've met every target; we'll continue to meet every target.

CHRIS BOWEN: The mayor's got a question for you, Lily, there you go.

MAYOR IAN BYE: Just when we look at the map. We're so excited to have Star of the South which have been great proponents right from the start, and that's a great announcement. We have a lot of wind proponents that are actually on the map to actually provide wind generation. With your roll out that you're proposing, and you're open for submissions for that as you said from January through to about March, how is that going to work if all these proponents now come and you roll out, are you going to let them come quicker than your targets or just go with what your targets are?

LILY D'AMBROSIO: The targets are not a ceiling. The targets are what we want to achieve at the very least. It's not a ceiling, it's not about a nice to have. Like I said, every target that we've set for ourselves, whether it's emissions reduction targets or renewable energy targets, we have more than met. In fact, we've smashed them. So, we'll continue to do that.

The more that want to come invest the better, and that's absolutely what we want. I mean we know that it's greater competition in terms of the potential projects that can be built will lead to better projects being built, will lead to better jobs outcomes, better prices. All of that tells you that Gippsland, and Portland eventually, but Gippsland is absolutely the right place to invest. And that is why we've got here today some of the proponents that are so eager and so pleased to have the Federal Government come in today to absolutely announce this next important milestone which gives certainty to get these projects under way.

ED HUSIC: I just want to say welcome Charles Rattray, the CEO of Star of the South and the team that are here. Over up to a 30-year life span, 200 wind turbines depending on the technology and you may be able to generate more energy with less in terms of resources, but they'll work that out over time. But again, they get to make this decision because of two things. One, because of the regulatory framework the Australian Government's putting in place for offshore wind is now happening after being stalled. Two, we've declared it a major project. It's got Major Project Status because of the over 2,000 jobs it will create and 300 ongoing, and this is one of many potential projects that can happen.

So, picking up on the point. You've got Star of the South that have led the way. They're the first major project that will kick off here. And then there will be others as well. And I imagine there'll be growing interest once they see what Star of the South is being able to achieve and we're very keen to work with them on that. And importantly if we get this right working together, we'll be able to generate not just the jobs but the local industry input as well, which will be important for regional economies here and elsewhere in the country.

JOURNALIST: I've just got a couple from Canberra. Why are we going to see a $68 billion hit to resource export revenue next financial year and how significant an impact will that have on the budget?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, I mean I think you're referring to one report so I wouldn't get too carried away. But in our government, we know that we can continue to be an energy export powerhouse, but we are going to have to make the transition to make that renewable energy exports. 80 per cent of our trading partners are committed to net zero.

We've been honest about this not only since the election but all term, all last term. That's why we invest in communities that are traditionally coal fired powered communities. That's why we help communities with the changes that are under way and there's no better example of that than what we're doing here today.

JOURNALIST: A poll out today in the AFR shows two in three voters support extracting and using more gas. Is it time to ramp up extraction to increase supply?

CHRIS BOWEN: Look, different states will have different approaches to gas but in relation to what we've been dealing with over the last week, what we have done is intervene carefully, methodically but powerfully, to ensure that Australian gas under Australian soil and under Australian water is available for Australians for a fair price.

Gas companies can make mega profits on their exports if they wish. They will not make mega profits at the expense of Australian industry and Australian households while on our watch. It will not happen.

As Lily has pointed out on multiple occasions, the cost production of gas is not up. The only thing that's up is war profits generated by a war a long way from here but having an impact here. And if gas companies think that they can charge Australians the same prices as they charge everyone else during a war, we have a different view and we've implemented that view and it's now the law of the land.

JOURNALIST: We're going to need a massive amount of workers to some of these offshore wind turbines, is the Federal Government doing anything to, you know, increase that amount of workers or, you know, perhaps increase the infrastructure down here to support those workers?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well across the country of course we've got our 10,000 new energy apprentices. Clean energy jobs was a big focus of our Jobs and Skills Summit successfully held a few months ago.

We worked closely with the Victorian Government and state governments across the board on workforce planning. It's one of the things we discussed at our Energy Ministers Council, and we'll continue to discuss of course locally we'll work with peak groups, with the council, with trade unions, with business groups to ensure, and the proponents will ensure that they have the workforce that they need. And of course, frankly that's a very good problem to have. Finding people for jobs is a much better problem than finding jobs for people.

JOURNALIST: How are these private and social companies going to be managed by the SEC?

CHRIS BOWEN: Is that about the SEC? That might be I didn't quite catch all the question, but a SEC question. Lily.
 
LILY D'AMBROSIO: Thank you. The SEC, of course we've not wasted a single day in putting together our plans to re establish the SEC here in Victoria. We've been very clear that the SEC will initially be building 4,500 megawatts of renewable energy supply for our system, contributing to the 59,000 jobs that will be created between now and 2035, including those 6,000 apprenticeships and traineeships, and of course we've also allocated, as I said earlier, a billion dollars in initial funding towards that. Of course, also some money towards training for SEC related activities.

We need to also understand this very fact: that we have many, many megawatts, many, many gigawatts that need to be built in this country, including here in Victoria. There is going to be a need for continuing investment not just from government, from the State Government and Federal Government in terms of their own programs and the rest, especially for supply chains.

But there is going to be a significant need for more investment to come in through private companies into Australia, into Victoria in particular. So, there's going to be plenty of projects. There's going to be plenty of work. And the SEC will absolutely be publicly owned and it will be creating 100 per cent renewable energy, helping to create those thousands of jobs and really bringing back Victoria as the home for the future of not just of course new power, clean power, more affordable power, but also all of the technologies, all of the skills through one entity that will absolutely ensure that Victoria remains the powerhouse of energy and production in this country.
 
JOURNALIST: Just in terms of transmission lines as well for AusNet, can you give any guarantees for when farmers will have an answer as to whether they'll be under ground or above ground?

LILY D'AMBROSIO: That question of  I'm not sure which project you're talking about but there's lots of transmission projects that need to be built to ensure that we can take the new power that's being built in those areas where we've got the resources, whether it's offshore wind here or in other parts of the state or the shore, and we'll have processes that are available to all communities for those projects to get the necessary approvals, but of course meet all the necessary conditions to get approvals. But the reality is this: we need transition infrastructure to be delivered to ensure that we can manage this transition in a smooth way.

That means of course significant consultation with all communities along the way to make sure that all Victorians, whether they are farmers, whether they are local community groups, towns, municipalities, Traditional Owners, feel that they are a part of the future and have a stake in that future. That means hearing from them now, what their needs are at a local level and ensuring that we have systems in place that take account of their needs and their aspirations around transmission. Transmission certainly is a key issue that has been addressed in our first implementation statements released just in October in fact, that is offshore wind. There is a second implementation statement that will be coming out early next year which goes into more detail. And all of that will have at its very heart community interests, community attitudes that will be reflected in final decisions that are made by the Victorian Government.

CHRIS BOWEN: I think we've had a good go, but you have a question and then we'll call it a wrap.

COMMUNITY MEMBER: Chris, about six years ago Hazelwood power station shut down and since that time I think we've trained over 4,000 workers, 80 per cent have gone on to get jobs. We did that in partnership with the Victorian Government, the Andrews Victorian Government, in partnership with the Latrobe Valley Authority so that we all knew what the plan was, where we were going.

I have noticed there's a lot of people writing reports and having conferences about transitioning, but I've got to tell you, mate, I haven't seen any of it in the Latrobe Valley in the last six years.

My question for you guys is are you going to set up a federal transition authority, you know, so that we all know what the rules are and in real terms we want to build all this stuff, mate, in this region with local workers, and we do have the skills down here.

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes, absolutely. And as we've said, both Ed and I are very passionate about Australian content, Australian jobs and we will ensure that Australia benefits from the Australian offshore wind industry, and that Gippsland benefits and that there's strong community ownership.

In relation to transition authority, the Prime Minister's established a net zero task force within the Cabinet which he Chairs, I'm the Deputy Chair, Minister Husic is a key member, and we are looking at all sorts of options in relation to best engaging the communities undergoing economic change and we'll have more to say.

All right, that's a wrap guys.