State-Owned Renewable Energy Company to Be Embedded in Victorian Constitution

Shadow Minister for Climate Change James Newbury said that since the election, Victorians have seen broken promises and a waste of money.

Wind turbines seen at sunset in Albany, Western Australia, on Oct. 8, 2024. Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times

Government-owned power will be enshrined in the Victorian Constitution following a vote in the state’s lower house of Parliament.

The State Electricity Commission (SEC) will be locked in public hands in a bid to protect it from privatisation by a future political party or government.

During the parliamentary debate, Climate Action Minister Lily D’Ambrosio said the move was “enshrining the SEC, 100 percent renewable, in the constitution.”

The legislation passed the upper house in September before being returned to the Legislative Assembly with amendments on Oct. 15, where it passed with 54 votes in favour and 25 against.

Speaking in Parliament, Minister D’Ambrosio said Victoria’s energy systems should “never have been sold off” in the first place.

“By safeguarding the SEC in Victoria’s constitution, we can ensure this important institution can continue to increase its role in powering our state for the good of all Victorians and for good. With this bill, the government will hold a controlling interest across its entire portfolio,” she said (pdf).

She added that 4.5 gigawatts of new renewables would replace coal and new projects would be owned by “every Victorian to benefit every Victorian.”

D’Ambrosio told Parliament the bill would stop the electricity commission from owning, operating or investing in a fossil fuel facility.

“The SEC will always be 100 percent renewable,” she said.

Energy Needs of Victorians

However, Liberal Shadow Minister for Environment and Climate Change James Newbury said the bill does not deliver what Victorians need.

“And that is reliable, affordable and security energy,” he said in Parliament on Oct. 15.

“What we hear from that side of the chamber is ideology, not just in the speech on the amendments today. Follow the minister on Twitter and you can see not just ideological wars in Victoria but fights with the federal government on energy ideology—fights over ideology with the federal government in relation to energy supply.”

Newbury said nothing meaningful had happened to the SEC since the last election nearly two years ago.

“We have seen broken promises and we have seen a waste of money. We have seen this bill sit upstairs for months and months and months and months because the government was not able to convince the crossbench to work it through—more delays, more delays,” he said.

State Energy Transition

The Victorian SEC was originally established in 1918 to manage electricity generation, including from coal and hydroelectric plants. It was privatised in the 1990s under the Kennett Liberal government.

In November 2023, the Allan government promised the SEC would invest an extra $1 billion towards delivering 4.5 gigawatts of power through new renewable energy and storage projects.

On Oct. 15, Victorian Labor MP Dylan Wight told Parliament the state-owned SEC would now “turbocharge Victoria’s transition to a renewable energy future.”

“I have spoken on several occasions in this place about the Allan Labor government’s incredibly ambitious renewable energy targets. They are most certainly the most ambitious of any jurisdiction in this country and indeed some of the most ambitious of any jurisdiction anywhere right around the world,” he said.

“The SEC will turbocharge our trajectory to that renewable energy future right here in Victoria.”

Eyesore For Clean Energy

However, National MP Martin Cameron said his electorate had not seen “one iota of renewables.”

“Yes, actually, we do have a battery, which lasts for about 1 hour and 12 minutes if it is running at its full capacity, to generate power for the people of Victoria,” he said.

“We are putting a lot of our energy into batteries, into wind farms and also into solar farms, but what they renege on and do not tell us is the price that it is going to cost to build the transmission lines to carry the power to get it to the power station so that we can have beautiful, clean, green energy here in Melbourne, where we sit.”

Cameron added they rely on green energy coming from regional Victoria because they do not want to have wind turbines in the inner city of Melbourne.

“No, we don’t want to look at them, because that’s a little bit of pollution that’s going to be a little bit hard on the eyes, and we can’t palate that. So we’ll throw that out and dump that out right around regional Victoria, and then we’ll build all these transmission lines, which are going to rip across beautiful farming land,” he said.