Vikki Campion: Miraculous energy transition raised no interest from dull committee members

Why did none of the committee members on the inquiry into Renewable Energy Zones want to come to the place where a miraculous energy transition will occur?, asks Vikki Campion.

Imagine the trip of a lifetime. It’s totally free, you get country hospitality, whisked away to some of the world’s most pristine national parks and will bear witness to an energy transition that your federal cabinet colleagues cannot stop talking about.

So why did none of the committee members on the inquiry into the Renewable Energy Zones want to come to the place where this miraculous transition will occur?

The Greens did not show up at all. The Labor members who did arrive, to their credit, a whole one-hour flight from Sydney, could not be pulled far from their wi-fi.

The farms they visited had to be spitting distance from the airport. The solar factories, too.

In vibes that screamed they would rather tap in on a Zoom link in their pyjamas from a cozy Sydney bedroom, members of the committee could not be lured even to visit a World Heritage-listed national park where swimming pools of cement for wind turbines will be planted.

Stop calling solar installations, like this one near Melbourne Airport, ‘farms’. They are not, they’re industrial. Picture: NewsWire/Aaron Francis

In terms of their adventurous natures, some committee members tasked with investigating building over NSW’s most productive farmland to create large-scale “modern power plants” seemed like a pretty dull club.

In the lead-up to the hearing, organisers dissuaded affected parties from bringing any other aggrieved individuals to meet with politicians.

NSW's five renewable energy zones. Source: energyco.nsw.gov.au

How can a politician hop on a plane, come to a region expected to power huge chunks of the state without coal, visit one farmer, and expect to get a fulsome account of living in a “modern power plant”? Would you get an understanding of Sydney if you visited one office in the CBD?

The same faction remained deadpan when the people giving evidence were council planners, mayors, lawyers and farmers, revealing the practice of dumping projects in areas unprepared for the strain, with no clear plans for housing, health, water, or firefighting. Pfft, fire risk. Who cares.

When these residents revealed “pop-up community consultations” had been held 150km away from the affected communities, surely this warranted a public grilling of Energy Co. Yet still their eyes appeared to glaze over.

“We are heading for disaster,” mayors warned, with no plan for millions of used solar panels or decommissioned wind turbines. No response. Not even an eyebrow.

Claims of bullying and intimidation by those who had something to gain, suggesting people would lose their neighbour agreement money if they spoke up. Crickets.

This club had heard it all before. They didn’t want to hear from these people.

Except one. Their political adversary, the New England MP who spoke about poisoning pastures and overburdening landowners who lack the resources to cope with sprawling infrastructure.

His recommendations? Stop calling these projects “farms”; they’re industrial. Make all agreements transparent for public scrutiny; if they’re fair, there’s nothing to hide. Enforce the same rigorous reclamation and rehabilitation standards applied to coal mines; anything less is unacceptable. Invest in housing and water infrastructure before contractors arrive.

And if these projects are genuinely for the public good, they should be equitably distributed, rather than being dumped on vulnerable rural areas.

For a quick moment, the dull men looked up from their laptops. They had a gotcha, a zinger, a prick.

Barnaby Joyce during Question Time at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire/Martin Ollman

They had read, they told him, the local member Barnaby Joyce (my husband), about his Private Members’ Bill to unpick Net Zero, the target making us weaker.

Since the Coalition has adopted it, it has only lost elections. It was what NSW Nationals members had voted for just a few weeks ago in a similarly-sized room in Coffs Harbour, after the complete shellacking served by the electorate since they adopted the Net Zero target.

This was their zinger. “How many in your Coalition party room support you?”

He quipped back: “You have no idea how alone I am prepared to be.”

When he leaves the stand, the fun is over.

They go back to staring at their computer screens, as if they are not in the room.

The remaining witnesses – just as articulate, just as passionate, and just as revealing about how bad actors abuse, bully and divide small towns – receive little attention from the dull club.

They reveal disturbing personal accounts of how they have been threatened with legal action and accused of spreading false information, and the dull men’s club doesn’t look up much.

In a few hours, the rest of the dull men’s club flies off, leaving divided towns to deal with the fallout, while they dream of their next Zoom meeting in their cozy pyjamas.

They mutter to themselves “it is all for the greater good” on the plane ride back to Sydney.

SORRY, BUT IMPORTING MORE PEOPLE WON’T FIX OUR HOUSING CRISIS

If the UK was addicted to cheap labour, Australia is addicted to cheap consumers.

Tuesday’s announcement by the ABS shows the highest net permanent and long-term arrivals on record in the year to May 2025.

For all the talk about importing medical skills, the kid with a broken leg waits in the hospital in northern NSW for a week to get a pin surgically put in, and the nan still waits seven weeks to get an appointment with her regular GP.

It’s a novel way to address the housing crisis, importing people without a roof over their head. Picture: Andy Shaw/Bloomberg News

For all their talk about importing construction workers, distressing stories about soaring unaffordability of homes for rent or sale only increase as more people try to live in their cars.

And for all their talk about importing taxpayers, the briefings from the independent Treasury warn the government’s signature pledge to build 1.2 million homes over five years to address the housing crisis “will not be met”, while sneaky “indirect” taxes will have to go up.

Just like you can’t spend your way out of debt, you cannot immigrate your way out of a housing crisis.

It’s a novel way to address the housing crisis, importing people without a roof over their head.

And if you want to know what the track record is like, it would be fascinating to find how many people we imported here in the past live on social security today.

This is a figure that has become rather hard to get.

If it were a good reflection of productivity, why wouldn’t it be prominent, for all to admire?

Proponents who believe importing people can grow the economy cannot explain why the UK could import so many and have a stagnant economy.

It’s self-evident that more people mean a higher total GDP, but it does not necessarily mean a better outcome per person or a higher standard of living per person. And I am yet to see an economist effectively argue that.

If everyone puts a cup of water in the water tank, there is more water in the tank, but when everyone needs a drink, there is less water per person.

In this case, it’s not cups of water we thirst for, but houses and doctors.

LIFTER

The new push by the RBA to end debit and credit card surcharges. Thanks for finally finding your voice, after how many years of paying millions in transaction fees?

LEANER

Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen offering “direct funding support” for offshore wind as multiple projects fall over. This is what the taxpayer does now, prop up those whose entrepreneurial pursuits fail.

Originally published as Vikki Campion: Miraculous energy transition raised no interest from dull committee members