Landholders and communities must see greater benefit from powerlines, says Origin boss

A major energy boss says the government’s powerline plans could be railroaded without landowner and community buy-in.

Landholders and local communities in the path of Australia’s ambitious transmission rollout plans must be offered greater incentives if the Albanese government wants to reach its energy transition targets.

Origin Energy boss Frank Calabria said the 10,000km of poles and wires needed to connect new renewable energy supply and storage to grids by 2030, under the government’s Rewiring the Nation program, was only achievable with community support and sharing benefits.

“Progress has been slow. Gaining approval from landowners is challenging, and while compensation may help, it is a bigger challenge to get community buy-in for this very large infrastructure build,” he said.

Gre Gre farmer Bill Baldwin. Picture: Zoe Phillips

Several high-voltage powerline projects have hit delays linked to community objections, where commonly landholders and locals have not been consulted over the plans.

The head of Australia’s largest energy company said “renewables won’t be built further until the transmission is”, and community consultation was particularly essential in looming situations where a suite of major projects would be slated for a region in rapid succession.

“That does mean working with local communities and listening to them because the benefits will need to be shared,” he said.

“And there will also need to be a contribution that is tangible, like jobs and other aspects for those local communities. We need to think about regional communities … there is no doubt there is going to be a big shift for people in regional communities.”

He made the comments in a keynote address at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia State of the Nation conference in Canberra.

Meanwhile, angry agrarians yesterday travelled to Canberra in a bid to stop governments erecting transmission lines through prime production land.

The group of mainly Victorian farmers are particularly concerned by the proposed rollout of the controversial $3.2 billion VNI West project across 400km of farmland in northwest Victoria and the NSW Riverina.

Origin Energy boss Frank Calabria. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Nationals leader David Littleproud met the delegation at Parliament House and said farmers were “understandably outraged” with a lack of government consultation following a decision to fast-track projects.

He said a Senate inquiry was needed into the transmission lines to ensure “that renewable projects have the social licence they need to operate” in rural communities.

Gre Gre farmer Bill Baldwin, who co-organised a rally into St Arnaud in April of farmers unhappy at the cutting up of land of hundreds of non-consulted landholders, said the infrastructure “will have life changing impacts on our ability to grow food”.

Central Victoria farmer Glenden Watts said while farmers were unopposed to renewables, locals were angered by a “plain disregard of their concerns”.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek told the CEDA conference that reforms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act were aimed at streamlining the approval process.

However, she also said developers should better consider the objections of communities against infrastructure being built before pressing on with projects.

A large transmission tower running through regional New South Wales.