Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) (10:39): I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted.

The speech read as follows— In December 2024, important amendments to the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Regulations (the OEI Regulations) were introduced to clarify my legislative powers when making decisions on feasibility licence applications for offshore renewable energy projects. The effect of those regulation amendments was to ensure that the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure licensing scheme operated as intended.

Those regulation amendments: set out the requirements for area descriptions within licence applications, and provided that licences could only be granted for the area as described in the licence application; and ensured that only applications of the highest merit could be granted licences, where those applications overlapped with other applications of lower merit.

However, currently these regulation amendments only apply to licence applications made after their commencement. That means applications submitted before the OEI Regulations were amended would be treated differently to applications submitted subsequent to the amendments, and result in unfair outcomes for different applications. This bill seeks to ensure a consistent approach to all feasibility licence applications, regardless of when they have been made, by ensuring that the regulation amendments apply to applications made prior to their commencement.

Passage of this bill will ensure that the licensing scheme operates consistently and equally for all applicants and licence holders regardless of when their applications were made. These changes will improve scheme administration, provide regulatory certainty to applicants and licence holders, and, importantly, support the continued development of a high quality and high integrity offshore renewables industry in Australia.

I commend this bill.