Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Senator GROGAN (South Australia) (11:07): What a rich amount of interesting commentary to respond to here! The desperation of Senator Duniam was quite outstanding. I'm not entirely sure what he's so scared of, or is he just trying to get enough social media grabs to run some form of scare campaign that has no basis in reality?

Any which way, I don't know that he really referenced any part of the actual bill in his commentary, so it could be that we need to go through some of those elements so that people are really clear about the content of the Electricity Infrastructure Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I don't think there was anything that Senator Duniam said that actually has any basis in the intent of this legislation.

Let's just be really clear: there is no majority in this chamber. There is no majority party in here. We, as the Albanese Labor government, invite every single senator across this chamber—it doesn't matter who you are—to embrace the great Labor agenda that we have set.

We encourage you to come forward and support it because we do believe it is the future. It is where we should be going to protect jobs, to build our economy and to ensure we have a clean and sustainable future. In the context of this bill, that is a clean energy future with more manufacturing, better jobs and a stronger economy, making more of what we need right here at home with clean energy from the abundant renewable resources that we have in this country.

We are luckier than so many parts of the world. The abundance of available resources for renewable energy is amazing, and what we are trying to do is harness it. What those opposite are trying to do is to go back to the Dark Ages and not embrace that clean energy future that the majority of the rest of the world is embracing.

So let's go to a little bit of what this bill is actually about. Senator Duniam: Cost of living. Senator GROGAN: No, Senator Duniam, this bill is not about the cost of living.

I think, perhaps, you should have read the bill. An opposition senator: That's a social media grab. Senator GROGAN: Sure—the desperation of those opposite to get a social media grab that they can misconstrue and misquote is absolutely disgraceful.

The desperation that you are showing, Senator Duniam, is outstanding. I don't think I've ever seen you so desperate. The PRESIDENT: Senator Grogan, please direct your comments to me.

Those on my left, listen in silence. Senator GROGAN: My apologies, President. I just won't look at Senator Duniam, because I am tempted to address some of the commentary he made.

But I will go back to the bill, because someone needs to talk about what this piece of legislation is actually about. Let's be clear, this is a bill to address an issue. What might not be clear, from the commentary we have had so far, is that the coalition designed and passed the enabling legislation to establish the offshore wind industry.

From the commentary we've heard so far today, you wouldn't know or grasp that. You would think that they've always hated offshore and onshore wind—hell, any form of renewable energy doesn't seem to be their bag. But no, they passed the enabling legislation— Senator Bragg: It's true.

Senator GROGAN: Thank you for the nod, Senator Bragg, acknowledging that that's exactly what you did, which was great. As it was originally legislated, the bill was designed to ensure that the most meritorious projects received feasibility licences so that they could start their work and develop their projects. Senator Bragg: It's been maladministered.

Senator GROGAN: I'm not sure if you developed it for maladministration, Senator Bragg, but I'm pretty sure it was about trying to ensure that the most meritorious projects got up. The applications were assessed against very clear guidelines and very clear criteria, but a successful court challenge has placed 12 of those feasibility licences and two preliminary decisions at significant risk.

Those potential delays in critical projects are forcing the developments into less suitable locations and injecting an awful lot of unnecessary uncertainty into the industry. In response, the Labor government took swift action to ensure that this great enabling legislation, passed by the coalition back in the days when they were a bit less desperate but still ineffective—in December, the minister signed the Offshore Electricity Infrastructure Amendment (Overlapping Applications) Regulations 2024, ensuring that, moving forward, feasibility licences would be granted only to the best projects in the case of overlap.

But these regulations don't apply retroactively, meaning that the current applications are not all treated consistently. I can see that everybody is enthralled by this deep explanation of a piece of legislation that's fixing up a challenge, but that's where we are at. This is what it's actually about, not some of the bunkum you've heard from the other side around this legislation.

This is to ensure that our wind industry can grow and progress, because offshore wind is going to provide an enormous, valuable resource to this country to enable us—in a clean, green and sustainable fashion—to build our manufacturing, to ensure we have great jobs into the future and to ensure that we are supporting the regions. The kinds of places that we are looking at, with these wind resources, are places that have traditionally provided us with our energy sources.

There is the project in Gippsland, which is set to come online in 2030, and then we have zones in the Hunter, the Southern Ocean, Illawarra, Bass Strait and Bunbury. This is an economic driver. This industry will be a game changer if we just continue on the same pathway that, once upon a time, this whole chamber was in agreement over.

In fact, in 2021 the support of the Greens, the support of Labor, the support of the Nationals, the support of the Liberals— The PRESIDENT: Senator Grogan, you will be in continuation. We've hit the hard marker.