ADJOURNMENT

Dr HAINES (Indi) (19:30): Indi is home to a spectacular variety of precious flora and fauna that many locals volunteer to protect. Just last weekend, citizen scientists in the beautiful town of Rutherglen were out to spot the elusive platypus. In July, determined locals participated in the annual Kinglake National Park lyrebird survey.

The people of Indi often tell me how much they love and value the natural environment. Many who have recently moved to the region say a key factor in that decision to relocate was the natural beauty of Indi. We have a great responsibility to care for these precious places.

I recently met with members of the Gecko CLaN community landcare network in Benalla, who embody this responsibility. Gecko CLaN supports 14 landcare groups, from Yarrawonga through to Seymour, implementing network-scale projects to strengthen sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. With Gecko CLaN, I visited Andrew and Jane's carbon-neutral beef farm, where I heard and saw, firsthand from them and their son Mark, their sustainable farming practices.

Andrew and Jane's farm is one of many across Indi revegetating parts of their land with native species, improving soil health and securing positive outcomes for nature and the future of agriculture. Farmers know how to care for the environment, and they want to take climate action. Andrew and Jane exemplify this.

But many of them also tell me they need practical support on how to action this intent. That's why I fought for and secured $76.4 million in the 2023-24 federal budget to establish a network of sustainable agriculture facilitators, SAFs, to deliver tangible support for farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices. As the climate changes, we must equip rural industries with the knowledge and the resources to adapt and to protect nature at the same time.

Energy security and the transition to clean energy are priorities for the people of Indi. Most rural Australians support renewables, and Indi leads Victoria in the uptake of household solar panels and in the installation, I'm proud to say, of home batteries under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program, a policy that originated right back home in Indi. What has let communities down so far, though, has been the lack of meaningful consultation in the broader energy transition.

People need to know what's going on and why. We need to ensure that communities have a say in where projects are located, that they're in the right places and that they deliver substantial, long-term economic benefits for those communities. We need clear best practice and minimum standards for community engagement and benefit-sharing.

Communities should be valued stakeholders and receive timely and transparent information, with genuine avenues for addressing key community concerns. They also, very much, deserve long-term, big benefits that meet community needs and are commensurate with the vital role that regional communities play in hosting these large-scale renewable energy infrastructure projects.

These could be investments in telecommunications, childcare centres, reliable and cheaper power close to home—investments that make regional communities attractive places to live and to run a business. I will continue in this place to advocate for strong community engagement and benefit-sharing requirements from our renewable energy projects and our bigger energy transformation.

We also need strong community engagement in our nature reforms. We are all about to see, for the first time, the full proposed changes to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The EPBC Act, as it currently stands, is indeed defective.

Graeme Samuel, who undertook an independent review of this act, said that these laws are not working and called for fundamental reform. We know one element of this will include regional planning to identify no-go zones where it would be unacceptable to develop renewable energy. Regional mapping was my No. 1 recommendation to the community engagement review, the Dyer review; and it gives certainty to business and regional communities.

We need similar attention in the reforms to the EPBC. We need to know how regional planning will intersect with state government renewable energy zones, and we need to ensure that our regional communities have a say, are engaged and truly have benefit.