Clean Energy Council calls for renewable resources payment to put regional communities first

In a keynote address to the Australian Clean Energy Summit in Sydney today, Clean Energy Council Chief Executive, Jackie Trad, said Australia needed a new compact with regional Australia, arguing the industry's biggest challenge was no longer proving the case for renewable energy, but earning trust where projects are built. 

"The fundamental problem this industry has is trust. We do not have enough of it in the places where we build: regional and rural Australia,” Ms Trad said. 

Under the proposal, every megawatt-hour of renewable electricity would attract a legislated payment, paid directly to the local councils hosting the infrastructure for the life of the project. The national scheme would replace today's patchwork of community benefit funds, grants and negotiated payments with a permanent, transparent system, built on the same principle that has long applied to Australia's coal and gas industries. 

"Scrap the patchwork. Replace it with something simple, permanent and public, the same way coal and gas pay royalties,” Ms Trad said. 

“Regional Australia is being asked to host the machinery of our energy security. The least we can do is make sure the towns that host it share squarely in the wealth it creates.” 

Under the proposal, local councils hosting the projects would receive the payments and determine how they are spent, recognising they are best placed to understand the priorities of their communities. 

"A mayor knows whether the town needs a pool, a childcare centre, doctor's rooms or a decent road. And if the money is spent badly, there is a reckoning every four years at the ballot box,” Ms Trad said. The Clean Energy Council said the detail of the scheme, including the rate and implementation, would be developed in consultation with stakeholders and regional communities.

ENDS

FULL SPEECH BELOW: 

Thank you, Will — and I join Will in acknowledging the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the land we gather on today, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

I want you to picture a grain grower on the Darling Downs. This autumn, he went to order fertiliser for his winter crop — wheat, barley, chickpeas. The same product, from the same supplier, that he has bought every year for twenty years. And the price had doubled.

He did nothing differently. His soil didn't change. His bank didn't change. What changed was a shipping lane on the other side of the world.

A war shut the Strait of Hormuz, and a third of the world's fertiliser trade stopped moving through it. Two-thirds of what we put on our crops comes from that part of the world.

That grower has never seen the Strait of Hormuz. He probably never will. And it reached across the world, into his farm shed, and doubled his costs overnight.

That is what a loss of sovereignty looks like. Hold that thought — because everything I want to say today comes back to that man and his shed.

Here is the thing about wind and sun. You cannot embargo them. You cannot blockade them. You cannot close a strait and choke them off. They are generated here, in our own paddocks and on our own rooftops, and they cannot be taken from us by anyone.

Energy security is national security. There is no version of a strong, independent Australia that does not run on Aussie power that Aussies make.

And it’s already working. Every second time we switch on a light in this country, the electrons are made by wind, sun or water. We saw it this summer: temperatures in the high forties across southern Australia, demand surging past forty gigawatts — a new record — and those who oppose renewables waited for the grid to fail. It didn't.

Rooftop solar carried the middle of the day, and renewables met more than three-quarters of peak demand.

And demand for that secure power is only going one way. There is an estimated 155-billion-dollar pipeline of proposed data centres in Australia today - more than the entire New South Wales State Budget.

This is not about chatbots or software that makes funny photos.

Every bank transfer, every hospital record, every emergency call now runs on this infrastructure. The data Australians rely on should sit on Australian soil, powered by Australian wind, Australian sun and Australian water.

So, there is an engineering case, an economic case, and a national security case for renewable energy.

Which forces us to confront an uncomfortable question. If the case is this strong — why is it getting harder to build?

I am going to give you the honest answer, and some of you will not enjoy it.

The fundamental problem this industry has is trust. We do not have enough of it in the places where we build: regional and rural Australia.

Our intentions are sincere. Our product is clean. But go looking for the research that says regional communities trust the renewable energy industry, and you will not find it. It does not exist. And in this business, what communities believe determines what gets built.

Let us be honest about what we are asking of them. Climate change is an international problem. Energy security is a national self-defence problem. And we are asking regional Australia to solve both, almost exclusively, by virtue of geography. The cities get the power and the emissions cuts. The regions host the towers, the panels and the turbines. If you lived at the end of one of those transmission lines, you might think that was a pretty stiff deal.

As an industry, we have tried to answer this with a patchwork. Access fees, benefit funds, grants rounds, sponsorship of the footy club. All well intentioned. All piecemeal. Negotiated project by project — and it has made no difference. We have been treating the symptoms of distrust and wondering why the condition keeps getting worse.

And here is the distinction that matters. Polls tell us Australians support renewable energy. But support is soft. Support is what people tell a pollster. Trust is what they give you when the project is over the back fence — and support evaporates fast when trust is absent.

So today I want to put a different idea on the table.

A Renewable Resources Payment scheme. 

A single, legislated rate on every megawatt-hour we generate, paid for the life of the project, direct to the local councils of the communities that host it. Scrap the patchwork. Replace it with something simple, permanent and public — the same way coal and gas pay royalties.

It would be a transitional arrangement, where we would move towards something much simpler. And I want to be clear this is not intended to be an additional cost; it is intended to be a better way of spending the money we already spend and a clearer way of communicating our investment and the benefit.

Why councils?

Because year after year, local government polls as the most trusted level of government in this country, precisely because it is the closest to people's lives. I saw it firsthand as Queensland's Local Government Minister. When floods came, when cyclones hit, it was mayors who stood in front of their towns every day — preparing, protecting and providing for their communities.

A mayor knows whether the town needs a pool, a childcare centre, doctor's rooms or a decent road. And if the money is spent badly, there is a reckoning every four years at the ballot box.

I know how this sounds. It is not every day an industry CEO stands at a podium and volunteers to replace the way an entire industry invests in its host communities. I can feel the CFOs in the room clenching from here. I can feel the CFOs in the room clenching from here.

And I concede the design will take work — the rate, the thresholds, the mechanism, how existing projects transition. Reasonable people will argue over every one of those details, and they should.

And for full disclosure, this idea was inspired by companies in Central Queensland, whose rocky relationship with the Isaac Regional Council has done a complete reversal. Payments made to the council, for its own purposes and priorities, have shown that community that our industry cares about their future — and invests in it.

So when we debate this, weigh the cost of a Renewable Resources Payment against the cost of what we have now. Every project that spends three extra years in contested approvals. Every project that dies in a hostile council chamber. Every town hall that fills against us because nobody in that hall can point to a single thing our industry has built for their town. Distrust is the most expensive line item in this industry, and we pay it every single day.

A legislated payment is cheaper. It is easy to understand — and when you understand something, you can trust it. And it delivers what communities call for most: agency, ownership, self-determination. The turbines on the ridge become the reason the pool got built, the main street got fixed, the childcare centre opened. When the money is visible, permanent and locally controlled, the compact starts to mend. And when the compact mends, the politics follows.

Which brings me back to that grower on the Darling Downs. The war that doubled his fertiliser bill should be the last reminder we need. The most secure energy this country can have is the energy no foreign power can touch. Regional Australia is being asked to host the machinery of our national security. The least we can do is make sure the towns that host it share squarely in the wealth it creates.

Secure our energy. Secure our future. And secure it for Australia.

ENDS

For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact: 

Liam Straughan
Clean Energy Council Media Officer

+61 409 470 683