RE-Alliance National Director Andrew Bray spoke today at the public hearing for the Senate Committee on Information Integrity on Climate Change and Energy. These are his opening remarks.
RE-Alliance is a not for profit organisation. We support the shift to renewable energy and we do this by fighting for regional and rural communities, to make sure they get the best outcomes from hosting these projects.
We have been working with regions where large scale renewables are being built for close to 13 years, supporting local leaders on the ground to help them get the best for their communities.We have a deep understanding of the complexity of Australia’s shift to renewable energy and how false and exaggerated claims are used to divide communities.
With me today are Sally Hunter from Narrabri in NSW and Lindsay Marriott from South Gippsland in Victoria.
Sally is a farmer and community leader who has spent the last three years trying to establish a community battery for Narrabri. Despite strong community support, this project has now been derailed because of the spread of false and exaggerated information.
Lindsay is a beef and sheep farmer who also hosts 12 wind turbines and a substation on his family property. The wind farm has been in operation for just over 10 years. Lindsay can tell you about the campaigns that ran against his wind farm during the planning process, some of the claims that were made, and what the reality has been 10 years later.
I’m incredibly thankful to Sally and Lindsay for travelling to Sydney today to answer the Committee’s questions.
Of course there are a range of opinions about renewable energy in the regions, but repeated polling demonstrates a clear majority of Australians in renewable energy regions support renewables.
I’ve just come back from a trip through the Wimmera and SW NSW. The people we speak and work with in those places understand the generational opportunities the renewables build out presents for their communities, but they also understand that seizing those opportunities requires hard work and the support of their communities can’t be taken for granted.
The rollout can be messy and communities have legitimate concerns that deserve to be addressed.
But one of the biggest contributors to community anxiety is not being able to easily access factual, locally-relevant and trusted information.
When there is an information void we see it filled, time and time again, by false and exaggerated claims.
This is why our submission recommends the federal government establish a network of Local Energy information Hubs in renewable energy regions across the country. We would be very happy to answer any questions you may have about this solution and why we’re campaigning for it.