Media release – RE-Alliance, 29 May 2024
We can learn a lot from Tasmania’s Renewable Energy Zone planning process
Tasmania has announced a proposed Renewable Energy Zone (REZ) in the north west of the state.
RE-Alliance, which works with regional communities as they work through the rollout of new renewable energy, said other states and territories could learn a lot from the consultation process that took place in Tasmania.
RE-Alliance National Director Andrew Bray said it was the first example he has seen of a state or territory government putting community engagement at the beginning of a REZ process, and it should become the model for REZ development on the mainland.
“It’s the first proposed REZ in the country that wasn’t put forward until an open, community-focussed process of consultation was completed,” Bray said.
“This means that the lines on a map weren’t drawn until locals had shared where they would be happy for renewables to go and where they weren’t.”
Tasmania’s Renewables, Climate and Future Industries Tasmania (ReCFIT) department deployed an Australian-first ‘mapping important places’ platform which gathered community views on the places that are important to them, which was then considered alongside the technical, environmental and land use information.
Mr Bray said that the government has already called for expressions of interest for locals to co-design how a community benefit scheme should look.
“To do this at the front end of a REZ development process is exactly when it should be happening, and setting up a Community Advisory Board sends entirely the right message.”
Now the proposed REZ has been announced, a new round of consultation has kicked off.
“Putting communities first in the planning process for a REZ is a great start. Now, the government needs to keep up the good work and build the capacity of regional communities in Tasmania to become active participants in the renewable energy rollout.”
“One way of doing this is by recognising the crucial role that Local Councils play as critical stakeholders to support their communities. Local Councils need to be resourced appropriately to engage with Renewable Energy Zones when they’re located within one.”
RE-Alliance acknowledges the important work of the Community Power Agency in developing the ‘Guideline for Community Engagement, Benefit Sharing and Local Procurement’ for renewables in Tasmania which was adopted alongside the North West REZ announcement.
Featured comment – Ben Marshall, 29 May 2024
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Marinus Link is just one part of Project Marinus, and at least three other Marinus Links have been planned. The so-called REZs (Renewable Energy Zones) have been decided on by ReCFIT, the PR department for green-washing government inaction on climate, and refined by TasNetworks – the former public utility now gouging us to provide Government with ‘efficiency dividends’ and to pay for the new grid.
ReCFIT and TasNetworks are privately scrapping over whom has ultimate control of the REZs, but either way ‘community consultation’ will continue to be phony and one-way. TasNetworks will continue to bullshit then bulldoze farmers, farms, forests and wild habitat for its cheap overhead transmission lines while worsening the effects of climate, increasing the fire risks and offloading significant costs to communities and small businesses running tourism operations.
Tas Labor refuses to acknowledge any of this, just as it refused to listen to community’s issues with it. Tas Labor is 100% behind the unfettered rights of foreign corporations and corporatised TasNetworks and Tas Hydro (the government-owned power trading company) to use us and our state as as funding sources to make money.
Meanwhile, ReCFIT has launched its latest PR campaign claiming to be open to ‘community consultation’ on decisions already made. This not only ignores the charters of best practice community consultation (consult early, consult with, co-design with community) but it’s more taxpayer money being spent on green-washing government inaction on climate. Pretending that giving our wind energy away, and handing foreign and local investors access to vast areas of our state, and then providing them with a grid to ship the energy to the NEM, along with a promise to buy it at a profit to them, is, you’ll be shocked to hear, not ‘action on climate’.
Josh Willie, like his colleagues, pretends to complain about Liberal policies – while backing them to the hilt. It’s a game for lazy career politicians on the public purse, and Willie couldn’t care less about truth or, God forbid, decent policy that benefited Tasmanians.
