Today, I have released my submission on the proposed zone for an offshore wind area in the Pacific Ocean off Illawarra region.
The release of the proposed zone which would allow for the establishment of an offshore wind development in the Illawarra has started a very hard conversation in our local community about the future of our local economy and how we provide affordable power to households and industry.
My submission supports the proposal for the Illawarra Offshore Wind Zone; however, this support comes with a number of conditions, I recommend:
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1. Based on strong community feedback, I recommend that the Government move the nearest point of the zone to the coast from 10kms to 20kms from shore. |
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2. To address concerns about the visual impact of an offshore wind farm, that developers and the Department aim to minimise the height of any future development while allowing generation capacity to be met. |
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3. That only projects that meet the strictest environmental protections including strict requirements for marine, bird, wave, fishing and reef protections should be considered. |
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4. That a strong and fair Community Benefit Dividend be incorporated as a requirement of the licencing structure. |
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5. Any offshore wind generation proposal must include remediation and end of life provisions so that materials used are either reused or recycled once it has reached end of life. |
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6. That any licensee has the highest local content provisions ensuring that local workers and businesses benefit in building and maintaining local power generation. We need to look at making turbines locally, building local industry capacity, local jobs and training our local workers. |
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7. The establishment of an Illawarra offshore wind local advisory committee that allows the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, and any future developers and researchers, to work with business, industry, unions, First Nations and community organisations to ensure that local community expectations and standards are upheld in any future development. |
Our stunning Illawarra coastline is a special and magical place for all of us.
This consultation process has involved some very difficult conversations and generated a huge amount of feedback and questions within and beyond the formal process.
I have valued these conversations and compiled my submission based on thousands of conversations, emails, the Department’s six consultation sessions attended by over 1200 people, and the additional two community forums that I convened, and that was attended by 750 people online and in person.
We currently have approximately 36 per cent renewable energy in the grid and it is going to be a huge task to lift this to 82 per cent by 2030 – it will involve a mix of solar, onshore wind, offshore wind, hydrogen, pumped hydro, batteries and other forms of renewable energy.
This is a significant task and one that must be shared fairly across our nation, and a task that we are required to tackle to protect our bushland from devastating fires, our beaches from erosion and our farmers from drought and floods.
Since my election as the Member for Cunningham in 2022, I have not shied away from discussing with the community the opportunities and challenges that face us as we seek to reduce emissions and decarbonise our economy, coupled with the need to sustain and create well-paid jobs.
Considering an Illawarra offshore wind zone and how we prepare for the estimated close to 2,500 construction jobs and 1,250 ongoing jobs for local workers that could come with it is a large part of that community conversation.
Wollongong is recognised as a City of Innovation – one that uses the world’s best science together with industry collaboration to overcome the transformational challenges we face. We have seen innovation and technological change adopted by local industry over many years and that has led to safer and less polluting methods of production that not only involve workers but benefited the entire region.
There are still many parts of this endeavour yet to be determined and the community has a direct role in shaping our future energy production should it progress. I would encourage everyone to seek their information from reputable sources –not blogs, websites or social media seeking to sow seeds of doubt or fear and spread misinformation.
We need to look at ways to ensure that genuine conversations can occur and genuine questions can be raised without the volumes of misinformation, fake emails and social media accounts spreading misinformation.
I believe that as a city of steel, renewable energy generation, manufacturing, a sustainable marine environment, tourism and other industries can co-exist in the region as they have done for decades.
