Victoria’s shadow energy minister left an energy industry crowd confused and perplexed in Gippsland this week, with a speech that appeared to confuse the cost of state-owned Big Build infrastructure with private renewable energy projects.
David Davis made no mention of how much the Coalition’s promised return to gas – a pledge from a party that may well win power at November’s elections – would cost Victorians, nor where it would come from, bar a general reference to more exploration in the state.
And nor did he try to explain the Coalition’s latest policy promise to abandon the VNI West transmission project entirely, other than to suggest the cost hasn’t been “rigorously assessed and analysed.”
But after an analogy comparing government infrastructure to the cost of ordering a new kitchen from a builder, a revisit to a favourite topic about the auditor general’s energy transition report last year, and a detour through alleged Big Build corruption – a major political issue in the state, Davis made his way back to electricity.
“Money has been siphoned off an unknown amount, somewhere north of $15 billion, into bikies, criminal groups, certain union groups, strippers,” Davis told the Gippsland New Energy Conference in Traralgon on Wednesday.
