One Nation is channeling regional anger about renewables. That doesn’t mean it understands it.
The party has promised to cancel VNI West, the Western Renewables Link and other major transmission projects, scrap net-zero targets and remove Victoria’s prohibition on nuclear energy.
But it has not explained what would replace Victoria’s ageing coal-fired power stations, where the alternative infrastructure would go, what it would cost or when it would produce electricity.
For over a decade, I’ve worked with Australian communities hosting wind and solar farms, battery projects and new transmission lines. If there’s one message I wished our politicians could hear, it’s that opposition to renewable energy development, when it doesn’t address the needs and wants of a community, is not the same as rejection of the renewables rollout.
A polarised public debate struggles to accommodate this. Those who are ideologically opposed to renewables will use any local grievance to claim all of regional Australia is similarly opposed. At the same time, there are renewable energy advocates who dismiss all objections as selfish NIMBYism or the product of disinformation funded by fossil fuel interests.
