Letter to the Editor: The challenge of social licence

DEAR News Of The Area,

LAST Monday night, I attended an industry seminar down in Martin Place in Sydney with the Australian Institute of Energy (AIE) and electrical industry professionals.

I’m a member of the AIE Newcastle branch and this seminar was called “The Challenge of Social Licence in the Energy Transition” which was basically about getting major infrastructure projects through to completion in rural areas without them being killed off by opposed country folk.

When it was Q&A time, I got up as a country member and gave the group both barrels, using as my example the proposed offshore wind farm up here off the Hunter/Myall Coast.

I explained how this project has been dumped by “Blackout” Bowen and the feds on us in the Mid Coast area without any real prior consultation a few years ago and how, because tourism is our biggest and really only viable local industry, most of our locals are totally opposed at having this massive project located off our Myall Coast.

I explained how reminiscent this whole deal was of the good old days in the early 1990s when Sydney Water used to prepare and release multiple new Development Servicing Plans (DSPs) on Christmas Eve.

Then, when the development industry guys returned to work at the end of January and actually started to look at these new DSPs, the Sydney Water guys would tell us: ”Sorry, guys, we can’t talk to you any more about these ones as the 30 day consultation period has already ended!”

This was poor behaviour then and it still is now.

I was really glad that I made the effort to attend this seminar and felt like I was on “a mission from God” to tell all these Sydney-based and so young industry guys and girls what it’s really all about living in the country and copping the brunt of these new megaprojects.

One of the main points discussed was that country people bear many of the costs of these projects in local disruption and road impacts, noise, water and air pollution while Sydney or other major Australian cities get the resulting project benefits.

There was “stunned” silence as I went on and finally the meeting’s Chairman asked me just what my question was.

I then asked the three panel members that, if this offshore windfarm project was starting again today from new and they were charged with getting it through the social licence obstacle course, how would they handle it differently to what has been done so far already with it.

The Chairman said ”Hmm, that’s a bloody good question!” and the three panel members proceeded to give some solid and thoughtful answers, with a very different approach to what we’ve been subjected to up the coast on this one so far.

A number of people then came up to me afterwards and said how much they appreciated having an actual country resident come down to the meeting to talk to them about this essentially rural and regional topic and wanting to continue the conversation with me.

Regards,
Chris TAYLOR,
Tea Gardens.