Hunter's energy transition a task equivalent to post-WWII reconstruction

By 2030, only a handful of years away, the federal government wants 82 per cent of electricity to come from renewables, chiefly wind and solar.

The Upper Hunter will host a renewable energy zone (REZ). Other REZs are being assembled in the two neighbouring regions, Central West-Orana and New England. New transmission lines are needed to link the REZs to the coast.

There is much about to happen.

Switching to renewables also means the end of coal-fired power stations. Liddell, near Muswellbrook, was shut down last year. Eraring, on Lake Macquarie, is scheduled to close next year, but may limp on for a little.

Vales Point, at Mannering Park, is slated to shut between 2029 and 2033 and Bayswater, across the road from Liddell, by 2035. The closure of coal-fired power stations will be nationwide, about 20 in total, from Collie in WA, to Yallourn in Victoria's La Trobe Valley, and Gladstone in Queensland.

Last week, outgoing chair of the interim Net Zero Economy Agency, Greg Combet, described the transition to renewables as a task equivalent to Australia's post-WWII reconstruction.

A bill to establish the Net Zero Economy Authority was presented to Parliament in the last sitting week before Easter, though without Combet's flourish, by the assistant minister to the prime minister, Patrick Gorman. The bill has yet to be debated.

I am intrigued what Hunter MPs will contribute. Their electorates are in the front line.

What might the Net Zero Economy Authority bring?

The trade union movement has campaigned for a long time for a transition authority to manage jobs loss as a consequence of power station closures.

Labor committed to such an authority before the last federal election (Chris Bowen announces Australia's Net Zero Authority, NH May 5, 2023). In his launch speech, Bowen - now the federal minister for Climate Change and Energy - emphasised the jobs task, including the need for a soft landing for displaced power station workers.

The Net Zero Economy Authority bill embraces these aspirations. In a sense the new authority is 1980s Labor, John-Button-remastered, a recall of the labour market programs created to drive international competitiveness back then while protecting the many workers made redundant by the transformation.

But is the new authority appropriately designed for a different transition four decades on? Does it have sufficient ambition?

Writing on this page in 2018, local environmental and community activist Georgina Woods argued for a broader remit for a transition authority (It's time to plan for the transition from coal, NH 14/12/2018). We need a diverse vision of this region, she wrote, with plans to support workers and communities, promote industries for the long-term - including agriculture, manufacturing and renewable energy - and ensure a secure future for our children.

The new authority wants for such scope, awareness the Hunter needs more than a switch from one jobs engine to the next, an ambition to reconstruct the social and environmental foundations of a post-coal region, the forging of something long-term, genuinely evoking the aspirations of post-WWII reconstruction.

Then there is the question of whether there will be a major jobs problem for displaced power workers? There is evidence the Upper Hunter in the coming decade will see congested demand for labour rather than a shortage of jobs.

Plans for the expansion of existing coal mines seem likely to clash with demand for construction workforces to build new transmission lines, wind generators and solar farms. Vast worker camps are to be built for non-residential workers.

The 200-person camp for non-local workers building the gas-fired power station near Kurri Kurri shows what is in store. A workforce for the conversion to renewables isn't available locally.

And then what, an energy valley remastered, a full kit of renewables and transmission lines, but no social and environmental betterments, genuinely local betterments, long-term transformations?