I too rise to speak on the Energy and Other Legislation Amendment (Resilience Reforms and Other Matters) Bill 2026. I can tell you this, and I will pluck this out of thin air: this bill is certainly about strengthening Victoria’s capacity to withstand increasingly severe climate change driven weather events. The member for Narracan talked about lack of community consultation. I will say, through the Chair, that we have spent 12 years plus in community consultation, not just here in Victoria but across the country. Climate change is real, people. It is real, member for Narracan. That is what you get through listening to the community. Then you come to this place, which is actually your job as a member of Parliament, as a representative of your community, to put through a legislative agenda and changes to the energy industry and energy legislation here in this state that benefit the community, tackle climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which is exactly what this bill is intended to do. The Minister for Energy and Resources sitting here at the table has worked tirelessly for the last 12 years, having specialised in energy in her four years as a shadow opposition member in this same portfolio and become an expert on this. Those opposite are experts in nothing.

They are a jack-of-all-trades. To come here into this place and say there has not been community consultation is absolute nonsense. The bill that we are addressing goes to the vulnerabilities that we have seen exposed by storms, by bushfires, by prolonged outages. It will ensure that communities are better protected and essential services remain operational. We do not need to do community consultation to know they are the basic expectations of our communities, of Victorians right across this state.

We know that climate change is what is driving more frequent and more severe storms, heatwaves, floods and bushfires and that this places communities in Victoria at risk. We have been talking about, in this place, the dangers of leaving the door open to parties like One Nation. It is absolutely imperative that the Victorian community understand that One Nation do not believe in climate change. They are climate change deniers. So when we talk about, in this place, tackling climate change and driving down greenhouse gas emissions, moving towards our targets of net zero here in this state, we are never going to leave the door open to a party that does not believe in climate change in the first place. Those opposite – I do not think the same could be said of them.

Not too long ago at all we had a 45-degree day here in Melbourne. I know if the member for Mildura was here, she would probably start laughing, because at 45 degrees in Melbourne someone like me might be hiding in a dark, air-conditioned room from such heat, but I know in Mildura it nearly reached 50 degrees. That is extraordinary – 50 degrees. That was likely the hottest day on record in Victorian history, and with extremely hot weather like this comes dangerous and severe bushfires. It is true that Victoria has seen her share, too much of it, this summer. We have also had, and I found this quite shocking because we love camping at Wye River, flash floods, these freakish flash floods across parts of the state as well.

All of these severe weather events do incredible damage to our distribution network, the poles and wires. That causes areas, sometimes entire townships, to go without power for an extended period of time. I do want to take a moment in my contribution to acknowledge the absolutely incredible emergency service workers and volunteers. Every summer they do this, but particularly this summer they put themselves on the line to help with fires and flood-affected communities. I know that my friend, the member for Werribee, was one of those volunteers. I have to say, as the member for Werribee is just a little bit younger than me, it was just remarkable watching such a young man out there on the front line fighting these fires and not thinking of himself but putting other communities first. What an amazing attribute that is to have at such a young age. Bravery is one of the ways in which I would describe the member for Werribee – so brave to do that along with his comrades. They went out and they helped communities in regional Victoria with their local branch, and that was the Werribee branch for the member for Werribee.

Disasters like this do not exist in a vacuum. You cannot pretend they exist in a vacuum. We know from previous storms how vulnerable our grid is to extreme weather. In February 2024 storms damaged over 12,000 kilometres of powerlines and poles and over 529,000 homes and businesses were affected. In June 2021 more than 250,000 Victorian households and businesses lost power, and this was followed up in October that year when over half a million Victorian households were also left without power. This is happening more and more regularly at such extreme numbers. In these particular instances, some of those folks went for up to 49 hours without power in cities and as long as 84 days – that is 12 whole weeks – in some rural areas due to the scope of the damage caused.

Following these disasters the electricity distribution network resilience review expert panel concluded that distribution businesses must do more to reduce prolonged outages, and what we know is that communities explicitly wanted stronger, more reliable infrastructure capable of withstanding climate impacts. This work is not new to our government, and a lot has been done over the last decade that we have been in government to strengthen Victoria’s energy resilience. We have delivered climate change adaptation plans, sector-based reviews, climate risk assessments and targeted investments as part of this work. And while we continue to address the impacts of climate change through our world-leading emissions and renewable energy targets – they are targets that we are absolutely smashing, by the way – we will also continue to assess and implement measures that mitigate those effects because, and I say this to my kids, the unfortunate reality is that these extreme weather events are happening more and more, and we need to look at ways and think outside the box to make things like our distribution network a whole lot more resilient when it comes to these climate change weather events.

We do know that the government does have a role to ensure that the private network businesses know they need to spend more on increasing the resilience of their networks, and I think we have made that extremely clear to them. We do this because we know that power outages are not just a temporary inconvenience. They impact people’s lives, and those impacts are not always recognised by the national framework that governs these private companies, and that is where we get involved. That is why our government initiated the work of this resilience review, and that is exactly what this bill makes good on.

There is a lot to say about this bill. There is a lot I am sure will be said this afternoon, but the bill does position Victoria as a national leader – something we should all be proud of – in embedding resilience planning into electricity distribution regulations. It ensures that our communities, especially the most vulnerable to climate-driven extreme weather events, are better protected from the rising risk of prolonged outages. While we cannot prevent power outages entirely, we can take the right steps to ensure that they are less likely to happen, and to do that we need the power distribution companies to step up. That is exactly what these resilience plans are all about.

Victorians know that when it comes to strengthening energy reliability, improving climate preparedness and supporting the renewable transition, our government has their back. We have almost 12 years on record where we can say our government has their back when it comes to energy. We will also be continuing to make sure that our network is strong and that we are as prepared as we can be for the impacts of these extreme weather events as our state continues to grapple with the disastrous effects of climate change. This is a comprehensive reform package. It is focused on safety, reliability, accountability and long-term resilience, and it is why I want to congratulate the minister at the table, the Minister for Energy and Resources, for bringing such an important bill before the house this week. I wholeheartedly commend the bill to the house.