Petition pressure mounts on Delburn wind project

A parliamentary petition with 2,805 signatures calling on the Allan Government to cancel the Delburn Wind Farm has been tabled in state parliament, ramping up community pressure on a project that opponents say should never have been revived under public ownership.

Led by the Strzelecki Community Alliance on behalf of impacted residents, the petition pushes back against Labor's decision to use the State Electricity Commission to bring the project back to life after private operator OSMI walked away citing it as commercially unviable.

Nationals MP Melina Bath, who tabled the petition, said the signatures showed strong and ongoing community opposition across Latrobe City, South Gippsland and Baw Baw.

"This petition makes it clear the Allan Government does not have the social licence to proceed with this project in its current form," Ms Bath said.

"With 33 turbines, each up to 250 metres high and located as close as one kilometre from homes in a high bushfire-risk pine plantation, the Delburn Wind Farm will be an imposing industrial development on Gippsland's landscape."

Ms Bath said there were serious well-documented concerns about bushfire risk, noise and visual amenity that the Allan Government continued to ignore.

State Nationals leader Danny O'Brien said the financial cost of the project continued to escalate alongside the potential impacts on local communities.

"Delburn Wind Farm is yet another example of Labor's failure to manage major projects and public money, with taxpayers now expected to fund a project approaching $800 million, more than double its original $320 million budget," Mr O'Brien said.

"By calling in the project, the Allan Government stripped local councils and residents of any meaningful say, in pursuit of ideology and rushed targets."

Mr O'Brien said The Nationals in government would restore stronger planning protections, including reintroducing a two-kilometre buffer between homes and wind turbines.

"Renewable energy projects must be delivered responsibly and in partnership with communities, not imposed upon them," he said.

The Allan Labor Government has strongly backed the project, with the State Electricity Commission taking full ownership in a deal worth about $650 million.

Member for Eastern Victoria Tom McIntosh, whose electorate covers the wind farm, said it would deliver cheaper power and local jobs.

"We're delivering cheaper power and local jobs by backing in renewable energy near the Latrobe Valley, with the SEC once again investing in publicly owned generation that puts downward pressure on power prices," Mr McIntosh said.

SEC and Energy Minister Lily D'Ambrosio has defended the project as exactly why the Government brought the SEC back, saying it would deliver real benefits for Victorians, lower power prices and keep generation in public hands.

On the Nationals' push for stricter planning rules and longer turbine setbacks, Ms D'Ambrosio said tightening the rules around where renewable projects could be built would effectively stop new generation being built in Victoria as the state's ageing coal generators reached the end of their life.

The 33-turbine wind farm is forecast to generate up to 205 megawatts, enough to power more than 130,000 homes, and the SEC says it will create more than 300 local jobs and deliver more than $22 million in neighbour and community benefit sharing over its operational life.

Construction is under way and the farm is expected to be operating by 2028.

Mr O'Brien has also condemned the Allan Government's approval of the proposed Gelliondale Wind Farm further east in South Gippsland, saying residents had been stripped of their right to appeal the decision through VCAT under Labor's fast-track approvals process for renewable energy projects.

He said the previous version of the Gelliondale proposal was overturned at VCAT after local residents exposed planning failures by both the developer and the state government, and pledged that The Nationals in government would restore those appeal rights.