Assume makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'

If you're reading this it's possibly because you followed the LinkedIn link. The Folio conversation seems like as good a time as any to get my act together to kick this website off. I have always preferred an open-source platform and spending too much time on LinkedIn makes my right eye twitch uncomfortably, so Ghost seemed like a natural fit.

The conversation I am going to be leading at Folio will focus on the impact of Australia's renewable energy transition on regional communities. This is a pretty complex conversation with many moving parts and many assumptions in the mix that, I think, often do these types of conversations a grave disservice.

For instance, I am from the Latrobe Valley - the heart of Victoria's electricity generation. For over 100 years the Latrobe Valley and its brown coal mines have serviced the power stations that have sent electrons around the state. Once a publicly-owned utility, the energy sector was privatised in the 1990s and with it brought economic and social shocks so powerful they are still being felt today.

Arguably, the Latrobe Valley has been in transition since then. So with the closure of these mines and power stations, which kicked off with the closure of the Morwell briquette factory in 2014 and followed by the closure of the iconic Hazelwood mine and power station in 2017, there are some people in the area who are wondering what this means for the region's citizens and identity.

Notice I said 'some'. No-one can ever assume that anyone cares about a thing as much as they do, and so we cannot assume that the majority of people care much about the energy transition in the Latrobe Valley. ABS data from the 2021 census shows that the 5 top industries of employment in the area are, in order: hospitals, 'other social services', supermarkets, takeaway food services, and primary education.

So yes, while jobs will be lost in the mines and power stations and associated contracted trades and technicians, the rest of the community might possibly give this some thought but are otherwise carrying on with their lives. For the record, I am one of those who do care about the jobs lost. These were jobs that men in my family had before privatisation of the power industry and who were unceremoniously booted out of meaningful careers at the behest of conservative government whose response to the then bureaucratic nightmare of the SEC was to sell it rather than invest in considered reform and keep a critical utility in the public's hands.

There is always going to be a vocal cohort of the Latrobe Valley who want to see the area maintain its position as an energy provider - and rightly so. There are brilliant people there who understand electricity and who care about the region's identity as an electron factory. There are renewable energy projects online and in development in the Latrobe Valley, mostly solar and utility-scale storage, with a wind farm under construction on the South Gippsland side of the local government borders. These projects benefit from the accessible transmission infrastructure they don't have to think too much about connecting their projects to.

There is 100% a role for the Latrobe Valley in the energy transition. But let's not assume that it's keeping everyone awake at night.

Similarly, let's not assume that regions in which renewable energy and associated infrastructure is being developed are all opposed to it. In a 2025 Farmer's for Climate Action national poll of people in renewable energy zones around the country found that 61% supported the renewable energy transition. And 23% of respondents didn't have an opinion. That's a pretty whopping majority of people who want to see renewable energy in their region or who don't care.

Yet social and traditional media would have us believe that everyone in a regional community hosting renewable energy infrastructure are shitty with it. Of course some people are, most of whom harbour genuine and apolitical concerns about the impact of this infrastructure on their region in some way or who are concerned with the rolling-back of rights to challenge decisions to approve projects or new penalties for landowners who refuse access to their land by renewable energy proponents.

There's a reason why 'the squeaky wheel gets the oil' is a tired aphorism. Perhaps the assumption that we should be making about any regional community involved with the renewable energy transition is that the people who care the most about [the thing] will make the most noise about [the thing they care about]. Those people will get organised and be engaged in the development process, turn up to social impact assessment interviews, and spend their spare time pouring through thousands of pages of application material after the kids are in bed and the dishes are done.

Making grand generalisations about who cares about what and how representative that is of an entire community is, I don't think, a good idea. Boiling a community's response to the renewable energy transition to those for and those against does those communities a disservice even if it generates clicks and sells subscriptions. Communities aren't homogenous. No one person can represent the views of entire regions - myself included.

So let's start this conversation by interrogating the assumptions that are made about who cares about what, why they care about it, and how much they care about it.

This blog is still a work in progress, so bear with me while I get myself properly organised. My intention is to wallow about in the messy middle of solving the many and enormous challenges associated with getting stuff in the ground to achieve Australia's renewable energy transition. This ride is a doozy, and the planning and environment component is particularly messy because it is complex and because people don't understand a lot about its complexities. I want to break this complexity down and make planning and environment law and policy for the renewable energy transition accessible for a wide audience.

It might sound really dry. I promise you it is anything but. Also I intend to write how I think, so that means casual language, swear words, rants, and random shower thoughts. If Richard Beasley (now Beasley J!) can make the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission engaging and accessible, then I can make this stuff engaging and accessible. Not that I think I am as good as Beasley J, but I do think we have a similar sense of humour and a propensity for outrage.