Victoria's 95% Renewable Target Becomes Election Battleground
SkimNews Take
The rapid pace of renewable energy development, while addressing climate goals, is creating a new form of local disenfranchisement, shifting the political battleground from energy source to governance process.
Get the Energy newsletter
Daily energy & climate — solar, EVs, oil, the policy fights and tech bets shaping the transition. Free.
- Victoria's Labor government set a 95% renewable energy target for 2035, created VicGrid, and passed laws allowing it to access private land without landowner consent — a measure the Coalition says it will repeal if elected in November.
- VNI West, a proposed 240km transmission line linking Victoria and NSW, has drawn fierce opposition: farmers blocked VicGrid survey access, the agency issued 26 notices of proposed entry (with fines of up to $800 for refusal), and One Nation's Barnaby Joyce visited Horsham in February to attack VicGrid's powers.
- Labor insiders privately concede the backlash could cost the party the seat of Ripon in western Victoria, held on a margin of less than 3%, with One Nation gaining ground in traditionally Nationals-held regional seats along the two transmission routes.
- Golden Plains windfarm, the state's largest renewable development with 215 turbines across 16,700 hectares, generates roughly 4.5% of Victoria's energy from stage one alone and has shifted to paying about 200 nearby households electricity bill credits to spread community benefits beyond host landholders.
- Polling commissioned by Renew Australia for All found 66% of those surveyed in western Victoria's renewable energy zone supported the transition, while 13% opposed — yet the minority opposition has organized into groups like Farmers Fightback, which calls VicGrid's access powers "the most egregious overreach in Victoria's history."
- Peter Watts, a fifth-generation farmer 90km north-west of Bendigo, signed a 33-year lease for six 95-metre turbines after developers worked closely with his community; he now criticizes VNI West as the "opposite" of that collaborative process, saying "families that have been friends for years can't even look at each other."
- The Allan government says it has fast-tracked 25 renewable energy projects since 2024 with decisions issued an average of four months after application, while outgoing Victorian Farmers Federation president Brett Hosking calls community engagement "woeful" and volunteer fire brigades have refused to attend fires at properties hosting renewable infrastructure.
Why it matters: Victoria's renewable energy transition is reshaping its political map: the seat of Ripon (margin under 3%) sits directly in the path of major transmission lines, and One Nation is exploiting rural anger to challenge the Coalition. With $90 billion in renewable investment sitting in the pipeline and major coal plants slated to close, the November election will determine whether fast-tracked development proceeds or slows under a new government that has pledged to repeal VicGrid's land-access powers.
