Gippsland community questions $700 million Delburn Wind Farm bailout 

The Strzelecki Community Alliance Incorporated (SCA), a large community group representing residents across Latrobe, South Gippsland and West Gippsland shires condemn the Victorian Labor Government’s decision to commit up to $700 million in public funds to rescue the Delburn Wind Farm – a project private investors had already abandoned as financially unviable.

The SCA say the decision is impossible to reconcile with the Government’s continued failure to fund the long-promised $600 million upgrade to West Gippsland Hospital.

The public have been told there’s no money for hospitals, but somehow there’s $700 million for a wind farm that investors walked away from. That raises serious questions about priorities, accountability and risk.

The Strzelecki Community Alliance (SCA) says yesterday’s bailout confirms what locals have argued for years – the project doesn’t stack up financially, environmentally or socially. Private investors fled. Now the public is footing the bill.

This is a dead horse being resuscitated with public money. Meanwhile, essential health infrastructure in Gippsland is left to decay.

Private Risk Shifted to the Public

The Delburn Wind Farm failed to reach financial close, with investors exiting after the project did not stack up commercially. The SCA says the Government’s intervention now transfers commercial risk from developers OSMI and Cubico onto taxpayers, while local communities are left to bear the operational, environmental and safety impacts.

The project is proposed for land managed by Hancock Victoria Plantations, an American-owned forestry company, and would use Chinese-built turbines from Vestas – a company recently subject to scrutiny over asbestos contamination issues.

While the project is marketed as a regional jobs boost, the SCA say the reality is far less impressive. Construction work would be short-term, specialist-driven, and offer little lasting benefit to the towns most affected.

What is permanent, the SCA argue, is the risk.

High-Impact Project in Established Communities

The scale of the project is unprecedented in Victoria. Around 1,600 homes lie within five kilometres of turbines up to 250 metres high – making Delburn one of the most densely populated wind farm sites in the state.

The SCA represents more than 1,000 members across 483 households in Boolarra, Yinnar, Yinnar South, Moe South, Delburn, Driffield, Thorpdale, Darlimurla, Hernes Oak, Narracan, Mirboo North and Coalville – communities that would be directly impacted.

These are not empty paddocks. They are established communities – homes, farms, schools and small businesses.

Since 2019, the alliance has campaigned against the project, commissioning independent national and international experts on bushfire risk, noise and visual amenity. They say the reports relied on by the government were superficial and failed to properly assess the dangers.

Bushfire Risk Acknowledged by Government Panel – Then Ignored

Perhaps most alarming is what the government’s own planning panel accepted.

The entire project footprint lies within a designated bushfire-prone area, intersected by major roads and emergency service flight paths.

In its 2022 report, the Government-appointed Planning Panel explicitly acknowledged the likelihood of major bushfire events during the life of the project and accepted that turbines and associated infrastructure could be lost to fire, stating

“It accepts the potential for a major bushfire to occur in the plantation during the life of the Project and that it would impact the Project infrastructure.” (Latrobe City, Baw Baw Shire and South Gippsland Shire Planning Permit Applications Panel Report, 7 February 2022, p.133)

In other words, the risk of catastrophic bushfire wasn’t hypothetical – it was expected.

The project sits entirely within a designated bushfire-prone area, near major roads and highways, and beneath airspace used by firefighting and emergency aircraft. Yet it has been approved regardless.

Community members say the acceptance of probable infrastructure loss raises serious questions about emergency response capacity, public safety and insurance exposure.

Government as Regulator, Funder and Decision-Maker

The SCA is deeply concerned that the Victorian Government now occupies the roles of regulator, financier and effective adjudicator of the project.

This puts the Government in the position of approving, funding and amending its own project. That is not an appropriate governance framework for infrastructure of this scale and risk.

This creates an unacceptable conflict, allowing permit conditions to be amended, risks minimised and objections brushed aside in pursuit of political targets.

Call for Transparency and Parliamentary Scrutiny

The Strzelecki Community Alliance is calling for:

• Full disclosure of the financial structure and taxpayer risk exposure associated with the bailout
• inisterial clarification on why the project proceeded after private capital withdrew
• Parliamentary scrutiny of the cost-benefit analysis underpinning the decision
• Clear explanations of how bushfire risk and emergency response will be managed

The SCA supports renewable energy and action on climate change, but says projects must be appropriately sited, rigorously assessed and transparently justified. Projects must not place regional communities at risk, degrade high-value landscapes, and threaten ecologically significant areas.

Clean energy should not mean blank cheques. It should never come at the cost of public safety.

For Gippsland residents, the question now is simple: Why was a failed wind farm worth rescuing – but a hospital wasn’t?