A key issue that Australia (and the world) has been grappling with in the energy transition is the amount of new transmission infrastructure needing to be built to support the required generation and what is a fair, reasonable and equitable scheme for compensating landowners for the use of their land to host new transmission infrastructure.
The issue took a step forward when NSW released its landowner strategic benefit payments scheme in October 2022, which was expected to set somewhat of a precedent for other states.
The team at McCafferty Legal has been watching with interest to see if/when other states follow suit.
On Friday, the Victorian Government announced its landowner payment scheme for those landowners hosting strategic transmission infrastructure (REZ and ISP projects). The scheme is quite similar to NSW, with $200,000 over 25 years (vs NSW, with $200,000 over 20 years). Interestingly, the parameters of the NSW scheme describe largely overhead transmission infrastructure (i.e. towers) and are non-specific on underground assets. The Victorian scheme does expressly say that the Victorian/Tasmanian link (Marinus Link) will be included within the scheme – Marinus Link is proposed to be underground on the Victorian side, meaning the payments will be applied to underground assets.
