Friday, February 7, 2025

Foreign owned and controlled TransGrid is disconnected from regional Australia

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The ever-increasing number of stories of the difficulties faced by landowners when dealing with transmission network builder, TransGrid, points to an organisation with no knowledge of, and no interest in learning about, the land, and the peoples living on that land, through which they are building those networks.

What could be the reason for this apparently blind intentional ignorance, indeed, malevolence, towards landholders? Having a farmer suffer a visit by police investigating his own criminal trespass on his own property reeks of such malevolence. The plight of the Betts family in Yass, reported previously in this publication, being yet another example of TransGrid’s intransigence and utter insensitivity to landholder concerns.

One can understand, to an extent, the driven executive team, tasked with the near impossible job of building thousands of kilometres of transmission lines in record time in order to meet the virtually impossible timelines set by the Federal Minister for Energy, Chris Bowen. They have a job to do and they don’t have the time to deal with hundreds of landowners and their, as they apparently see it, petty and time consuming complaints. Just get out of the way is their approach. Talk of social licence is all it is, talk. When the rubber hits the road, move on. As deeply concerning and worrying as this attitude might be, it is just possible to see, maybe, how it has developed. No doubt the executive team’s bonuses are based on performance, and, in this case, performance is very likely to be measured in kilometres of transmission lines constructed.

So, let’s look higher up the tree, starting with the Board, which largely represents the interests of the shareholders. The Board should be the repository of good governance and social responsibility. Looking at the broader picture. Concerned about reputational and other risk. Able to look beyond the day to days, and even the year to years, and looking towards the success of the corporation operating within its society efficiently and with the support of the wider public audience with which it deals over hopefully many decades. In other words, long term, not just short term, no matter how urgent the demands of the short term might be.

So, why does the Board of TransGrid appear to be so uninterested in the furore which its own executive team is creating across South-East Australia? It could perhaps be because, according to TransGrid’s own website, most of the Board members are either not Australian or represent foreign shareholders, or both, and none appear to have had any experience personally to any large degree with rural and regional Australia, let alone Australian farms and farming:

Grant King, Executive Director and Chair – well known Australian energy executive and academic. Member of multiple boards;
Charles-Edouard Mariolle, Director – Senior Director at Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec (CDPQ);
Julie Stanley, Director – Chartered Accountant and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors;
Jan Brand, Director – He helps manage Ontario Teachers’ investments across the Asia-Pacific region;
Jean-Étienne Leroux, Director – Managing Director of Infrastructure at Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ);
Stasha Prnjatovic, Director – Director at OMERS Infrastructure (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), and in this role she is leading asset management efforts in the Asia-Pacific region;
Gordon Hay, Director – Executive Director at Morrison & Co, a New Zealand entity, and he is the Portfolio Director for the Utilities Trust of Australia which is managed by Morrison & Co;
Christopher Curtain, Director – Senior Managing Director, Asia-Pacific at OMERS Infrastructure (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System), he leads the APAC team based in Sydney and Singapore;
Patrick Strange, Director – Patrick has spent 35 years working principally in the New Zealand and international electricity and infrastructure sectors;
Cristina Cifuentes, Director – She is currently a non-executive director of Sydney Desalination Plant and is on the Finance Committee of St Patrick’s Church in the Rocks.

Out of the ten directors, seven represent overseas interests, with Canadian investor representatives making up half the board. Many do not even appear to be based in Australia. Whatever decisions the Board members make, or condone, will not impact them in any way. Australian farmers and their concerns are a very long way from Quebec and Ontario.

Who are the investors in TransGrid, the shareholders?

  • 15 per cent – Spark Infrastructure – owned by KKR, a US Global Investment Company; Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan; Public Sector Pension Investment Board, a Canadian Crown corporation;
  • 19.99 per cent – OMERS – the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System;
  • 19.99 per cent – Tawreed Investments – the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority;
  • 22.51 per cent Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec;
  • 22.51 per cent – UTA Power Networks Trust, of which Utilities Trust of Australia is the substantial majority unit holder. Morrison & Co, a New Zealand entity, manages Utilities Trust of Australia (UTA).

Looking to the executive team, the board or the shareholders of TransGrid for some form of solution to the plight of rural communities across South-Eastern Australia will most likely prove to be a fruitless exercise. These people do not appear to be particularly concerned about the environment (given the amount of the environment they are prepared to destroy in the course of building the transmission networks), about culturally important areas, about social licence and, especially, they do not appear to be concerned at all about rural and regional communities and Australia’s agricultural industry.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Thank you for this article.
    We, in the path of HumeLink are only too aware of the dismissive attitude of Transgrid. You’re 100% correct: consultation is all talk, (I have been a community rep from the beginning and know how it’s simply a device for TG to spruik, deflect and ignore); negotiation on an individual basis is meaningless – for example both parties are bound by law to develop a Property Management Plan. We spent time and thought (i.e., costs not to be compensated) into providing a 30pp plan which was considerate of both parties’ needs. TG? a pro forma, generic response. Attempt at communication ignored. Requests that affected parties not be “out-of-pocket” in complying with statutory requirements have been fobbed off with bureaucratese.

    Transgrid, confident it has political backing and safe in the ignorance of the wider community, arrogantly rides roughshod over all within their path, dismissing the evidence of experts in the field who reject their extravagant folly.

    And that is the tragic point: of course, we are trying to save our properties and leave a legacy, but wider, the plans being rushed out will not meet the needs of the nation long-term; so, more transmission lines are on the drawing board to be implemented in the next decade. (Ask AEMO).

    And the costs? Forget the spin, electricity costs will not, cannot “come down” – except in the fantasies of pollies.
    With the webbing of OHT transmission lines we face greater bushfire risk in an uncertain climate – witness S.E Oz, 2019, Los Angeles, 2024-5 – can we risk towers 70m towers to be not as vulnerable as those existing 35m are demonstrating?
    There’s the increased environmental degradation as the landscape is torn – look at the devastation in the Snowy Mountains.

    From we, the “whinging” landholders’ perspective: there’s the slashing of the value of properties (approximately 30-35% – barely compensated), the inevitable introduction of disease and pests, the unspecified disruption to production – fences cut, stock mixed, lambing and calving disturbed. Yes, it does, has and will occur.

    And we say we love our unique country! Ha!

    Russell Erwin
    HumeLink Action
    Bannister, NSW 2580

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