Real estate agents working with rural vendors or agricultural properties in Victoria may need to brace for rising uncertainty, as the state government moves to expand its powers to acquire private land for renewable energy infrastructure.
The National Electricity (Victoria) Amendment (VicGrid Stage 2 Reform) Bill 2025, due to be debated in parliament, would allow “authorised officers” to forcibly enter private land without the consent of landowners, to build transmission infrastructure aimed at meeting the state’s net zero emissions targets.
According to the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the proposed legislation is more expansive than laws in any other state and undermines basic rights to property and privacy.
“Jacinta Allan’s net zero agenda is unconscionable, draconian, violates the rule of law, as well as the rights of farming families to defend their private property and their own homes,” said IPA Research Fellow Mia Schlicht.
Agents operating in regional Victoria could be impacted by growing resistance to the proposed reforms, particularly among farming families concerned about forced land access and falling land values.
“The bill confers unprecedented powers on a new class of unaccountable and faceless officers to invade private land by force,” Ms Schlicht warned.
She added that, “This is a demolition of regional communities. What’s being torn down is not just our energy system, but the very communities that feed and power this nation.”
The IPA also raised concerns about long-term consequences for agricultural production and exports, noting that the Victorian government’s own (now-deleted) 2022 policy paper acknowledged the potential need to convert up to 70 per cent of Victoria’s agricultural land to renewable energy sites.
“Victoria’s farming families are being steamrolled by bureaucrats to satisfy the net zero ambitions of inner-city elites who will never see a transmission tower built in their own backyard,” Ms Schlicht said.
“As usual, it will not be the wealthy, inner-city elites who face their livelihoods being destroyed in the name of net zero; rather it is families and small businesses in the outer-suburbs and regions who pay the price.”
