{"id":33005,"date":"2025-07-30T17:55:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33005\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T17:55:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T17:55:13","slug":"tasmania-to-proceed-with-marinus-link-decision-with-labor-given-a-day-to-agree-after-sham-briefings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/33005\/","title":{"rendered":"Tasmania to proceed with Marinus Link decision, with Labor given a day to agree after ‘sham’ briefings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tasmanian Liberal government intends to approve a final investment decision on the Marinus Link interconnector project after months of negotiations with the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

But with the government in caretaker mode, the decision requires consultation with the Labor opposition, with Premier Jeremy Rockliff giving Mr Winter until 9am tomorrow morning to give his support.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth, however, has extended its deadline for a decision until August 2.<\/p>\n

Mr Winter and crossbenchers were given a briefing on Tuesday, where they were taken through a presentation on the project and were first able to see thousands of hard-copy pages of information.<\/p>\n

They were required to keep information confidential and were told the government intended to proceed with its final investment decision for Marinus Link.<\/p>\n

\"an<\/p>\n

Rosalie Woodruff says the Greens and the independents were given too short a time to absorb such a large amount of complex detail. (ABC News: Jake Grant)<\/p>\n

Tasmanian Liberals accused of breaching caretaker conventions <\/a><\/p>\n

Since the Tasmanian parliament was dissolved for the election, the government has been operating in “caretaker mode”. Labor has accused the Liberals of breaching the rules over two decisions.<\/p>\n

Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff described the process as “a sham”, independent candidate Peter George said it did not show “respect” to crossbenchers, and independent Kristie Johnston called it a “document dump”.<\/p>\n

Mr Winter said they had not been “properly consulted”, and that the public should be able to see details in Treasury’s whole-of-state business case, which the government received in May.<\/p>\n

That business case has not been publicly released.<\/p>\n

Marinus Link’s $1.7b cost blowout<\/a><\/p>\n

The Tasmanian government\u00a0details the $1.7 billion reason for downgrading the Marinus Link electricity interconnector from two to one cables, but opposition parties\u00a0say many questions about costs remain unanswered.<\/p>\n

Mr Rockliff then sent Mr Winter a letter on Wednesday with an ultimatum for his support.<\/p>\n

“Pending your agreement, the Tasmanian government intends to make a positive Marinus FID [final investment decision] on the basis of the Australian government’s new and current offer of amendments to the Shareholder Agreement,” the letter reads.<\/p>\n

“As you are aware, not taking a positive FID at this stage will be equivalent to taking a negative FID.<\/p>\n

“To progress in a timely manner, I request your response by 9.00 am, Thursday, 31 July 2025.”<\/p>\n

Labor and the Liberals disagree over whether the premier requires Mr Winter’s approval for Marinus Link under caretaker conventions; Mr Winter says they do not, but the Liberals say they do.<\/p>\n

Questions over prices for consumersLoading…<\/p>\n

The final details of Tasmania’s stake in the estimated $5 billion project \u2014 designed to give the mainland increased access to Tasmania’s renewable energy resources \u2014 are still not publicly known.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the Tasmanian government negotiated its stake down from 20 per cent to 17.7 per cent, bringing it to an estimated $117 million.<\/p>\n

The project was also reduced from two cables to one, bringing its capacity down from 1.5 gigawatts to 750 megawatts.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

The project’s estimated cost has increased due to increased demand for subsea cables in Europe. (Supplied: Marinus Link)<\/p>\n

It involved transmission line projects in Tasmania’s north-west that have attracted community opposition due to significant clearing of native vegetation.<\/p>\n

Labor, the Greens and independents have also questioned whether the project would result in higher power prices for residential and industrial users in Tasmania.<\/p>\n

The government promised to release the whole-of-state business case by the end of June, for an investment decision by the end of July.<\/p>\n

Incoming Liberal MP Bridget Archer said it was not released due to the ongoing negotiations with the Commonwealth, that it contained third-party information, and that the government had secured “a better position” since the business case was completed.<\/p>\n

When asked if the business case should be released publicly before the investment decision was made, she said, “yes, hopefully”.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mr Rockliff said that releasing the business case publicly before the decision “would be my expectation, absolutely”.<\/p>\n

Energy Minister Nick Duigan said Labor, the Greens and independents now had access to all documentation.<\/p>\n

Support, in principle\"Dean<\/p>\n

Tasmanian Labor leader Dean Winter says Labor supports Marinus Link in principle, but needs more time to assess information that was first presented on Tuesday. (ABC News: Ashleigh Barraclough)<\/p>\n

Mr Winter replied to Mr Rockliff by letter to say that he would be unable to meet the Thursday morning deadline.<\/p>\n

Mr Winter said it was an unreasonable expectation.<\/p>\n

“This morning, I received a letter from Jeremy Rockliff demanding that I give full endorsement to more than 1,000 pages of material and years of work within 24 hours,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Let me be clear: I won’t be bullied into making a decision like that quickly.<\/p>\n

“This is one of the most important decisions that Tasmania will make, and I can’t make that with information I have in the time I have been given.”<\/p>\n

Mr Winter said Labor supported Marinus Link in principle, but needed more time to assess information that was first presented on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Ms Archer said the consultation was in line with caretaker conventions, while Mr Duigan said the “new deal that has been struck with the Commonwealth” was beneficial for Tasmania.<\/p>\n

“Our commitment to Tasmanians is Marinus will protect power prices without any additional cost to our state, and that’s what we are delivering,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tasmanian Liberal government intends to approve a final investment decision on the Marinus Link interconnector project after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29279,30558,30565,12972,21244,30561,30564,4269,19161,3786,43,30557,5474,4270,15604,4273,30563,30555,30556,30562,30559,30560,44,15603,4272,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-33005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-29279","tag-bass-strait","tag-billion","tag-borrowing","tag-briefing","tag-caretaker","tag-cross-bench","tag-dean-winter","tag-electricity","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-interconnector","tag-investment","tag-jeremy-rockliff","tag-kristie-johnston","tag-liberal","tag-limit","tag-marinus","tag-marinus-link","tag-mode","tag-national-energy-market","tag-nem","tag-news","tag-peter-george","tag-rosalie-woodruff","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}