By AIDAN KNIGHT
STATE government presence was strong in the Latrobe Valley last week, which began with a visit from the Premier and culminated in another from the Minister for the State Electricity Commission.
Lily D’Ambrosio travelled to stand alongside SEC chief executive Chris Miller in Morwell last Friday (October 24) to open the SEC Community Hub located at 248 Commercial Road.
The building was previously the original home of the SEC credit union.
The SEC executive noted that in a sense, “history has come full circle” as the re-established SEC is now building its home in the same building that once housed the company’s member bank.
The hub is designed to be more than just an office space, intended as a community resource where locals can learn about the energy transition, get advice on electrification, and explore future career opportunities.
Mr Miller emphasised that the hub will provide a welcoming, inclusive space for people to reminisce about the original SEC’s legacy while also looking forward to the new energy future.
“This hub is intended to be a community space, a space where people can feel welcome, can talk about and reminisce about the wonderful legacy of the original SEC, but also look forward and understand what the role of the new SEC is, but what people can do at household level to participate in this transition and reduce their costs and reduce their energy bills,” he said.
“We had a number of firms helping us out with the construction and fit-out, including Chris Humphrey Office National, who led the work to fit out the hub,” Mr Miller said.
“We had LV Solar install the solar panels that appear on the roof of the facility.”
Mr Miller said the SEC was already building strong connections with the region’s major employers.
“We’re now retailing proudly to a number of really significant institutions in the Latrobe Valley, including Latrobe Regional Hospital, TAFE Gippsland and a number of public schools,” he said.
Inside the hub, visitors can explore model electric appliances including a heat pump and induction cooktop, to see first-hand how electric technology benefits households. Historical artefacts from the original organisation’s golden era, kindly donated by the Morwell Historical Society, are also on display.
Educational sessions and school visits will be a key feature of the hub, while local community groups and businesses are encouraged to use the facilities for meetings, events and information sessions.
While celebrating the hub as a symbol of the SEC’s revival, Ms D’Ambrosio became visibly frustrated when questioned about the number of staff actually based in Morwell.
Mr Miller had told media present at the presser that there would be 11 SEC employees staffed at the location, later to reveal that the SEC has close to 135 staff in total.
This was brought into question when one reporter present asked if 11 out of 135 in one location really reflects Morwell as “the home of the SEC”.
The Minister deflected, emphasasing the hub’s broader significance for the region’s energy future, and how “this is the new SEC”.
“Let’s not forget how we ended up here”, she continued, arguing that past privatisation – rather than current staffing decisions – was to blame for lost local jobs.
“(The Liberals) sold off all of the SEC and all of its assets owned by the people of Victoria, the jobs, the traineeships, the apprenticeships that were supported by the SEC, all of that was flogged off for international, global corporate profit. And those profits left this country, not only Victoria, they left the country.
“It’s about the new SEC now; it’s about the new energy system. And that is why what we have here today, the hub, is about that new journey for kids and young people, and those people already switched on, those young people understand and embrace the new energy of the future. And excuse me, this hub here is to enable them to imagine where they can fit into that new system in terms of careers and jobs.”
This tension escalated during questions about the Loy Yang B power station’s potential future, following the Express’s visit to the Alinta-owned site earlier that week.
Ms D’Ambrosio curtly responded to queries about its potential closure, before her PR manager cut the press conference short after tersely reaffirming the government’s renewable energy targets.
More positively, the SEC confirmed that its most significant current project is the Melbourne Renewable Energy Hub – one of the world’s largest batteries at 600 megawatts – expected to be operational by the end of this year.
“We’ve got a large battery, well progressed through the construction phase, just on the outskirts of Melbourne near Calder Park, the Melbourne renewable energy hub, one of the biggest batteries in the world, 600 megawatts, and that program has run very effectively,” Mr Miller said.
“We’re on track to be commissioning that asset by the end of this year, and that asset is going to play a really important role in the energy system as we increase the rollout and penetration of renewables, because that what that battery is able to do is soak up the vast amounts of rooftop solar energy during the middle of the day when the demand is lower, and effectively shift that energy into later parts of the day when the demand is higher.”
While the project underscores Victoria’s renewable ambitions, questions remain over the SEC’s local employment impact.
Alinta Energy’s Loy Yang B station currently hires around 90 per cent of its workforce from Gippsland, compared to the SEC’s small Morwell contingent.
Mr Miller himself exposed when answering the question on staffing, that the use of the previous building was not only a nostalgic one, but a strategic one to make the hub more appealing as a workplace, just not to Gippslanders.
“This is one of the reasons we’ve established the hub, to make this a really attractive, vibrant, modern workspace right next to the train station, so it’s very accessible to Melbourne, and we’ve had a very steady stream of traffic, of staff coming down here, often for days at a time, to work up alongside our Morwell base.”
This subtly suggests that there is some intention for the hub to be positioned more as a convenient satellite office, close to the power stations, for Melbourne-based SEC workers, despite rhetoric about supporting Latrobe Valley’s economic transition amid the emergence of renewables.
A press release provided to the Express by the Minister’s media team stated the government’s intention to boost employment by 60 per cent, equating to jobs for 67,000 people by 2040. However, no details were included about specific employment targets for the Latrobe Valley – the heart of the SEC’s original operations and the region once responsible for keeping Victoria’s lights on.
Media time was cut when the topic of offshore wind was raised, and the Minister’s office informed the Express later that day they will provide an updated timeline by the end of the year.
The SEC Community Hub is open to the public every Monday, Tuesday and Friday onward from 10am to 2pm.
