“It told me about the gap between saying that engagement matters and actually building that engagement into the process. I all of a sudden was trying to manufacture representation of the entire regional Western Australia on the spot. That's not engagement. That's the appearance of engagement. It's ticking a box. We shouldn't be doing 30-year deals on the basis of happening to have someone in the group who's willing to put their hand up and do that additional research.”
Agtech - So What? · Alternative Proteins · November 2026
Context
She describes a renewables forum in Perth where a session on regional engagement had no regional speakers, and she was pulled from the audience to speak for all of regional Western Australia. She uses it to argue landowners need real support in negotiations.
Transcript
…session did not have one regional voice involved in it. The facilitator, who's someone who I really, really respect, turned to me and I was just sitting in the audience and asked me to speak on behalf of all regional communities in WA. And I understood why she asked that question. And I, you know,
paper on the question. It did,
but it told me so much. It told me about the gap between saying that engagement matters and actually building that engagement into the process. So that gap between saying engagement matters and actually building it in is huge at the moment. So for me, I all of a sudden was trying to manufacture representation of the entire regional Western Australia on the spot. That's not engagement. That's the appearance of engagement. It's ticking a box. But it's just so important that we have people at the table earlier. And I felt really lucky to work with my neighbours doing our landowner collective and I learnt so much. But that was completely unpaid, which is fine. But it was unpaid. I was absolutely learning on the job. I was lucky enough to have the support and trust of my neighbours. But we shouldn't be doing 30-year deals on the basis of happening to have someone in the group who's willing to put their hand up and do, you know, that additional research. I don't know how it looks, but I do think there is a role for someone to come in to support these landowners and the farmers and the regional communities who has some experience just to balance up those scales a little bit.
It's interesting. Like I don't know the competitive drivers or like the economics on the proponent side, but I could imagine just hearing what I've heard and what little I know that hiring a you to be like the regional engagement manager to basically provide the service that you're doing as part of…
Look, I mean, Sanders, I'm really lucky. I do some work with Sabine Heindel at the Energy Charter. And so I sit on one of their panels, which I found incredibly interesting. And I am now doing some consulting work back through the Energy Charter where a proponent engages with the Energy Charter.…
curious, Tracy, where climate and climate resilience is in this conversation. One of the reasons for renewable energy is both energy sovereignty, but also from an emissions perspective. Are there ecological benefits? Do you guys, as the landowner hosting a project, get any kind of either…
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