This week the government's offshore energy regulator published the latest edition of their regular industry-focused magazine, Regulator.

And buried in the middle of this no-frills publication, pulled together by the team at the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA), was this line:

"NOPSEMA has established a new regulatory stakeholder engagement team which coordinates external engagement with industry and relevant persons and provides specialist advice on assessing consultation in environment plans."

Nothing too controversial there, seems like a good idea and certainly a reflection of the world in which we operate where cajoling the interested parties until a workable solution is found is becoming increasingly important.

And in fact, to illustrate this point, the NOPSEMA-penned article goes on to list some of the extensive consultations and engagement exercises undertaken by the regulator in recent weeks and months.

And really, other organisations could do well to take a leaf out of NOPSEMA's book.

So many of the stories which ENB cover would never have come to see the light of day – or at least wouldn't have perhaps ended up in court or with mass protests – if effective engagement and conversation had been prioritised earlier in the process.

A case in point is the Australian government's unstinting promotion of the nation's offshore wind sector. This week came news that the climate change and energy minister Chris Bowen has granted three preliminary feasibility licenses to two developers looking to establish three separate wind farms off the coast of Bunbury in Western Australia.

As we reported yesterday, the granting of a feasibility licence is considered a ‘future act' under the Native Title Act 1993 and therefore in order for the preliminary licenses to become fully-fledged, confirmed feasibility licences the minister must consult with First Nations groups in the impacted area to determine whether there are any native title rights and interests in relation to the proposed licence area, and if so how the proposed project might affect such rights and interests.

As the website of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) says: "Following the conclusion of the native title consultation, the Minister will take any comments received into account when deciding whether to grant a licence."

To most people, this would seem to say that First nations groups hold the key to WA offshore wind plan.

And while I'm the first to say that the opinions of a community who've been in Australia for around 50,000+ years is important to consider, I do not think theirs is the only opinion which needs to be assessed.

And thankfully, it appears DCCEEW agrees as – despite the apparent positioning of First Nations' people at the top of the tree in the consultation hierarchy – the department's website does go on to explain that "to maximise the potential economic and social benefits for the region, the Australian Government will convene a Bunbury Wind Industry Committee [which] will comprise representatives from the developers, Australian and local governments, First nations groups, local industry, and workers representatives."

However, in terms of other actual consultation on the desirability of the project, it appears to be all done and dusted.

"Communities were consulted during a 73-day public consultation process on the proposed Bunbury region…Information about the consultation was shared across several platforms," says DCCEEW.

So where does that leave non-First Nations opponents of the wind farm proposal? Because according to Martine Shepherd from Save Our Beloved Geographe Bay, there's a lot of discontent in the region.

While grassroots campaigns can sometimes be accused of hyperbole, Shepherd certainly seems to have some issues which warrant further investigation.

"Not once were any of our concerns addressed, listened to or taken into consideration…Both the City of Busselton and the City of Mandurah have announced publicly they do not support the OWT Zone.

"To say that the consultation process was appalling is an understatement. The community were treated poorly, the DCCEEW staff were under prepared with no knowledge of the OWT project details and zero experience of the Western Australia marine sector, only one of their DCCEEW staffers even setting foot in WA previously," she wrote in a press release issued yesterday.

I'm not going to try to get into the arguments of the feasibility of wind power or whether they might have an impact on whale breeding grounds or whether they're a blight on the seascape, but peoples' opinions matter and I'd venture that surely no one's opinions matter more than anyone else's.

And happily, this is something the Prime Minister seems to be aware of, telling the ABC today that: "Governments certainly need to do better when it comes to community consultation and engagement...We need to have energy. The cheapest form of new energy is renewables. How that process happens though, is important as well. And we need better engagement, there's no question about that."

The energy transition is here. It's needed and it's happening. But let's try to take everyone along for the ride, regardless of colour or creed.

Yours, 

Russell Yeo