Australia’s renewable future depends on trust, not just technology

Australia’s renewable energy transition is accelerating, but so too is the widening gap between those who support it and those who increasingly, and loudly, oppose it.

Anyone tuning into last week’s Senate inquiry into misinformation and disinformation on climate and energy will have heard just how entrenched these divisions have become.

Beneath the engineering challenges of transmission lines, solar farms and wind projects now sits a deeper problem: trust. And according to Professor Sara Bice — one of Australia’s leading scholars of social licence — trust rests on one thing above all else.

“The number one driver of public trust in an infrastructure development is the level of confidence in the regulation that’s guiding that development,” Professor Bice told the SwitchedOn Australia podcast.

That should ring alarm bells in Canberra. Regulation is moving slowly. Misinformation is moving fast. And the gap between the two is becoming a defining tension of the entire transition.

A transition built differently

Bice, who directs the Institute for Infrastructure in Society at ANU’s Crawford School, has spent years analysing how governments, companies and communities can deliver major infrastructure fairly and sustainably.

She argues the renewable rollout is unlike any other infrastructure wave Australia has attempted.

Around 95% of renewable projects are developed by private companies, not governments. Traditionally, the state led big projects — highways, hospitals, hydro systems – setting expectations, enforcing rules, and subcontracting delivery.

Renewables flipped that model. “Our regulators and our policymakers are really having to think about new ways to shape relationships with the private sector… in ways that they haven’t in the past.”

And this shift is unfolding at the same time as unprecedented urgency, political pressure, and a fast-evolving misinformation landscape.

It’s no wonder community engagement is struggling to keep up: the Energy Infrastructure Commissioner’s 2024 report found 92% of Australians were dissatisfied with their engagement experience.

“That’s a big red flag.”

A year of improvement, but misinformation is shifting the ground

Bice acknowledges genuine progress: engagement “started from a low bar” but “over the past 12 months… we have seen a genuine refocusing of attention on the importance of community engagement and the social transition.”

AEMO has now embedded social licence criteria into the ISP, a signal that community factors matter at the planning stage.

But the Senate inquiry has made another reality clear: renewable projects must now deal with misinformation before they can even explain the project itself.

“We lack a shared source of truth,” Bice says. Community engagement officers walk into meetings not knowing whether a landholder has read expert assessments, or a Facebook group claiming batteries “cause cancer” or wind turbines “kill thousands of birds”.

This is creating, Bice argues, an entirely new area of community engagement where the first task is unravelling myths, not discussing benefits, risks or design.

The blind spot: ‘presumed benevolence’

A crucial part of Bice’s research deals with an uncomfortable idea: many policymakers, scientists and renewable developers carry an unconscious “presumed benevolence” — the belief that because renewables are necessary and good, communities will automatically embrace them.

The assumption is understandable. But it can distort how projects are delivered.

“This presumed benevolence lens… may lead to regulation that streamlines infrastructure but doesn’t necessarily honour communities. We need to better understand community needs.”

Regional Australians, she notes, “are being asked to shoulder the burden of Australia’s renewable energy infrastructure on behalf of us all.” These are the same communities living with drought, bushfire, flood, price crashes, and the daily impacts of climate change.

So when they push back, Bice says, it’s not always about climate denial: “What they are saying is the way that this transition is being done… is the problem.”

The heart of social licence: fairness

What builds social licence is well known says Bice: respect, transparency, clear processes and meaningful opportunities to shape decisions. But Bice is blunt: “Right now… there is a huge lack of procedural fairness.”

And that lack can’t simply be filled with money alone.

“People should be recompensed… but if we make the transition only about trying to design deals or compensation agreements, we’re never going to get there.”

Instead, she argues for a decisive shift away from the project-by-project approach to place-based engagement: long-term relationships, clear information, and deep listening.

 “What that means is meeting people in their community to really understand what are they experiencing, what are they hoping for, what are they worried about,” says Bice. “Some of those may be based on myths or disinformation, but we need to… understand what they are and what is their long term vision.”

The stakes are high. If engagement is mishandled, Bice warns of “very big losses… that destroys social cohesion, and that potentially destroys the identity of these communities.”

The Senate inquiry has shown how misinformation is accelerating faster than regulation, faster than community engagement, and faster than the institutions charged with guiding the transition.

Bice’s research makes it clear that regulation must inspire confidence, engagement must be fair and place-based, and misinformation must be tackled before it hardens into mistrust, and trust must be earned.

You can hear the full interview with Sara Bice on the SwitchedOn Australia podcast.

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