Musselroe Wind Farm, situated on the far northeastern tip of Tasmania, has formalised access to an 80ha piece of land with a long-term vision of the freehold title being returned to Traditional Owners the Pairrebeener people.
Mannalargenna Day, held in early December, sees hundreds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people gather on this land to celebrate an ancestral warrior. There’s dancing, art exhibitions, yarning circles, and cultural food. It is Tebrakunna Country, but it’s also a wind farm.
The land access has enabled Melaythenner Teeackana Warrana Aboriginal Corporation (MTWAC) to gather for cultural ceremonies, build a base for the Tebrakunna Rangers to care for Country and develop sustainable employment for Aboriginal people within the region. They also have aspirations for commercial activities including tourism, accommodation, and marine enterprises.
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“It gave us a physical space to be on Country. Just to be on our ancestral homeland is just so significant,” said Aunty Patsy Cameron AO, MTWAC elder, historian, and educator.
“We belong. We can go there to walk, to laugh, to cry, to share, to feel our ancestors, and to care for our ancestral lands,” she said.
Now owned by Woolnorth Renewables, the 168MW wind farm was built and commissioned in 2013 by Hydro Tasmania and provides 5% of Tasmania’s energy in an average year. Aunty Patsy Cameron has stewarded the relationship from the outset and says the collaboration “has been respectful and genuine from the beginning”.
The collaboration includes a Ranger Program, which now employs 12 people and has trained 14 people in ecosystem and conservation land management.
Musselroe Wind Farm head of risk, compliance, and systems Robert Barbour said the benefits go both ways.
“It’s valuable to be a part of a team that values community,” he said.
“We get help around the heritage side of things, to fulfil our regulated requirements, we get access to that technical knowledge. It’s also part of building the social licence needed to get a project like this off the ground, in a very genuine way. That has really enabled us to do our wind farm planning and construction smoothly and quickly,” he said.
Woolnorth Renewables’ partnership with MTWAC shows that when renewable energy projects are done well, they can deliver significant social value for local communities. A new discussion paper—jointly published by the Community Power Agency, PATHMAKER, and RE-Alliance —argues the sector must move beyond simply seeking community acceptance to operate, and focus instead on delivering measurable improvements to community wellbeing.
“Australia’s energy transition is occurring at a scale and pace that will shape regional communities for generations,” Community Power Agency director Kim Mallee said.
“Social value represents a fundamental shift from seeking basic community acceptance to delivering genuine, measurable improvements in people’s lives. This paper aims to spark the sector-wide conversation needed to make that shift real.”
Titled From Social Licence to Social Value in the Energy Transition, the paper urges policy makers, developers, and practitioners to establish a shared, rigorous approach to tracking the real-world impacts of clean energy infrastructure.
Across the country, there is growing attention on how the benefits of the energy transition are shared. However, the paper highlights a critical ‘measurement gap’ in the current sector and offers a way to better track genuine value.
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Drawing on international frameworks, policy analysis, and interviews with leading practitioners, the discussion paper establishes five core principles to guide the sector forward. It offers a vital roadmap for policy makers looking to align energy projects with national frameworks, while putting pressure on industry to lift its standards.
“Mannalargenna, whose land we’re talking about, to change the wind, he would pick out a burning ember out of the fire and on a long stick and he would use that long burning stick to move the wind,” Aunty Patsy Cameron said.
“I would imagine that if Mannalargenna came back and saw those turbines using the wind to generate power that he would be in awe.”
