leading the Community Engagement Review⁴, while the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner provides independent oversight on complaints and best-practice engagement. Yet despite these mechanisms, industry stakeholders observe that“ we don’ t have one strategy that talks about a Just Transition and what social outcomes we are trying to achieve.”
This fragmentation weakens social licence by leaving uncertainty over which agency is accountable for ensuring communities share in transition benefits. Federal initiatives include the National Energy Transformation Partnership for Commonwealth-State cooperation toward Net Zero by 2050, the $ 20 billion Rewiring the Nation program for grid upgrades, and community-focused measures such as the First Nations Clean Energy Strategy and the $ 1.9 billion Powering the Regions Fund. 5
The new Net Zero Authority recognises past gaps in worker transition and regional economic development. Yet its role in resolving the deeper coordination failures that prevent equitable community participation remains unclear.
State Governments: Primary authority with patchwork implementation State governments hold the most direct power over transition outcomes and therefore the greatest responsibility for enabling equitable participation. Yet within Australia’ s federated system, each state has developed its own approach, creating a patchwork of frameworks that developers must navigate.
States control critical levers include Renewable Energy Zone planning, major project approvals, and energy infrastructure coordination, but apply them differently. Queensland’ s Regional Energy Transformation Partnerships, NSW’ s First Nations Guidelines for electricity infrastructure employment 6, and Victoria’ s Landholder Payments for a Fairer Renewables Transition illustrate three distinct models. While each aims to embed community outcomes, the lack of alignment forces developers to manage competing expectations and inconsistent definitions of“ benefits.”
For communities, this inconsistency fuels the expectation gap: residents see different benefit-sharing models across jurisdictions, but no national standard. For developers, it adds cost, uncertainty, and delays, undermining the very social licence these frameworks are meant to secure.
Local Government: Critical interface under pressure Local governments are the key community interface in the energy transition, representing local interests and facilitating community input into project design. Yet they increasingly carry the practical burden of transition impacts, such as construction disruption, transient workforces, road upgrades, and cumulative pressures in Renewable Energy Zones— without the governance tools needed to turn those pressures into enduring social value.
Beyond development approvals and planning, councils are taking on expanded roles in infrastructure coordination, economic development, and benefit-sharing administration. 7 In Queensland, for example, councils now negotiate Community Benefit Agreements with proponents under new legislative requirements. Elsewhere, councils host local funds or align with regional benefit programs, often without consistent guidance on roles, responsibilities, or resourcing.
Capacity varies widely. Well-resourced councils such as Western Downs have developed partnership frameworks and economic development strategies that support more equitable participation, while others are negotiating Voluntary Planning Agreements for the first time with little support. For communities, this unevenness means the energy transition may deliver enduring local value in some regions but only ad-hoc benefits in others. For developers, it creates further inconsistency and uncertainty in how social licence is built and maintained.
Developer / Proponent Role: Navigating conflicting expectations without governance clarity Developers sit at the intersection of governance challenges, tasked with securing social licence while responding to conflicting expectations from federal, state, and local authorities. They must engage communities, provide benefit-sharing contributions, negotiate land access, and meet environmental and social impact conditions, yet lack a clear framework for what constitutes equitable participation versus ad-hoc delivery.
This absence of guidance creates operational uncertainty. As one developer noted,“ State governments often frame community benefits in terms of broader economic development and policy alignment, while local governments focus on place-based impacts like road upgrades and direct community support.” Such misalignment leaves developers unclear about how to enable meaningful community participation.
The consequences are significant: approval delays driven by unclear expectations, unrealistic council requests outside project scope, poor coordination across multiple developments, and growing pressure to fund social infrastructure gaps rather than long-term community value. In short, governance confusion forces developers into a reactive role, undermining both delivery confidence and the very social licence these projects require.
CLARIFYING THE BENEFITS ECOSYSTEM: UNDERSTANDING GOVERNANCE CONFUSION Current frameworks often conflate developer obligations, impact mitigation, and genuine community benefits, creating confusion and unrealistic expectations. Effective governance requires a shared understanding of these categories and clear rules for how each is managed.
Building on RE-Alliance’ s framework, three tiers of contributions can be distinguished:
• Tier 1: Cost of doing business – Essential payments that enable projects to operate: land access agreements, neighbour payments, Indigenous Land Use Agreements, and local government rates. Because developers often don’ t own significant local property, rates revenue can be limited, leaving councils underresourced to manage transition impacts.
• Tier 2: Good business practice – Voluntary or policy-driven actions that go beyond compliance, such as prioritising local suppliers, supporting housing, or aligning infrastructure with existing land uses. These vary widely, with little oversight or consistency.
• Tier 3: Community benefits( additionality) – Contributions that leave regions better off than before: co-ownership models, annual community funds, Indigenous ranger support, or discounted local energy. These are the most closely tied to social licence and equitable participation.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL 18 NO 3 2025 07