Australia_S Journey To Renewable Energy And Why It Has To Include Coal For Now

This week's guest on the Empowering Leaders podcast is Jeff Dimery.

Jeff is the CEO of Alinta Energy and is an extraordinary story of success.

He was raised by a single mother in the Commission High-Rise Apartments in Port Melbourne alongside his five siblings.

His pathway from the most humble of beginnings to one of the most senior leadership positions in Australian corporate life,

I found to be an incredibly fascinating story.

In this conversation, you're going to hear Jeff reflect on Australian cricket captain Pat Cummings' decision

to distance himself from Alinta Energy's sponsorship of the Australian cricket team.

Fascinating story in itself.

Jeff has the unique position of operating a coal-fired power station

whilst also being the biggest single investor in renewable energy in Australia.

His position on the need to move away from coal but transition to renewable energy in an orderly fashion,

again, I think is worth having a listen to.

I asked Jeff in this conversation to think big on this global issue we all face of a sustainable future

and his answer right at the very end of this podcast to link defence budgets to clean energy

is again a thought that's worth hanging on and having a listen to.

It's people like Jeff Dimery who inspire the work that we do at Alita Collective.

Love you to find out more about our space.

Go to alitacollective.com and check out our signature program, Alita Connect,

where we bring together...

...a diverse range of people from different backgrounds in bespoke groups of five or six

and they connect in these groups all around the world.

In fact, Jeff Dimery at the end of our chat has signed on for Alita Connect

and I look forward to curating a group around Jeff and different thinkers who come from different worlds.

We think that is where the great learning happens.

We connect on Zoom and get people together to really share, learn and collaborate.

It's a simple program. Love you to get involved in it.

Book a discovery call. Head to AlitaCollective.com.

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Jeff Dimmery was raised by a single mum alongside his four siblings

in the Housing Commission High-Rise Tower in Port Melbourne.

His mum regularly worked two to three jobs every day to support the family

and would even at times have to borrow tin food to make the cupboards look full

before a visit from social services.

Jeff Dimmery was raised by his four siblings in the Housing Commission High-Rise Tower in Port Melbourne.

Jeff Dimmery's rise from the commission flats

to one of the most senior leadership roles in Australian corporate life

as the CEO of Alinta Energy is an extraordinary story.

Jeff, I've heard a lot about your story.

It's great to catch up and thanks for taking the time today.

Absolute pleasure, Luke.

And just to correct the record, five siblings.

One of them actually lived with my grandparents

because we couldn't fit her into the commission flat.

Well, thanks for the correction and apologies to the sibling.

My older sister.

Beautiful.

How exciting.

Still close to the family?

Very much so, yeah.

We're close-knit.

Mother passed away last year

and my new wife, Nicole, commented how amazing it was

to listen to us all conversing about the planning of the funeral

and how we would go about that, agreeing on music.

And, you know, Mum staunched Geelong supporter,

so she was buried in a Geelong jumper.

And she also had a message from...

from her favourite Geelong player at the funeral.

The big hairy cat, Cam Mooney.

What a great bloke.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So I'm really grateful for Cam for doing that for the family.

Yeah.

Who is a great person.

She must have been a remarkable person, your mum,

to be able to provide and work the jobs to support you all.

It was phenomenal, Luke, growing up in that environment.

And you don't appreciate...

As a kid, you just live your life, you know.

It's your environment's your environment.

To me, that's how everybody grows up, or so I thought at the time.

But, you know, Mum didn't take social welfare.

She worked...

During the day, she worked at the Albion Hotel in Port Melbourne,

washing dishes in the kitchen.

So, you know, the big counter lunches.

And Mum would be out the back doing dishes.

And then at night, down at Fisherman's Bend,

she'd be cleaning factories, the factory offices during the evening.

And then on weekends, she would become the chef,

at the Chequers Inn Hotel in Port Melbourne,

doing the counter meals for the front bar.

And then when she wasn't doing that, she'd be at Port Melbourne Oval.

We're huge fans of the borough.

Lived in the commission flats across the road.

And Mum would be over there working in the canteen, you know,

for free as donating her services.

Just remarkable people, aren't they?

And I love, you know, the female, you know,

legends in lives that have affected so many people in such a great way.

Now, this podcast is all about leadership,

but your mum's story is almost the ultimate story in leadership in lots of ways, isn't it?

It is.

You know, there are so many looking back now

and reflecting as somebody who runs a very large corporate entity,

the lessons learnt from Mum.

I, you know, I have mentors in the commercial environment.

However, you're never going to be as close in any way as you were to your mother.

And watching my mum,

and the way she went about things,

the uncertainty that she lived with, you know, you mentioned,

and it's absolutely true about borrowing food from the neighbours to fill the cupboard.

We lived very much hand to mouth.

Hope Mum doesn't get sick and can't go to work sort of thing.

But watching her cope and deal with the stresses of that

and putting on a smiley face every day and sharing the love with the family,

you know, you take that leadership,

you take that leadership role very seriously when you see it through that prism.

When you look back, as you said, when you were a kid, that's just your world, isn't it?

You don't, you think everyone's world's the same and, you know,

the commission flats in Port Melbourne produce great people as other parts of the world do.

But was there any sense in you at that young age that you had, you know, big senior leadership ambitions?

No, not at all.

I remember my first sort of ambition in life was to be a bank teller.

And it might sound really silly to you,

but the only people in my world that I ever seen wear a suit and tie were the bank tellers

when Mum went down to the bank.

And I thought they must be really important people.

And that's something that I'd love to do.

So that was my initial sort of aspiration for greatness, if you like.

But no, never.

I mean, you're just sliding doors moments in life.

One door opens another.

I guess maybe other people.

And I think that's what I've been doing for quite a long time.

And I think that's what I've been doing for quite a long time.

I was the president of the student representative council.

I was captain of the football team in juniors before talent kicked in.

So that was all about the person you were rather than your ability, I think.

Proven to be the case.

But, you know, maybe a little bit later in life when I did enter the corporate world

and I was determined to do well.

You could call that ambition.

It was, yeah, just something driving me to, I guess,

ultimately want to give a life to my children that I didn't have the fortune to inherit.

Jeff, when you were talking about the bank manager in a certain time,

I remember Mum and Dad, when you had a meeting at the bank,

you put your best suit on and it was a really formal occasion.

And I remember Dad's horror.

I must have been going for my first ever loan.

I had the board shorts on or something.

And he just was like,

what are you even doing?

You can't turn up.

Kids these days, a lot of them have never been into a bank.

You know, that's just how quickly life has changed.

Your family didn't have the means to send you to university.

I understand you're a naturally gifted student and you could do that really well.

You went to a tech school, to a TAFE here in Victoria for your secondary schooling.

But you went back and studied economics and finance when you had the means after going to work.

How important was that for you?

Oh, look, critically important.

And a shout out to the Port Colts.

Football Club here.

Little things in life.

Luke, I'd finished.

So I went to South Melbourne Tech, which doesn't exist anymore.

It's a sports and aquatic centre, basically.

And it only went up to year 11.

And in order to go to university, you needed year 12.

And the football club actually gave me a scholarship at the annual awards night.

So, you know, we had most determined, best and fairest.

I think I was probably the smart guy that couldn't play.

But they.

They wanted me to do well.

And so they gave me a scholarship to help fund my tuition in year 12.

So I moved across to RMIT and did TOP, which was probably a step down from your HSC.

So I studied there, finished year 12.

And then I went off and joined Melbourne Water because I had to.

And got a job in their contact centre answering phones.

I did that for about 12 months.

And I thought, there's got to be more.

There's got to be more to life than answering phones, albeit, you know, I had a great job, good friends.

But I thought I could probably progress a little bit further.

And so I enrolled back at RMIT.

And that's where the year 12 was so important.

And I got in to do an undergraduate degree in economics finance.

And, Geoff, you mentioned you're answering the phones in a call centre at Melbourne Water as a 17-year-old.

And you look at your trajectory, you know, it's just a steady rise of, you know, promotion all the way.

And, you know, some of the energy businesses that you entered were acquired.

And then you stepped up, you know, all the way to now CEO, as I said, of one of the, you know, the biggest organisations in Australia for the last 12 years.

Can you see some, clearly you've got a skill set that, you know, works in what you do.

How would you describe it?

I think, I'd like to think I'm commercial in my thinking.

I can spot opportunities.

In terms of leadership and success.

So it's one skill.

To identify an opportunity and to position yourself to take advantage of that, i.e. acquiring companies.

More important once you acquire them is integrating them and making them work.

And I think that comes back to your ability to deal with and relate to people, to understand, to motivate, to incentivise.

And occasionally, unfortunately, to discipline along the way.

And getting that right is key.

Anyone can pay for an asset.

But providing you've got the right people backing you with the funds, but then making it work, to me, that's the point of differentiation.

And you look at the Alinta story and, you know, if the numbers are right, correct me again if I'm wrong, but you took over that business.

It had $120 million EBITDA, but interest costs of about double that, $250 million.

You come in, that's, you know, you don't have to be a great expert to understand that's not a business in great shape.

If your interest bill is double your profit.

You remove, basically, the executive.

You take over the team within the first six months and build a whole new team.

Tell us about why you had to do that and how you turned it around.

So Alinta had been struggling for quite a while, which led to the opportunity.

So I was working at AGL.

I'd been there for 16 years and I was approached by some pretty smart guys here in Australia who run their own private equity shop today.

But back then they were working for TPG, so a big American private equity firm.

And they asked me to.

Basically, leave an organization where I was 2IC and destined to take on the role of the CEO under the succession plan of the organization and take a risk and go and look at something that was pretty much bankrupt and see if we could build and turn it around.

I was the challenge of of the turnaround and the promise.

I also had a horse stud that a very small one that.

I was working on to develop with my ex-wife.

And so the promise was, look, by the time you actually get to the CEO role at AGL, if you're successful here, you can retire at the same time your current boss does and go and run your horse stud, which was the plan.

So I took the I took the gamble.

I moved across when I got there.

It wasn't that the people that were running it were were bad, but they were exhausted.

Look, you know, it.

It takes a lot of energy to keep a business like that afloat, and they were barely staying alive.

And I just looked into the eyes of the executive team and thought, this is not the team that's going to take this organization to where our funders want it to be.

And so I did make the hard decision, and it's never an easy decision to part ways with all of the executive and then relied on a combination of recruitment, external recruitment.

But.

I was hoping that my network and my reputation in the sector to that point would attract talent and so that I could get the right skills, the right people with the right motivation.

And the good thing about private equity is that you can put a certainly the right incentive program in place to get alignment between the shareholder and management.

And that's what we're able to do.

So, Jeff, you know, which is takes, you know, courage and skill to do that at the same time, isn't as you said, no one likes that.

I don't think anyone likes that decision.

But clearly, it's been successful for you want to fast track to 2018 Alinta becomes the major sponsor of the Australian cricket team or a significant partner and Pat Cummings, the captain of the Australian cricket team is a passionate climate activist says I'm no longer going to partake in any promotional activity associated with Alinta's sponsorship.

You know, if if Pat picked up the phone, I'm assuming he hasn't.

You know, what would you say?

Why would you say that there is a better way to do it?

Than that?

What's your thoughts when you look back at that?

Yeah, look, I think, you know, we all learn from experience and I'm sure I'm certain that Pat would phrase things differently if he had his time again.

Now, that's not to say that his passion for renewable energy, you know, would would be not relevant to the conversation.

But I think the way he canvassed what he did at the time could have been done better.

And I think, you know, in conversations with Nick Hockley and others at Cricket Australia, there was an admission.

That that that would be the case.

And of course, you know, the media take things and run with them as they do.

The story becomes the story.

Look, the reality is, what would you do differently?

Firstly, from a from from from a factual point of view, Alinta Energy at the time the comments were made had just finished commissioning Western Australia's most efficient wind farm.

It's the most efficient wind farm in Australia.

Full stop, not just WA.

It has the most energy output of any wind farm.

We'd also recently completed building a solar array for Fortescue, who are one of our biggest iron ore exporters.

And we supported that with backup battery.

So we were displacing diesel in that regard.

We picked up an order to do the same thing for BHP in the Pilbara.

And we were progressing with one of the first offshore wind farms.

And we were progressing with one of the first offshore wind farms in the Pilbara.

We're building pumped hydro in New South Wales.

We own a coal-fired asset.

And, you know, I don't shy away from that because it has such a critical role to play in the delivery of energy today.

And ironically, you know, I was watching the cricket after the story broke.

There was a night match on in New South Wales.

It was night.

So there was no solar and there wasn't a breath of wind.

So there was no wind.

And that game wouldn't have gone ahead but for the coal-fired generation.

So you either.

You put the ball down and say, I'm dead against this or you run in and you bowl.

And you run in and bowl because, you know, practically people want to watch night cricket.

They want to be entertained.

We want to maintain our lifestyles.

We, you know, unashamedly, we're driving towards net zero.

We're transitioning away.

And so I guess from my perspective, the dilemma was we're at the forefront of that transition.

Yet we're being called out because we continued in that situation.

We were being called out because we continued to operate a coal-fired power station.

And the reality is technically, if you turned off all the coal-fired power stations in Australia today, um, the economy would come to a standstill.

People's lives would be devastated.

And so it's kind of, you know, it's having perspective and understanding really is the key.

And declaring energy.

I've actually sat across from Pat in this format and he's a, he's a brilliant guy and an outstanding human being.

And, and, and.

And, and, uh, totally, um, share his right to, to, to the view in, in, in every sense of the word.

At one end of the argument, uh, Jeff, there's a, there's a view of it, you know, people that the human, um, uh, carbonization of the planet has caused irreparable damage.

And we're on a one-way slide to, to irreversible destruction.

You're suggesting, hey, we have to get to net zero.

We've got to get to renewal.

But we need to buy some time.

Otherwise the lights go out.

Then, then we, we, uh, we need, we need to pre-perform.

And I think, and I, and I agree with you, with you on that, but it's, it's, it's, um, it's just a, it's, uh, it's a, it's a, it's an issue of.

It's just, it's an issue of, it's an issue of time.

Because it feels like the, uh, it was, everyone's so extreme on this.

Is there a way that, and are you right?

Is there time?

Um, look, time is of the essence.

Don't get me wrong, Luke.

And the moment we don't need that power station, then we won't be operating it on coal.

And by the way, we're spending millions of dollars right now, assessing the merits of converting the coal.

So, um, uh, uh, uh, uh.

supply to um biomass so we're not sitting there operating it with our head in the sand we have a

plan to transition even that power station away from coal what we don't have in australia that

they have in parts of europe and the us for that matter we don't have any nuclear power we don't

have any baseload energy that that isn't high intensity when it comes to emissions and and so

you know we need to find an alternative and that's why we're looking at biomass as an alternative to

coal um you you won't survive merely uh on wind and solar the cost of battery to install to back

up those renewable variable sources of energy are unaffordable for us so we'll save the planet

but we'll blow up the country in the process and so you've got to find that that happy middle

ground i mean i i was in china

last week um and often people will point to china and say well look well look at what the chinese are

doing let me tell you what the chinese are doing i was on the ground there i was in shanghai 80

of the cars in shanghai are now electric um the difference in shanghai quite frankly is when the

government decide they're going to do something they do it whereas here in australia if i think

about the challenges we've got on this transition um to put them into perspective access to the

grid the grid our

grid hasn't been designed um for 100 percent renewables and so we've got to do work to

retrofit the grid um and so even if you build the assets before the grid's ready the grid won't take

them so it doesn't matter how impatient we are and then the other thing is that um if you look at

what's going on with the push to renewables this is not a a domestic thing that's happening in

australia this is a global phenomenon and so for instance the u.s government

introduced the ira which is the inflationary reduction act um and so they're putting

trillions of dollars into subsidize renewal renewable development in the u.s so guess where

all the big renewable developers globally want to head we don't have those incentives here in

australia europe's about to announce a similar program and so you know what we need to do to

get to net zero is offshore wind's going to be a big part of that and we're developing offshore wind

but we don't have the equipment here in australia to be able to do that so we're going to have to

for instance to anchor the towers into the seabed we've got to bring that in from overseas

and then you've got all of these massive government subsidized programs going on in the u.s

going on in europe and asia who wants to come to australia that's that's what we're competing with

so wanting to do something and having the ability to do it are two different things and really what

i'm saying to you is that you know let's not walk the high wire until we've got a safety net

underneath us to catch us from falling now that doesn't mean we don't do anything quite the

opposite but don't shut down assets before you've got replacement supply in place because all you

will do is drive up the energy price and you will create grid security um reliability of supply

issues so you know you don't want to be a factory that has to interrupt their supply like they do in

south africa you know three four or five times a day um that's just you know not where anybody

wants to be

this is not a new conversation the decarbonization around the globe has to be top of mind for for

everyone in senior government and and every conversation in households now it's something

our kids are really passionate about as they should be and we and we should understand and

we're an incredibly resource rich country we've got wind we've got a lot of sun that other

countries we've got a lot of uh natural um opportunities haven't we to to do better on

this bay so

what are the decisions is it you know why hasn't the grid been fixed yeah why haven't we put that

infrastructure in place these are things that you know probably 20 25 years ago could have been

happening yeah look um firstly if you take a quick trip down memory lane when i was at agl um we were

a member of the renewable energy generators of australia we're also a member of the australian

wind energy association and um the business council for sustainable energy um i was our

representative on each of those and uh we lobbied really hard i'd drive an amalgamation of those

three groups to create the clean energy council which is you know the most prominent lobby group

for renewables um in the country so we we were there i'd also say just historically i started up

the um power generation group at agl uh including doing the first ever wind farm at agl and uh built

um commercialized the bogong hydroelectric power generation group and i was a member of the

power station in the high plains here up up near um falls creek um and build a cluster of wind farms

i've built more renewables or commercialized more renewables in this country than anybody so i feel

like you know i'm i'm qualified to to make the the comments that i do about the transition and

the timing you're right luke if you had a crystal ball and you went back 20 or 25 years ago you

would do things differently um you know why why is that

not the case um look we're kind of in an interesting situation in victoria right now

when you look at the state of the economy but we we were all equally in a very difficult position

if you go back sort of 20 odd years ago 25 maybe close to 30 um and victoria decided to

privatize and sell off assets as did other states um and so now what you've got is you've got private

ownership of transmission and distribution networks um you know they're

no longer owned by the people um and they're not all owned by the same entity uh and then you've

got separation of ownership between power generation transmission distribution there's

a lot of vested interests that go into the mix um when it comes to redesigning anything quite

frankly and then we have um you know difference between australia and china i said earlier

the government want to do something in china they do it here in australia um it's we very

much want to take everybody along for the ride

so uh you know classic right now you'll see more recently we had tractor tractors parked up on

spring street um there was a protest in ballarat as well same sort of thing farmers aren't happy

about transmission lines going across their farmland their livelihood you know the asset

been in the family forever um they don't see the world through a bigger picture lens that you were

painting earlier they just see you know their their lot in life and so they're not happy about

that and they don't want this to proceed um equally

people don't want wind farms in their backyard and we don't you know we don't have compulsory

acquisition and laws like that that that would happen in china and so getting everybody to the

table getting everybody to agree and and even more so i guess the the emerging profile of

indigenous people and their rights and you know i'm not commenting whether these things are right

or wrong the reality is the complexities that we need to deal with and then you overlay those

subsidies going on overseas that i think are going to be a big part of the future of the

world and i think that's a big part of the future of the world and i think that's a big part of the

and the availability of um infrastructure to come and build the assets and uh you know it's it's uh

it's a pretty difficult task we have and i think that's why this is an important discussion it's

to me it's a leadership conversation not about the um intricacies of energy which you know upside

down back to front i think often you know it's easy to paint jeff dimmery as the coal baron who's

got the loyong big power station and and greed you're a a father someone who cares deeply about

the um history and and the future as well everyone who knows you will tell you that's the case and

that's why i was super interested in in this conversation because without being able to have

normal conversation i feel like that art's gone isn't it you know at one level it's okay to say

you know i want to ban uh you know um any coal five power station but what are you prepared to

give up is there a sense that as a community hey perhaps we do need to sacrifice a little bit do

we do need to give back is is is that a fair assumption as well or not i think it's a fair

absolutely and it's happening right now whether people realize that or not um you know the cost

of energy has gone up and uh i was talking at a conference last year and i gave the example

let's take our loyong b asset um so it's it's 1000 megawatts um so for your average punter that

means uh the total demand in the state of victoria gets to about 8 000 so it's about 12 15 percent

uh and then on a normal day it's probably that coal five power station

generates about 15 percent of victoria's energy needs yeah um on on a busy day and then it runs

24 7 so on a quiet day um you know that that could be pushing up around 25 percent but yeah that's

that's the so we switch that off tomorrow the lights they literally go out in victoria um if

it's not windy and uh so if the if the wind's not blowing then yes absolutely we're in dire um

we we'd

we'd be so if you switch that off and next door loyang a i guarantee the lights would go out yes

um our power station on its own i would say depends on whether your lawn down the road which

is an old coal-fired power station which doesn't operate very reliably anymore if that's still

operating and loyang a is operating we might be okay but if they're out as well the lights are

out so people listening to this and say okay take your face value you know you've got shareholders

that you need to to look after as well and that's cheap energy and that's a good business model

yep

when when can we do it so yeah the point i was going to make was that we we purchased that

asset a few years back for just over a billion dollars to replace that either with offshore

wind i'll use offshore wind so if you use the combination of offshore wind which is where we're

heading and pumped hydro which we're developing a pumped hydro project in new south wales

those two projects combined will put us back to where we are with with loyang b the difference

is that's costing close to nine

billion dollars to develop those two projects energy is not going to be cheaper under that

scenario and then you've got augmentation of the grid another thing so um sometimes it's easy for

politicians to talk about if you think about it conceptually look the wind's free um so why isn't

it cheaper the reality is it costs a lot of money to go and plonk turbines in in the ocean build

undersea cables connect them and redesign the grid to take it um yes and then you've got to

the marginal cost of fuel is close to zero but maintenance all of that you know those costs

that up so it's not as simple as you know highlighting winds free or that the sun's for

free what about the question aren't we one of the world's biggest producers of gas um yeah and

we pay extraordinarily amount more than the people that we

send our gas to is that is that a is that a fair um fair comment from time to time um

the commodity and commodity markets go up commodity markets come down there's been a lot of talk about

um uh russia invading uh the ukraine and then sanctions on russian gas and and there's no doubt

the cost of gas went from um around about call it eight to ten dollars in in the international

market and it got as high as um three hundred dollars um it's back down it's come way back

down now uh in any event the australian government intervened and put a cap on the

cost of gas um here in australia a domestic cap and so we've seen that impact through the market

the one thing i would say even the most ambitious plans about transitioning to renewables and closing

coal um i'm adamant that that requires gas supply for the next 20 odd years um so uh to to fill in

the gaps when the sun's not shining and the wind's not blowing so that we can close coal so it's what

we'd call a transitional

fuel i'm i'm very concerned that by putting a cap price on gas and interfering with the the

commodity cycle there is a risk that new gas fields aren't developed and if that happens then

we're going to have an exposure down the track in filling in the gaps between the renewables

can you paint a picture for us uh jeff and i i know people will be listening because it affects

all of us and and we've transferred we've transitioned perfectly to renewable in whatever

date that is uh whatever time frame whatever date that is uh whatever time frame whatever

what does our house look like what are what are we you know 30 years time what what's our energy

sources look like look some houses are already there luke so it doesn't have to be 30 years time

it literally in part is happening today the question is how quickly it can happen in full

but uh your average house um where you have a lot of people live in high density housing

apartments this won't be the case there but freestanding dwellings um you've got your solar

panels on the roof you've got your home battery inside the house

every house will have that every house will have that and should you do that now if you've got the

means um yes short answer is yes if you can afford and there are some really attractive government

subsidies out there if you can afford to put a solar panel on your roof step one um battery is a

little less commercial but it is where we're heading and a lot of households are now putting

them in and the cost i was in china looking at battery technology specifically last week the

costs are coming down rapidly um so each house will have a

solar rooftop it'll have a battery it'll have an electric charger for the car or cars

um that you drive there will be um so for instance if you're fortunate enough to own a holiday house

you'll be able to trade you won't be using the energy at home so once you fill up your battery

trade your imbalances on the market a bit like um you know people with share trading or or um

you put your excess back into the grid they tell me that is an incredibly complex

gateway through now and it's been made so hard by the energy companies that it's almost impossible

to decipher is that is that a fair statement again no no it's not um energy companies are

trying to crack that nut quite frankly so for instance we're working um at alinta on software

package that we can provide to customers to add value to do exactly that we just don't have the

technology to this point and i know the world gets impatient we're all impatient things are moving so

rapidly our

first step was to build a digital billing platform and house a digital warehouse so that we can use

the information real time the the australian energy market trades in five minute intervals

it's the most volatile commodity market anywhere in the world that goes on behind the scenes

so having access to an aggregate of a million customers that are willing to become your

supplier is enormously valuable so there's commercial drivers for us to want to do it

um the fact is we're trying to build a digital billing platform and we're trying to build a digital

billing platform and we're just not quite there yet but it is happening yeah i love the idea of

being able to you know even donate it to your neighbor or can you get to that point where

you absolutely got excess storage it's it's something you need to use and you can put back

in obviously commercial outcomes make sense as well but is that what's going to happen in the

future yes yeah precisely so if you want to be philanthropic um and you want to donate your

energy to somebody else we'll absolutely be able to facilitate that safe nuclear an option

um look it's an interesting question i get asked this question by our board in fact

we're looking at um down the track options around nuclear do i think it will happen personally

anytime soon um not no i don't i think there's a a big political hurdle there is um perceptions by

the australian community they've seen what happened at five mile island or three mile island

what happened at fukushima you know so that that imagery the technology

improved though hasn't it jeff enormously and the capacity to do that so with no emissions

cheap energy i mean it has to be a part of it it's not my space but you know logically you put

your brain to that anything if you can guarantee safety it's got to be part of the conversation

isn't it i think it has a really important role to play luke um personally so do i think it will

happen could it have a really important role to play yes so you remember earlier when we were

talking about the difference between australia and australia

overseas i mentioned nuclear and um to have an element of baseload that's not to say you need

to do get all of your power from nuclear but to have that that baseload underlying and supporting

the renewables would be a wonderful thing it's expensive but so are the alternatives i love this

quote i read from you um i don't fear not having material things because i grew up without them

whilst they're nice to have that's not what brings you happiness what's the retribution for me

speaking out

someone takes the toys away okay so be it life goes on i feel like jeff you've got a great

perspective on that because not many people understand you know that you can be happy uh

in both scenario life has been um you know pretty good to you i'm assuming and had some great

financial success but you're pretty comfortable either way is that is that the life lesson

it is um you know money doesn't bring happiness happiness is it's almost a choice we you know we

choose our attitude every day and you can either be a

glass half empty or a glass half full person i'm definitely the half full um i always see

you know the positive aspect of of what's possible um and and again you know the only

person responsible ultimately for my happiness is me and i've got to choose that and um you know

the reality is that when they're putting you underground luke you're not worried about how

many ferraris are parked up in the car park outside it's the people inside you know that

that are there mourning your

your departure it's about the quality of relationships that you have in your life that

that matters yeah beautifully said and it's a great unique perspective you've got can we trust

humans to not cut down the last tree jeff we have to luke um and you know i for one again i just

told you i'm a glass half full kind of guy and i i look at all the great things that are happening

and you know there'll be many people out there that say we're not transitioning quickly enough

but i could go back 30 years

and say who would have envisaged today that we'd be driving around in electric vehicles that we can

charge at home that are powered by a panel on the roof of the house not from coal not from gas um

so you know i've got the confidence that the technology will keep evolving on you know look

at look at when you first started using a mobile phone and and what capability it had and how big

it was you know the old bricks and you know the device that that we all live with today energy's

no different you know we're not going to be driving around in electric vehicles that we can

and you know it's been taken on as a as a huge challenge um by society not just here in australia

we're seeing great things being done overseas um and i'm confident that the the velocity of that

transition will get quicker you know i get annoyed when you go along to a conference and everyone's

patting themselves on the back about what we've done to this point when i'm looking at the

challenges ahead and so i'm more interested in focusing on how do we overcome those hurdles you

know um how do we overcome those hurdles and i'm more interested in focusing on how do we overcome

how do we clear the pathway for the future that that that to me you know that gets me up out of

bed every day and keeps me motivated and i know we can do it um will we do it by 2030 i'm not so

sure we will will there be consequences of that it it appears there will be so you know i buy into

the whole human induced global warming but you can only go as quick as you can go and and again

you know there's an old saying does the ends justify the means and we just need to be careful

life's full of trade-offs you know and so um my view is we don't want to leave anybody behind

and so when i think about the um the energy system it's got to supply people who live in

high-rise commission flats right through to the people with their mansions interact um and so

uh you know it's an essential service everybody should have access to it and affordability is a

big big issue so is environment

and so is security of supply and that's the dilemma because often those three we call it the

energy trilemma they're often in in competition with one another we could go all renewable at

what cost um we could go no renewables and drive the cost right down that's a fact um now neither

of those are the right answers at this point in time so it's about getting things right and getting

the transition right so that we end up where we want to and we need to be and we need to be and

but we don't leave you know anybody behind very um reasonable and sensible case that you mount and

your story is a great leadership story from those high-rise commission flats to to senior leadership

i love uh jeff this is my passion sitting across from you know from the sea oval inter or the

captain australian cricket team or people in different spheres and and leadership looks uh

different in different settings but we feel like there's some patterns of leadership i want to ask

you about some dimensions of leadership we think self-leadership is a a term that really applies to

someone else does that resonate with you um it does i mean firstly you know leadership is a great

responsibility and not not all people want to be leaders and that's fine there's there's nothing

wrong with that um you know there's a thing about can can leadership be learned is it is it inherent

in people i think it's a combination of both um it's like anything you know you might be a

a gifted natural afl footballer but if you practice and you refine your skills you'll become

an even better afl footballer um and so i think leadership is similar that if firstly you've got

to be up for the challenge and it is challenging um you know you not only have to deal with your

own emotions but you've got to become a spring for other people's emotions and uh and so that's

not a task that anybody should take take lightly um but if you are if you feel so inclined then

you know it's really incumbent upon you to be the best leader you possibly can at that point

depending on you and we know the impact that it has when someone's in a role like yours there's

thousands of people that take their temperature of their day by by how your behavior is isn't it

and and when you do that well the the opportunity for impact is enormous and that's the next

dimension we really see leaders you're really conscious about how they positively impact

others how have you thought about that um in terms of role model i think um you know back

back to mum um back to the commission flags back back back to the examples that were

set as a kid um to me it's about treating it doesn't matter who you're dealing with um and

and i'm sure my employees would say this at alinta whether i'm talking to the cleaner after

hours and i'm back or whether i'm talking to one of my executive directors responsible for a

portfolio i treat them exactly the same i'll give them the same respect um i'll take time out to

have the conversation if they want to have a conversation um so actually um respecting people

is is first and foremost

trying to uh showing empathy and understanding necessarily we all see things differently for a

reason um and trying to appreciate other people's perspectives when you're weighing up decisions and

what that might mean and importantly having a grasp on what the consequences look like

when you do make decisions so you know back to the old does he ends justify the means

um type approach to things and they're not just you know you don't put that lens just over

big big decisions like do we build another

farm or a solar plant i mean you put those decisions over quite frankly when you're talking

about people and their roles in an organization because whilst it mightn't affect the whole

community it affects that person and their family directly and so all decisions matter and you know

i make the point that it doesn't referencing i look at a leader in our contact centers and the

impact they're having on the people that work for them um you know and so their leadership role is

equally as important to those people as much as it is for them and so i think it's important to

mine is to the broader community and so i feel working with my people to develop them into

better leaders um is a really good use of my time yeah beautifully yeah i said uh creating and

sharing a vision big part of of any leadership role maybe ask you what what is your vision

for alenta and how do you how do you share that with the wider team yeah so um part of being

overseas was a session with the board to talk through our strategic direction and how do you

of the company we've had um i guess a consistent strategy for 13 years that sounds boring

but you know if it ain't broke don't fix it what we do is we change the emphasis

um around what we're doing depending on the market situation and what our competitors are doing but

right now um it wouldn't surprise you for me to say that one of the key strategic pillars we have

is investing in renewable energy um and so we've got a program of works that we're calling big

and no regrets um and i've talked a little bit about we're building a large-scale hydroelectric

power station in new south wales we're building an offshore wind farm here in victoria we're

installing solar up in the pilbara we're putting a big battery in in perth in in wa so it's around

how we build and integrate those assets into our existing portfolio at the same time you know we

need to make sure that we continue to provide reliable power out of luoyang

which is you know an aging old asset but if that asset's not in the market we know it's going to

cause issues with pricing and stability so that's sort of you know we've got a we've got to run a

business and grow a whole new business um simultaneously and that's our challenge we see

ladies are really curious and curiosity is a is a word that's common and through that curiosity

is how a lot of ladies approach their their own learning does that resonate with you um yeah

absolutely i mean you you know there are people you know that are really interested in the

business and they're really interested in the business and they're really interested in the

look to i've got um my mentor is is my old boss um michael fraser he's the chairman of the

australian pipeline association um and uh michael taught me a lot of things uh valuable lessons

along the way i was you know impatient and he taught me the value of time um one of the best

lessons i ever learned and you know craig mccray with i'm a magpie supporter and craig uh has

instilled this concept in the collingwood team that we play with and we play with the

minutes i we play right to the end and we've all seen the consequence of that you know they've won

games you just didn't expect them to win we've steamrolled at the end and you know things are

never over until they're over and um you know so hang in there and keep going and keep trying

there's a lesson i learned um and and trying to instill that in people don't lose faith if you've

got a vision follow it through stick to it you know if you fail did you really fail was it a

learning experience what can you apply to and and and and and and and and and and and and and and

let's go again sort of mentality i think it's really important what when you say the lesson

of time what what do you mean by that there's there's you know i've got a trading background so

if you want to value a commodity option a put or a call option one of the um big parts that

that lead to the valuation of that derivative product is time because um the more time you

have the more things can can go in different directions the more things can change obviously

as you get closer to the end of the game the more things can change the more things can change

to you know an event occurring less things will move around so the value of that option

you think about it in terms of financial derivatives diminishes over time but it

still has a value until it no longer until that event occurs and i see business as being

no different to that um uh the example i was giving was um i was living in new south wales

and my wife wanted to move back to victoria she was victorian her family structure and

whatnot was in victoria

and so i went into my boss to resign and he asked me to give him six months notice and he said look

i'm going to put your resignation in the bottom drawer um a lot of things can happen in six months

jeff and so it turns out he was working behind the scenes i ended up moving back to victoria

in a role with that company uh and uh we started up power generation from scratch it agl is by far

the largest power generator in australia and we started with nothing

myself and an ea um and so you know had i have not spent that six months and invested that time

i would have been off on a different on a different trajectory in life but uh you know he convinced me

that if i could be patient and use that time wisely good things would happen and they did

communicating with clarity big part of most leadership roles in a big role like yours how

do you do that keep it simple i mean we we're very fortunate as leaders today

the advancement in technology that we have so the means to communicate um visuals uh use a lot of

visuals there's an old saying pretend you're talking to um intelligent 12 year olds um that

that's not meant to be demeaning to people but the reality is that when when for instance if

i'm giving an hour-long presentation you know i've got to focus really what are the three or

four things at the end of that hour i want people to remember and make sure that you're

you're clear about that you talk about it um you tell them you're going to tell them about it then

you tell them about it and then you tell them what you've told them effectively and like i said you

look we've had the same strategy for 13 years our people get it now um and and that's the value of

consistency now like i said we'll play around with the execution of that strategy and the emphasis

within the strategy of what we're doing at a point in time but um we always need to be um true to

ourselves and what it is that we're doing at a point in time and we're doing it at a point in

time and we're trying to do because it's at that level that our people understand what we are

trying to do how important has collaboration been in your world um uh look you you won't get

anywhere without collaboration um so whether that's uh you know collaboration with government

collaboration with your own workforce um collaboration quite frankly from a whole

of industry perspective with our peers and what we do there um yeah it's it sits at the heart of

who's been the greatest leader in your life my mum thought you might uh say that no hesitation

none at all none at all i look i you know i guess uh one of my favorite leaders um and i'm sure you

wouldn't have heard this before is john singleton um you know i regard john as a friend i like the

fact that he's a bit of a knockabout larrikin uh i really admire what he's been able to achieve

with his life we share a lot of common interests um and we've had a lot of great conversations with

um passionate horse racing man as well correct yeah yeah absolutely but uh you know i was i was

once told by somebody um when i was at agl that hey look you're a bright lad you've got a bright

future i know you've got an interest in the ponies uh you might want to leave that behind

if you want to be successful and for me that was like no no no no um then i wouldn't be me um and

that's what i love about a guy like john john's john and john's been terribly successful so the

world you know has bent to john rather than john bending to the world and i really admire that

there are people who've made a lot more money than john um and done a lot of other things uh

and i admire that as well but you know john one thing you get unashamedly himself uh john

singleton and the the lovable australian larrikin is almost sort of a dying uh uh art these days

isn't it probably cancel culture might have got john if he was uh born a little later in life and

i can say that about you you know authentically yourself and unashamedly yourself and i think

it's a great life lesson isn't it because it's hard work trying to be someone else isn't it i

would think it would tell you and you know you'd rip you up inside you can't pretend to be somebody

you're not um yeah a lot of people do we're in the work we're doing in our leisure space we

sort of see collaboration now as being a bit of a superpower and your uh you know evolving world

has there been anyone looked at and thought god if we could collaborate with that particular

person or that and that would go a long way to solve uh some of the the challenges that

you face is there any other springs to mind oh look i think um if i had one sort of desire would

would be to see collaboration on a global scale so i'm talking about politics unfortunately now

um and we kind of let east and west get in the way of one another i mean i'll go out on a big

limb here but i i don't think the u.s is going to invade china anytime soon and i certainly don't

think china is going to invade the u.s or for that matter australia um you know

and so i wonder about how much money gets spent on things like submarines and defense and and

whatnot and you know whether we not be better investing that 360 billion dollars in the energy

revolution that needs to take place you know rather than protecting our borders let's all

work together and save the planet if you want the ultimate collaboration that's it it's a brilliant

answer jeff isn't it and when you actually stop and look back and think how crazy it is that we

have our own nationalistic uh views and as you said the defense budgets uh you put that at money

as you just described we solve that 2030 becomes absolutely on the cards doesn't it it's um and i

think that's part of the you know challenge isn't it you you see people getting more divided

algorithms on our phones send us more of what we think you know jeff dimmer is the you know the

the evil coal baron rather than actually sitting down listening to you know it's why i love this

forum because you make up your own mind you know you're not going to be able to do anything about it

but at least you've heard jeff's side of uh of why it makes sense it's it seems a lost art i hope

we can get it back is that that sense of global collaboration on some things that we should all

agree on which is we've all we all live on the one planet we should all want to take care of it

shouldn't we you would hope so great to catch up with you all right luke my pleasure thank you

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