Leading with purpose: Putting First Peoples at the centre of Victoria’s energy future
For generations, Australia's First Peoples have been excluded from the benefits generated by the energy and resources sector. Decisions have been made on Country, without First Peoples at the table and without a fair share of the benefits created.
Even today, there is no legal obligation to involve First Peoples in decision-making or to share the benefits that energy development brings.
As Victoria's government-owned renewable energy company, SEC is uniquely placed to change this.
We are uniquely placed to do better.
We were re-established to accelerate Victoria's renewable energy transition, delivering renewable, affordable, reliable energy for all Victorians.
Our mandate brings both responsibility and opportunity: to lead with purpose, to challenge the status quo, and to demonstrate what better looks like.
SEC is owned by Victorians, which puts public purpose at the heart of everything we do. As a publicly owned company, we work to ensure all Victorians can benefit from the opportunities our energy transition brings. This includes bringing benefits to our regions through local employment and supplier opportunities, and benefits-sharing.
It gives us an opportunity to do things differently — to move beyond transactional engagement and towards genuine, enduring relationships with First Peoples, built on trust, respect and shared benefit.
SEC is committed to a renewable energy transition that is affordable and fair. A transition that delivers equitable outcomes and ensures accountability to First Peoples.
When Victoria signed its historic first Treaty with First Peoples in December 2025, it established a formal relationship between First Peoples and the Victorian Government. Nearly ten years in the making, the Treaty Agreement is built on truth, respect and shared purpose.
The Treaty follows the critical work of the Yoorrook Justice Commission, a truth-telling body tasked with recording and exposing the injustices and trauma experienced by Aboriginal peoples since European settlement.
Treaty and truth-telling processes are pathways to acknowledging the past and making real, practical changes to achieve better outcomes for First Peoples in Victoria. They call upon all Victorians to transform how we think about the exercise of power and authority, and to re-design decision-making processes that impact on or involve our First Peoples.
Self-determination is a fundamental human right recognised in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Aligned to Treaty, it acknowledges that First Peoples have the right to control decisions affecting their lands, cultures, communities, and futures.
Guided by our inaugural SEC First Peoples Self-Determination Strategy, we are embedding our commitment to Self-determination at the highest levels of SEC decision-making, reserving at seat on the SEC Board for a Victorian First Nations director. Self-determination will shape our decisions and how we operate. It will shape our relationships with First Peoples and ensure those relationships are led with First Peoples’ authority, cultural knowledge and rights at the centre.
It will ensure we achieve meaningful outcomes.
By investing in relationships and benefit-sharing, our goal is to create projects that deliver lasting value for First Nations people and their communities, and for all Victorians.
The release of the strategy is a step forward for SEC. We want to be public about our progress to date and our commitments to self-determination, so that our staff, our owners, all Victorians, and especially First Peoples, can hold us to account, give us feedback and help us grow.
I am confident that the commitments and behaviours outlined in the strategy will help move SEC and Victoria’s First Peoples towards self-determined outcomes and realise the opportunities identified by Treaty and truth-telling. But I also know that these are the behaviours and values that will make us a better business overall: one that makes better decisions, forms stronger partnerships, and achieves more sustainable outcomes.
As a government-owned, for-profit company, we have a responsibility to lead not only through what we deliver but also through how we deliver it.
We are proud to be taking a different path – a path shaped by First Peoples, where their voices, values and aspirations are central to shaping their energy future.
Chris Miller, CEO, SEC
