Prime minister Anthony Albanese responds to Bush Summit protesters

Mr Albanese was the keynote speaker at the Bush Summit event held in Tamworth on Friday, August 11, where protesters against the development of transmission lines, solar farms and wind farms gathered.

The prime minister said he had a "constructive discussion" with three representatives against renewable project developments that morning.

"What they wanted was to make sure there was proper consultation, that every factor was taken into account, including ensuring that prime agricultural land was not adversely affected," he said.

"Clearly the energy companies need to do better when it comes to that engagement and consultation".

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New England MP Barnaby Joyce led the protest at the Bush Summit, and was a last minute addition to a panel discussion on the opportunities and impacts of the energy transition in the regions.

During the panel, he said the problem with renewables developments is that people's rights are "being absolutely smashed", because of the location of the projects on or close to prime land.

"And politically, that means death for any government," he said.

"We didn't ask for transmission lines all over our land. We didn't ask to have solar factories all around us. These are being imposed on us."

My Joyce has been pushing for Australia to take up nuclear energy, calling it the "default" source of the future.

Chief executive of the Australian Energy Council Sarah McNamara said as well as the moratorium on nuclear projects, it's "hard to see" nuclear being commercially viable.

"But our real problem in Australia is that we have no existing nuclear industry," she said.

"And it will take at least a decade to develop the really intense regulatory protections you would need in place."

She said "there's no silver bullet solutions".

"We're going to need a mix of technologies as we're transforming our energy system, and critical to that, we'll be working with communities to make sure they are comfortable supporting these projects in their local areas," she said.

Santos head of climate, sustainability and ESG strategy James Murphy said the gas giant's position is to let the market work.

"If you start picking winners and you get the wrong one, then Australians are the losers," he said.

Transgrid delivery executive general manager Craig Stallan said the company "definitely do" move transmission lines relative to community feedback, and provided the HumeLink as an example.

"I think the thing people will misunderstand is that it takes time to get some of these decisions made," he said.

Australia is "blessed" with renewable energies, he said, and the country needs more transmission infrastructure to become an energy superpower.

"We've been talking about some of the downsides, but there's also a whole bunch of upsides when we put a transmission system in place," he said.

Ms McNamara said project developers need to be prepared to be flexible about the scope of their projects.

"Because once we lose a community's social licence, we're going to lose our ability to deliver on this energy transition and get to net zero by 2050," she said.

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