Northern Grampians Shire Council, Media Release, 30 May 2023

Northern Grampians Shire Council is appalled that widespread community opposition has had no material impact on Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) final recommended alignment for the controversial VNI West power transmission project.

Now branded as Option 5a, the final proposal for the 500 kilovolt (kV) overhead transmission lines are to commence from a new terminal station at Bulgana, traversing a 70-100 metre wide easement over prime farmland before exiting the shire north-west of St Arnaud.

Mayor, Cr Kevin Erwin, said he was astonished at the brazen disregard for community views following the publication over the weekend of the preferred corridor for the project.

“This community have spoken up often and spoken up loudly since the proposal was first announced in February,” Cr Erwin said.

“AEMO’s own report notes that 53% of the total individual submissions received were from farming communities within
the Northern Grampians Shire.

“Of those submissions, the majority are outright opposed to the project on the basis it will have an irreversible and detrimental impact on their homes and businesses and this cost will be generational.

“In the absence of any answers to landowners’ concerns about how transmission will impact the normal operation of farm
enterprises, this is the only logical position they could reach.

“We have continued to put to AEMO via our formal submission and in a series of online forums council initiated, the legitimate concerns of landowners about permitted farming on the easement, biosecurity, emergency management and compensation.

“Landowners need clear and concise answers to the questions they have asked and not simply to refer them to some other arrangement as a reference to how it might work here.

“We have repeatedly implored AEMO to treat the community with respect. If people are being asked to host nation building infrastructure, they need to be acknowledged for what they are being asked to forfeit to make this possible.

“This report and the accompanying government order continues with accelerating the infrastructure, with the community asked to respect the process when no respect has been shown or trust established.

“The first time we saw any contrition from AEMO about the process followed the bungled publishing of information about
their final recommendation on Thursday evening.

“The planners involved seem more concerned with their jobs than the toll the decisions they make have on other people’s
lives.

“Council continues to strongly support our farming community recognising the lack of meaning and deliberative engagement with the communities asked to live with it and host it in their backyards.”