Once upon a time, not that long ago, in places not that far away, the Australian Energy Market Operator, AEMO, thought it could devise a “renewable” energy and transmission scheme to outsmart the locals.  

The plan was conceived in two parts. 

Firstly, a 190km transmission line between Sydenham, to the east, and Bulgana near Stawell, to the west. It would traverse some of the state’s most productive farmland with towers as tall as 80 metres and easements 100 metres wide. Its intent was to connect renewable energy projects to the grid. 

Secondly, a transmission line that would then take that energy to New South Wales, and vice versa. The line would travel from Bulgana to Jerilderie in NSW. It was called the VNI-West, Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector. 

That project would also trample on landowners’ and farmers’ rights in Western Victoria. 

Locals along the lines have fought against the plans because they destroy livelihoods by stopping or severely diminishing farming capacities, reducing land, home and amenity values and vastly increase the insurance cost and liability (if insurance is obtainable), as well as fire risk given firefighters can’t fight fires near the wires. 

The proposed compensation for such impositions has been considered laughable to landowners and cruel to those neighbouring properties who will similarly have their land values, lifestyle and amenity destroyed but without access to compensation. To say nothing of the fact that food security could be a major casualty.  

For two days, Member for Western Victoria, Bev McArthur, and the Shadow Minister for Energy David Hodgett, have met with interest groups along the proposed routes of the transmission lines. 

They have gone to farms at Newlyn, Kingston and Myrniong all impacted by the WRL – and farms at St. Arnaud and Marnoo impacted by the VNI-West.  

They have visited the communities of Melton and Darley and heard about the impacts on urban and suburban communities, aerodromes, birdlife, the equine industry, sporting clubs, bio-links and the implications of high voltage lines crossing reservoirs and State forests. 

Mrs McArthur said Premier Daniel Andrews, along with the transmission industry, don’t understand what they’re doing to Victorians outside the tram tracks of Melbourne. 

“In their refusal to deal with Victorians honestly, stubbornly refuse to conceive better ways of delivering vital infrastructure and in their denial of basic human and property rights; this Government has made regional and country Victorians pawns in a political game aimed purely at inner-city Green votes,” Mrs McArthur said. 

“For three years, locals have fought a ‘David and Goliath’ battle, based on opaque data, no answers or non-answers to simple questions and rules that change on a dime to suit the government. 

“But this is not a fairy tale – some kind of make-believe nonsense. 

“This is a story that has been going for too long. It is a story of cruelty to country people, the quashing of rights and of untold stress. 

“While the government aims to divide and conquer communities – the real story is the glue-like unity that continues to emerge between the landowners and their communities,” Mrs McArthur said. 

“I have witnessed this again over the past two days. 

“They have had to become Collins Street lawyers, political activists and lobbyists, resident experts of hugely complicated engineering and electrical complexity while trying to earn a living, grow food and care for and protect their families. It is totally unfair.” 

Now that the VNI-West route has been more precisely determined, it has galvanized the communities into a larger and increasingly homogenous group. 

“These groups have come to realise that they are all in this together,” Mrs McArthur said. 

“This coincides with the realisation that the WRL and VNI are just part of AEMO’s gridding the nation plan stretching from Hobart to Townsville. 

“But Victorians along the WRL and VNI-West now understand that there is a Plan B – that the VNI is not required to service the nation. Victoria can simply build a transmission grid that is self-reliant.” 

Mrs McArthur said the physical and mental toll being felt by country and regional Victorians is traumatic and disgraceful. Governments are meant to serve the people not continually abuse them.  

“The Premier and his city-centric government have no comprehension of that.  

“It’s because they are only interested in self-indulgent Green-Woke voters in Melbourne, blind to how dirty and environmentally destructive this project really is. 

“Put these huge towers and wires over their heads along the swanky streets of Melbourne and see how good they feel about ‘green-energy’ given the towers will reduce their property values, their amenity, their fire safety and their ability to make an income. 

“For too long, politicians have perpetrated a grand deception: that clean, green energy generation is possible without any environmental price to pay.  

“Yet the inescapable reality is, as these communities will testify, that new infrastructure required to connect disparate and remote renewable projects to the grid is hugely environmentally damaging.”  

“What this two-day tour has made clear is that Plan B will provide energy security at a cheaper price, with greater resilience. 

“AEMO’s national grid dream is a nightmare for country Victoria. 

“This three-year battle of country survival versus city self-indulgence must end. 

“The mask has fallen on the fairytale of shiny green energy supply while delivery is via hugely destructive brown transmission.  

“It makes zero-sense. If we need to deliver increased energy supply, it must be done with minimum impact and in the most technologically advanced method.   

“Regional and country Victorians can see that this emperor project is wearing no clothes,” Mrs McArthur said. 

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 29 August 2023.