Infrastructure

Melbourne’s Spring Street had a break from monotony as cars and buses were replaced with tractors, trucks and utes with banners as hundreds protested the planned Victoria-NSW Interconnector West project. An estimated 45 tractors, 10 prime movers and about 20 utilities brought commuters to a standstill as part of a ‘Stop the Towers’ rally...

Gowrie residents are concerned about the proposed North-South road corridor that will "split Gowrie in two" to provide easy transport from Highfields and Westbrook to Charlton. The atmosphere at last Thursday’s consultation meeting was tense.

Farmers have rolled into Melbourne on tractors, prime movers and utes, urging Labor to rethink its plans to destroy prime agricultural land throughout Victoria ... our food and fibre production is at risk, with thousands of kilometres of prime land set to be ripped up and replaced for wind turbines, towers and transmission lines.

New state-of-the-art technology will be unveiled, helping first responders overcome dangerous communications black spots to keep them better connected during emergencies. Mobile Wi-Fi equipment has now been installed in over 1,300 Fire and Rescue NSW and NSW State Emergency Service (SES) vehicles, which will ensure 4G or satellite communication access during incident responses.

Powick’s Pantry’s potentially winning spicy tomato relish is languishing in a mail sorting facility in Sydney instead of being delivered to the Sydney Food Show for judging ... it has still not been delivered and is apparently sitting in the mail centre a week after it was posted.

The Rookwood Weir project is helping fish species move safely and more freely in the Lower Fitzroy River system. As part of the project’s environmental offset strategy, a $7 million fishway is to be added to the Fitzroy Barrage, located at Rockhampton, downstream of the weir.

According to the most recent national inventory conducted in 2021, Australia has 13,287 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste, which by volume is more than five standard Olympic swimming pools ... The site of Australia’s only nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights can safely store waste on site for some time, but we must ensure this waste has an appropriate disposal pathway.  

The final stage of Carisbrook Levee project was completed in June 2023 and Council is now working with our funding partners to confirm a date for an official opening ... This project has delivered a significant piece of infrastructure which will mitigate flooding for the township of Carisbrook.

Victorian farmers will descend on Parliament House in Melbourne next Tuesday 15 August for the ‘Stop the Towers’ rally, in response to the proposed VNI West and Western Renewables Link transmission projects.

The Australian Energy Regulator (AER) has extended the timeframe for making a decision on the  dispute raised by Moorabool and Central Highlands Power Alliance Inc. (MCHPA) in relation to AEMO Victoria Planning (AVP) and TransGrid’s Joint Victoria NSW Interconnector West (VNI-West) regulatory investment test for transmission (RIT-T).

On Tuesday, August 15, the Regional Victoria Power Alliance of farmers, their rural, regional, and suburban neighbours, retail and tourism business owners, and many other community members will be holding their "Stop the Towers" Rally in Melbourne, on the steps of Parliament and in Spring Street itself ... "Stop the Towers" spokesperson Glenden Watts, "the naked farmer" from Yeungroon, says that he and everyone else in the western and northwestern regions only learnt earlier this year that they were in an "area of interest" for VNI West.

Kyogle Council recently completed the construction of four new bridges – Tierneys Bridge on Duck Creek Rd, Comerfords No 1 on Roseberry Creek Rd, Tims Lane bridge and Old Cob O’ Corn Road bridge ... Next to be completed are new bridges on Williams Rd, Boorabee Creek Rd and Trentys Lane.

Optus has improved their coverage and increased network capacity in Brooms Head in Northern New South Wales, by switching on a new tower in the region to help residents, businesses, and tourists stay connected and give them a choice of network provider ... ARR.News asked a few further questions of Optus about the Brooms Head tower.

NSW Farmers Energy Transition spokesman Reg Kidd says upgrading existing powerlines would short-circuit community pain over transmission projects. A proposal from the Victoria Energy Policy Centre to use existing powerline easements to house 80-metre-high pylons and high voltage powerlines was worth investigating for NSW as well, Mr Kidd said.

"A damning new report has laid bare the cost blowout and waste of the Western Victoria energy transmission project, threatening prime Mallee farmland," Member for Mallee, Anne Webster says. The Victoria Energy Policy Centre’s (VEPC) "No Longer Lost In Transmission" report highlights the VNI West) costs are understated by the AEMO and already reliant on outdated data.

The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) has launched a petition to the Victorian Parliament calling for the VNI West and Western Renewables Link transmission projects to be stopped. VFF President Emma Germano said the petition seeks to make the state’s political leaders take notice of decisions that are impacting Victorian farmers and their communities.

An important milestone has been reached by Snowy Hydro, the Snowy 2.0 project and for one of its three tunnel boring machines (TBM). TBM Lady Eileen Hudson was the first machine to start tunnelling on the pumped-hydro mega project, the first to complete a tunnel and is now underway on her second tunnel excavation.

Community members gathered ... to share information and discuss what they believe is an unsatisfactory time frame to provide feedback on the 500kV VNI West power line development ... it was the consensus of the meeting that community members were still in a process of discovery and lamented that the power companies probably had 18 months to put together their Draft Corridor Reports, and still missed basic information, such as areas of extensive flooding.  

A meeting held at Westbrook on Monday night provided some clarity on the Department of Transport and Main Road’s (TMR) proposed Toowoomba North South Transport Corridor, however some details still remain a mystery. The meeting was organised by concerned community members in conjunction with Member for Condamine Pat Weir.