Speaking truth to power

By Lachlan Ellis

A parade of trucks, tractors and hundreds of protesters gathered on the steps of State Parliament in Melbourne last Tuesday, raising awareness of their fight against overhead powerlines.

The ‘Stop the Towers’ rally mirrored a Spring Street rally in March 2022, but this one was bigger and better, with around 400 attendees and more than 40 tractors doing laps of the street.

Organised by the Regional Victoria Power Alliance, the rally consisted of not just farmers, but also members of communities on the outskirts of Melbourne, who will also be affected by the proposed Western Renewables Link (WRL) and VNI West projects.

Stop the Towers spokesperson Glenden Watts was the MC on the day with the rally featuring a series of speakers including Nationals leader David Littleproud, and Victorian Farmers Federation President Emma Germano.

Also in attendance were firefighters concerned at the risk the overhead powerlines could pose to them and their communities.

Mr Watts said the projects would create irreversible damage if they weren’t taken back to the drawing board.

“The Victorian Government proposes to push these lines through our countryside in 100m wide cleared easements that will carve up privately owned, highly productive farmland and environmentally significant landscapes, as well as impact native habitat. The construction of the towers will take up to two years, taking large areas of land out of production,” Mr Watts said.

“And then the easements will belong to the company who builds the lines and towers, and they will control what can be done within them. All of this, and more, will have serious consequences for present and future generations. The Victorian Government must Stop the Towers – save our environment, communities, and farms and find a better solution to transmit electricity and support the transition to renewable energy.”

Emma Muir is Chair of the Moorabool and Central Highlands Power Alliance (MCHPA), one of the groups which formed the Regional Victoria Power Alliance, and said it was fantastic to see so much support and publicity for the event.

“It was a great success, we had over 45 tractors plus a couple of prime movers there, it was pretty impressive. The VNI West crew were well represented from St Arnaud to Charlton, Boort, Kerang…I actually had a lady from Cairns come and talk to me, and a gentleman from Wagga too,” Ms Muir told the Moorabool News.

“We’re getting a really good understanding of what these projects will do to our environment, our safety, and our livelihoods. And the message is loud and clear, you’re not bulldozing through regional Victoria.”

Combined, the WRL and VNI West projects will run for over 400 kilometres, with over 800 steel towers up to 80 metres high, running along a dog leg route from the edge of Melbourne near Ararat, turning northwards to Kerang and beyond into New South Wales.

Beyond the awareness raised from people physically seeing the rally, the event also received media coverage from all three major commercial TV channels and the ABC.

The transmission lines are proposed to transverse through over 70-kilometres of the Moorabool Shire.