Wednesday, 9 March 2022

Western Victoria Transmission Network Project

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (18:09): (1806) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Agriculture and concerns the impacts of the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project on farming and agriculture. Yesterday the country came to the city. It stood on the steps of this place, and it pleaded to be heard. Under the astute and valiant baton of Stephen Curry, the cries of ‘Lily’ rose above the screech of the trams on the tracks and the toots of the car horns sounding their support for the gathered crowd. In buses, in tractors, in utes, in fire trucks, in semitrailers and on horses they headed down the Western Freeway to make their very simple case: that this awful transmission line must go back to the drawing board.

While the Victorian Premier today, in his true form, pointed to others as the scapegoat, the crowd on the steps of Parliament yesterday were very right to point that responsibility straight back to the Premier. They know, as the Premier knows, that his Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change, Lily D’Ambrosio, can stop this project tomorrow, and I have no doubt she would if the Minister for Agriculture bothered to get involved. The farmers in Melbourne yesterday spoke about the mental pain this deplorable project is causing thousands of farmers. Their livelihoods are in doubt. The value of their landholdings will plummet. Even yesterday, potato farmer Chris Stephens spoke about the $1.3 billion potato industry that is now in doubt in the Ballarat area due to this transmission project. McCain Foods has publicly stated that the overhead transmission line directly threatens the loss of its production facility in Ballarat, with more than $250 million in economic impact and more than 1100 jobs to go.

This is possibly Victoria’s greatest food bowl, and the Victorian government is about to destroy it. It is hard to believe, but everything is possible with this government. How can a Minister for Agriculture sit by and watch fellow ministers continue to treat farmers so badly and devastate one of this state’s greatest agricultural assets? Farmers are desperate, and yet their minister in this place appears entirely unconcerned that the agriculture sector is not an active participant in the technical reference group assessing this project. My question for the minister is: when will she step up for farmers and start representing their rights and livelihoods in this process, at the very least demanding a consistent seat on the technical reference group? Will the minister commit also to meeting farmers along the length of this transmission line from Sydenham to Bulgana?