Years ago, African farmers found that the West’s obsession with ‘Net Zero’ came at a high price for them. Farmers were driven off their land, often violently, as huge conglomerates snatched up vast swathes of farmland with all the greed of a 19th century Imperialist. Food crops were turned over to ‘biofuel’ plantations. In Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, too, land that could have fed hundreds of millions of people was used to grow crops to produce ethanol for the cars of green zealots in California and Europe.
Australian farming communities, too, are fast finding that promises of a ‘renewables revolution’ ring very hollow indeed.
NSW farmer James Petersen has had many low points in his dealings with the transmission giant pushing high-voltage powerlines through his property.
The shonky fencing bisecting his sheep paddocks, the dead ewes, the disruption to his work, the hours lost to endless phone calls sorting out misunderstandings between contractors, subcontractors and sub-subcontractors … he didn’t think things could get much worse. Then one day Petersen, 34, arrived home to find police at his door. This was a new low.
The police, it turned out, were there to investigate allegations against Petersen of criminal trespass – on his own farm.
This complaint relating to the transmission easement on his property came to nothing but, like the security guards who turned up another day, it felt heavy-handed and, yes, intimidating for a young farmer with crops to harvest and livestock to grow.
“I think the intent of that call to police was to try to scare James,’’ his lawyer Lochie Gittoes says. “Everyone’s aware that he owns the land and can’t trespass on it.’’
He’s far from the only one to feel the heavy hand of the ‘renewables’ land-grabbers who can make 19th-century American railroad companies look like angels of corporate government by comparison.
Further west, farmers Richard and Sally Carn look up at the line of newly completed towers – the closest about 400 metres from their home – that stretch to the horizon like an advancing army of steel giants. Like Petersen, they pour their lives into their farm and they’re still scarred by this unwelcome intrusion […]
Locals tell of a teenage son of a farmer being threatened by a contractor trying to get on to the property, of biosecurity plans being ignored and agreements flouted.
Anthony Cummins has four half-constructed towers on his property and describes it as a “cowboy show where nobody is answerable”. He’s had hundreds of sheep escape onto the road, cows and calves accidentally separated in a revolving circus of open gates and has caught contractors driving around his property, well off the easement. He’s sick of picking up plastic bags that pose a hazard to his cattle and wonders where those damned new weeds came from.
“They locked me off my own property another time, locked my gate with a different lock,’’ he says in disbelief.
You better believe it, son. There’s trillions of taxpayer’s money for the taking and the ‘renewables’ cronies are grabbing with both hands.
This is one small part of the $2.3bn Project EnergyConnect, Australia’s largest transmission project involving a new 900km high-voltage line running from Robertstown in South Australia’s mid north to Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina, with a connection to Red Cliffs in Victoria.
It is the most advanced project in the mammoth endeavour to build 10,000km of new poles and wires to connect the flood of solar and wind generation to the grid.
Many farmers were bedazzled by promises of essentially free money: ‘renewables’ corporates and their left-media lickspittles constantly spruik wide-eyed propaganda about sheep and cows grazing contentedly in the shade of ‘environmentally friendly’ solar panels. The reality is turning out to be very shady indeed: police and armed private security goons showing up at community meetings. Big Renewable also has its hand deep in government back pockets.
After four years of struggle, some farmers along the proposed transmission routes have moved beyond notions of engagement and trust. They’ve tried legal challenges. They’ve appealed to politicians. They’ve been shut-out of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after the state government closed third-party appeals against renewables projects.
So now some have vowed to take the battle to their locked farm gates if necessary.
A map of the proposed VNI West route has been updated by the community to denote the landholders opposing it – the document now features an angry red scar of resistance. Farmer and VNI opponent Glenden Watts explains: “These are the landholders who have signed a declaration to not host or be involved in any renewable generation.”
Well, too bad – because what Big Renewable wants, it clearly gets.
Further south in Myrniong, farmer Nathan Lidgett says landholders are also refusing access to AusNet contractors scoping out the Western Renewables Link, the proposed 190km line from Sydenham in Melbourne’s northwest […]
Lidgett released a video in August of AusNet workers wearing body cameras cutting the padlock on a neighbour’s property to gain access without permission […]
Lidgett also posted photographs of security guards stationed on his nature strip as contractors undertook survey work about 400m up the road. “Is this what the transition to renewable energy means to regional Australia?” he wrote. “Corporate responsibility and social licence disappear, replaced by standover tactics and intimidation.”
You act surprised? Maybe you should have talked to farmers in Africa.
