RSVP awaited on Premier’s visit

SATURDAY in country communities across the Loddon are spent participating as a player or enthusiastic supporter in sport and then relaxing with family and friends after the game,

But for the State Government and Australian Energy Market Operator, that’s when they chose to drop a landscapechanging report and issue a ministerial order to fast-track process and decisions.

This newspaper believes the timing was appalling, the engagement with our local communities even worse and still we are waiting to be told the benefits for our part of the state when a spider web of transmission lines is strung across valuable farmland.

No fanfare of a visit by the Premier accompanied with flashing media cameras to capture the moment a monumental change is announced, unlike the glamour that accompanies big announcements in Melbourne.

We agree with local MP Peter Walsh. Premier Andrews should, must, visit the Loddon Shire to meet the people who will be impacted by the bulldozing attitude of implementing AEMO’s Option 5A. He should see the landscape now, because it will be forever changed once construction starts.

And our communities need to hear just how social licence - defined as when a project has the ongoing approval within the local community and other stakeholders, ongoing approval or broad social acceptance and, most frequently, as ongoing acceptance - will be achieved by the Government.

To not travel 221km to the Loddon from his office in Spring Street before the announcement or at any time in the very near future would only add weight to claims by opponents of the AEMO process that the Loddon has become a dumping ground for bad policy and for the Government, a route of inconsequential resistance.

The Government to date has left the can-carrying to AEMO. But twice in four months, it has been the Government that has set the timetable with the issuing of ministerial orders.

Now the Premier should issue a timetable for his visit to meet our local communities - face-to-face - tell us the benefits and take us on the journey.