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St. Arnaud, Charlton, Wedderburn & Surrounding Districts
Est. 1864
18 Napier Street, St. Arnaud. 3478. - Advertising & Editorial Material - Ph.: (03) 5495 1055; Fax.: (03) 5495 1937. Email: ncn@iinet.net.au Published weekly.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 6th 2024.
Registered by Australia Post, Publication No. VAC 4217.
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Circulating in:- St. Arnaud, Charlton, Donald, Rupanyup, Bealiba, Stawell, Marnoo, Navarre, Dunolly, Wycheproof, Wedderburn, Birchip, Korong Vale, Stuart Mill, Redbank, Avoca & Moonambel.
KAREN Probst the only female candidate for the Kara Kara Ward of the Northern Grampians Shire Council elections, is one of the clear winners in the progressive count of first preference postal votes. Karen is currently (close of count on Friday 1st November, with no other counting being done until Thursday 7th November) with 1,285 first preference votes, a clear winner, polling the highest number of first preferences as yet recorded in these elections within the Northern Grampians Shire. The first preference votes for Kara Kara
Winners and Losers already clear as progressive count in Local Election drags out Ward has Murray Emerson currently leading both Terence Robertson and Ross Hudson with votes of 337, 182 and 171. John Farrell is polling last with 144. There are two Councillor positions available in each of the three wards of the shire.
Other Wards – Central Ward In both the Central and the Grampians Wards the vote is much closer, both with two positions available and although Karen Hyslop (530) in Central Ward and Jack Blake (583) in Grampians Ward are leading, the decision is far from over.
(Incl. GST)
With four sitting Councillors all vying for two positions in the Central Ward, Karen Hyslop, Lauren Dempsey, Kevin Erwin and Rob Haswell it is the later who is trailing significantly and appears to have lost his position. Kevin Erwin is 81 votes (449) behind the leader Karen Hyslop with Lauren Dempsey (440) making this a close race for the second position for Central Ward. Lachlan Eckhert has polled a respectable 362 votes and with the distribution of preferences still to come, it will be anyone’s race, although Rob Haswell (178) appears to have lost. • Cont page 5.
Farming communities rally against new preferred design for VNI West FARMERS have not been happy with the Transmission Company Victoria (TCV)’s 240km Victorian component of the VNI West Transmission project, but with TCV releasing its preferred design for the project, cutting the easement to roughly 70m the farmers now not greatly affected are standing with those that are, as are the residents of most of the towns nearby that the transmission line will pass. The acrimonious process that has been littered with claims of lack of communication from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) and then TCV, has seen the refinement of the 50km wide area to a 2km draft corridor and this preferred easement of 70m. The proposed route is roughly 240 kilometres long and 70 metres wide, running from Bulgana to Tragowel, near Kerang in the state’s north, before crossing into NSW and connecting to the Transgrid network. The 70m preferred easement is subject to regulatory assessment under the Environment Effects Statement (EES). According to TCV it has been 18 months of consultation with communities and individual landholders, along with field studies and technical and engineering assessments but farmers would disagree that there has been any significant consultation with communities. A video accompanying the report said that constraints such as endangered wildlife and vegetation, areas of cultural heritage and agricultural concerns arising from had helped determine the route. TCV claims that feed-
back from landholders and communities was valuable, and this includes TCV’s community reference group, traditional owners. Councils have also influenced the preferred easement avoiding important infrastructure like lateral irrigators and areas of dense or sensitive vegetation. Western Victorian farmers along the proposed route of the overhead transmission line have promised to protest against the project all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary as well as prevent access to their land. The more defined route runs outside of St. Arnaud, west of Charlton, then swings past Kerang and over to Murrabit on the New South Wales border. In August 2023, scores of tractors, utes and trucks rolled in to Melbourne to protest VNI West and the Western Renewables Link, which both meet at a new terminal station in Bulgana in central western Victoria. Under the new finalized easement, Barry Batters from Sutherland will host 4 towers on his land and another 6 on his leased property. Barry has a revitalized hostility towards both AEMO and TCV and the government generally.
“If we are in caretaker mode which by all accounts we are with an election set for May then the government ethically should be prepared to hold a moratorium on this issue. “The Government does not have social licence to proceed with this project,” Barry said. “This proposal is tearing communities apart, with some farmers wanting turbines, because of what they see as the attractive dollars, and others possibly their neighbours raging against having the transmission lines on their property. “But you can’t have one without the other” says Barry. The Chief Executive Officer of AEMO Daniel Westerman admitted last week to the Senate Estimates Committee that there are no guarantees that adopting renewables to replace coal will lead to lower power bills and the comment will stoke already fierce debate about how best to replace ageing coal and reduce emissions. Barry went on to say that when the channels went through, we got water, and when the power went through we got electricity, but this does not give us anything. • Cont page 5.
Above: The map that shows the number of ‘blocks’/farmers (marked as red boxes) that are opposed to the VNI West Interconnector transmission line. This is an interim map as other landholders sign up to the petition. PHOTO: Supplied – Barry Batters.