The Regional Victoria Power Alliance has launched the STOP LABOR’S TOWERS campaign. For over three years we have been voicing our opposition to the dangerous and ill-conceived high voltage transmission project the Western Renewables Link (WRL). We now join communities affected by the proposed VNI West transmission line interconnector between Victoria and NSW.
STOP LABOR’S TOWERS targets the owner and decision maker, the Victorian State Government. We continue our fight against AusNet Services and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).
We stand united to Stop Labor’s Towers and we need your support.
WRL and VNI-West
WRL and VNI-West are inextricably linked and both fall under the full ownership and control of the Victorian Government. The State Government of Victoria must be held to account for is poor planning and execution of this project.
Our communities support renewable energy and understand the importance of an energy grid that delivers renewable energy to where it is needed. However, the delivery of renewable energy must not come at the cost of food security destroying valuable and irreplaceable agricultural land, cause catastrophic damage to the environment nor put lives at risk from severely increased bushfire risk.
The proposed transmission project will carve a 100m wide path of environmental destruction over pristine agricultural and bush land destroying highly productive food bowls and decimating important environmental protection areas.
LATEST NEWS
OPEN LETTER
VICTORIA’S ENERGY MINISTER, LILY D’AMBROSIO
We deserve better renewable energy solutions, now and for future generations, not cheap options that favour quick political wins and corporate profit. We have written an Open Letter to Victoria’s Energy Minister, Lily D’Ambrosio, asking her to take this project back to the drawing board and put the transmission lines underground.
THE PROBLEM
The State Government of Victoria wants to build a 190km high-voltage transmission line connecting Sydenham, in Melbourne’s west to Bulgana, near Ararat. This is the Western Renewables Link (WRL) project.
It then wants to extend the WRL by building an additional 440km high-voltage transmission line connecting Bulgana in Victoria to Dinawan in New South Wales. This is the VNI West Project.
In total, the Government wants to build around 1,600 towers as tall as the MCG light towers.
The project proponents will compulsorily acquire land that has been in the same families’ hands for generations and will decimate regional communities – all so they can build overhead transmission lines that:
- Can cause bushfires
- Make surrounding land unusable
- Destroy native habitat
- Threaten native animals
- Can collapse in storms and high winds
- Significantly impact the landscape amenity.
The State Government must approve the project before work can start. We need your help to Stop Labor’s Towers.
THE IMPACT
If Labor’s towers are approved:
- Bushfire risk will skyrocket. Overhead powerlines were responsible for the worst of the Black Saturday bushfires.
- Native habitat will be destroyed as the powerlines carve a path through the region that boasts Victoria’s treasured National Parks – Werribee Gorge, Wombat State Park, Brisbane Ranges National Park, Lerderderg Gorge and Creswick Regional Park.
- Land and property values will plummet.
- Some of our vital agricultural land – Australia’s foodbowl – will be lost forever.
- The amenity, livability and wellbeing of tens of thousands of people will be destroyed.
THE SOLUTION
The Regional Victoria Power Alliance supports renewable energy and wants green energy generated in Western Victoria connected to the rest of the state.
But overhead transmission lines are unsafe, inefficient and will destroy our precious landscape.
Underground transmission might be more expensive to install, but it’s safer and more efficient. It is proven to be of equal cost over the life of the project.
Despite these facts, communities in Western Victoria have been told there’s no other way – that Labor’s massive towers and giant terminal stations are the only solution.
Stop Labor’s Towers is demanding that the State and Federal Governments
- Commit to full, genuine consultation
- Conduct an independent review of the alternatives and their costs and benefits
- Commit to better, safer, smarter technology
- Deliver the project in a way that minimises the impact on our communities.
