VNI West rally to Victorian Parliament - The Courier - August 15, 2023
Western Victorian farmers rally to Victorian Parliament over plans for the VNI West transmission lines. Video by Gabrielle Hodson.
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00:00 [Sounds of traffic]
00:29 Okay, so these power lines are going to cut a swath through prime agricultural land in the Central Highlands, Food Bowl.
00:36 They're also going to add to the fire risk in Victoria, but they're also going to destroy natural habitats and ecosystems.
00:46 If we have to have them, what would be the perfect solution?
00:49 The perfect solution would be for the whole thing to go back to the drawing board and to look at Plan B or underground
00:55 or alternatives that don't have the impact that this particular project is going to have.
01:00 [Sounds of tractor]
01:04 Now we've got an awful lot of tractors here today.
01:07 Yes.
01:08 Going to State Parliament. It's not even 7.30, it's minus one. How do you feel about this?
01:14 Excited. It's like the people are speaking. No, it's very exciting.
01:19 It's like the Hunger Games, all the districts are aligning together to go against the capital, which is, I guess, Labor government.
01:26 So no, it's very moving that everybody comes together. It's great to see, as you can see everywhere.
01:32 [Sounds of tractor]
01:56 How strong is the emotion about this?
01:58 It seems pretty crazy, yeah. I'm pretty new to it all, but everyone seems to be pretty emotional about it, yeah.
02:06 [Sounds of tractor]
02:17 We've got to get ready and go down to see Dan, because Dan won't come up and talk to us about the damage he's doing to our country and our environment.
02:24 So we've got to take the story to him.
02:26 Any answers or anything like that, if you're broke down or something like that, well, let us know.
02:30 We'll look and save lives again.
02:32 [Sounds of tractor]
02:36 Well, obviously it's not needed. You know, you can't eat power.
02:42 We are cereal farmers, we're also sheep farmers as well, and we want to make sure that we're continuing that on for our future generations who are growing up in the land with us at the moment.
02:52 So it's all about them.
02:53 I can certainly just ask the people of Melbourne to think about the fact that their food bowl is in country Victoria, and if that's destroyed, they do lose that plain grain food that's got low food kilometres.
03:07 [Sounds of tractor]
03:36 [HONK HONK]
03:38 [BLANK_AUDIO]