I AM writing in response to the VNI article in the Gannawarra Times on November 12, and wish to contribute my perspective on the proposed project.
Firstly, I do not oppose the transmission line. I am a renewables sceptic who is fully aware that in the current political climate this is the way forward whether we like it or not.
However, you can’t just slap up some solar panels or wind turbines and tap in to the line, the power has to go through the transmission station, and not everyone has the same opportunities for financial diversification to do this as the farmer in the article who is fortunate to be close to a station and can access it.
I purchased my 70-acre property near Murrabit in 2006 and raise calves to on-sell as store cattle, and have a small flock of sheep for wool and meat. Some years I make a profit, others I do not, so I also milk cows off-farm.
My property is essentially a lifestyle block. I relocated a house to my property and strategically positioned it to capitalise on the view from my panoramic glass windows in the living room of a remnant lignum swamp teeming with birds, aquatic creatures and wildlife, and across my back paddock to spectacular sunsets over the Dartagook and Benjeroop forests.
This aesthetics would be one of my property’s biggest assets and unfortunately the preferred easement for the transmission line spans across my back paddock, complete with a pylon, less than 500 metres from my house.
I haven’t been presented with any evidence to support or disprove that this is a safe distance to reside from a transmission line due to its magnetic fields, nor whether there might be any health risks, interruption to sleep patterns or if there will be noise issues.
I also haven’t been presented with any evidence to support or disprove that it won’t have any effect on the stock (although there is talk of including stock exposure to transmission lines in the Livestock Production Assurance process which makes you wonder if they are worried it might), or to the birds, aquatic creatures and wildlife.
Each year I have a pair of swans breed in the swamp, I have had visits from brolgas, resident rakali (water rat) and vulnerable diamond firetail finches, and a recording last month detected 16 species of frogs, including the southern bell frog.
Aesthetics aside, it’s this uncertainty of how the transmission line will impact our day-to-day living that will influence property values and saleability, and that is why some properties will be devalued with the construction of the transmission lines.
The buyer pool will be diminished and only investors who can pick it up cheap, then lease or rent it out to people who can’t afford the luxury of choosing to not live with the unknowns of the lines or neighbours who need cheap workers’ accommodation, will buy it.
I am sure it will decrease the resale value of my property which has my life’s work invested in it and is my children’s inheritance, as would be most farms.
The 25-year annual compensation payment from the government wouldn’t even cover my Goulburn Murray water fixed charges account.
Every situation is different and hopefully we are able to make our own informed decisions and more information is forthcoming from TCV.
Linda Coote,
Murrabit
