Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister Assisting for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday night, more than 150 people gathered at a community forum I convened in the northern Barossa about the proposed ElectraNet Northern Transmission Project, known as NTx, and the message from that meeting was crystal clear. Regional communities feel blindsided. They feel intimidated. They're unsure. They feel like they're being railroaded, and they're deeply concerned about what this project means for productive farming land, family businesses and regional communities.

Many people are only now discovering the scale and scope of what's proposed: massive transmission towers across productive agricultural land in the vicinity of homes, facilitating industrial-scale wind and solar developments being rolled out across regional South Australia. Now Australians are asked to pay twice: first through billions of dollars in subsidies to prop up these renewable projects, and then again through the supply charge on their electricity bills—a charge that covers, amongst other things, poles and wires. This is the same infrastructure, by the way, that's required to bring coal fired energy to South Australia to stabilise the grid. Go figure! We heard from farmers facing scenarios including 30 or more transmission towers on their properties. These aren't empty paddocks; they're family farms. They were built over generations through hard work, sacrifice and stewardship of the land. Regional Australians are entitled to ask a simple question: why, oh why, are country communities always expected to carry the burden?

One of the strongest concerns raised with me was the lack of proper community consultation. We heard repeated claims that ElectraNet is only consulting directly with landholders whose properties fall inside the proposed corridors. What about the homeowner who lives across the road? What about the neighbours, the visual impacts, the construction disruption, the biosecurity risks? They matter too. Consultation shouldn't be about pitting one farmer against another, property by property, or one region against another. If ElectraNet genuinely believe in transparency, they should have no hesitation about open public forums along corridor 5. At the conclusion of Friday's meeting, there were two resolutions. One was to call on ElectraNet to have those open consultations in community. The other was for the establishment of a working party.

Now, regional communities must stand together, and regional Australians must continue to make their voices heard—respectfully and constructively, but firmly—because, if regional Australians don't stand up for themselves, no-one else will. I don't know about you, but I'll stand up for regional Australians, because regional Australia is worth fighting for—just like I'll stand up for Australia, because Australia is worth fighting for, too.

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