Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like the member for Gorton—and it is good to see in this place a minister caring about his community—I know that love of a geographic area. I grew up near Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, with Yallock Creek and its surrounds as my playground. I know of that love, when you have tilled the soil and worked the fields as a teenager and when you have run your business in your community, with your lifestyle tied to the total amenity of your family and all the surrounds of that geographic area of Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp. Now all the way across that area the Victorian Labor government is going to put some powerlines, right across the beautiful amenity of the area. At this time I hold in my hand a press release from that same government lauding itself for undergrounding powerlines in urban areas. Consider the contradiction and the hypocrisy of the document that I hold in my right hand. It talks about the work that it is doing to improve the amenity of the area whilst at the same time it is going to build a coast-destroying desalination plant on the coast at Wonthaggi, in my electorate. Worse than that, it is going to cruel the amenity of so many lovers of West Gippsland, people who have run their farms, built their businesses and invested in that area for the future of themselves and their children. It is going to run these abhorrent powerlines right across Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, to go from Wonthaggi all the way to Tynong.

Why do I care so much? It is because I have been around this country by road and, while I have seen the beauty of what is New England, the beauty of what is Queensland and the beauty of what is central New South Wales, I have still come back to the beauty of the area that I grew up in, an area for which anyone would have a natural and immediate love. So when you see something like this happening to it, you know that you are not going to be handing that beauty on to the next generation. As for powerlines in particular, I have to tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have powerlines running right through my property. They were there when I bought the property and they are still there today. They are the main powerlines from the Latrobe Valley to Melbourne—but that does not mean that we go ahead and do not underground.

The Rudd Labor government committed to this desalination plant during the election campaign. All I am asking for is this: if, as a government, you have committed to something, you have to have regard for the amenity of the area and the individuals affected. That is a responsibility of government; it is a responsibility of individual members as well. That protection has to come in now, and the government should be undergrounding those power lines if they want this project to go ahead. It will double the price, but isn’t it worth it for the amenity of those people affected?