General News
1 July, 2025
Farmers face hefty fines but will fight on
From Wycheproof to Woomelang, Birchip to Boort, agricultural communities are united in their resolve to fight on to save their farms from energy companies; however, they will no longer be able to lock their gates without copping a hefty fine.
Hundreds of landowners on the VNI-West Transmission Line planned route across farming land throughout Victoria have vowed to lock their gates and refuse entry to Vic Grid personnel, but that option will have consequences.
Legislation before parliament will propose that representatives from VicGrid will be accompanied by Victoria Police Officers when attempting to access private property against the wishes of landowners and will be able to use 'Reasonable Force' to gain entry.
Landowners will be fined up to $12,000 for obstructing entry and can also be fined an additional $4,000 if they refuse to provide their name if this proposed legislation is successful.
However, the threat of fines has done little to dampen the determination of the growing number of landowners who have vowed to continue their fight.
Vic Grid is the Victorian Government Agency responsible for planning and developing the new infrastructure that will transport energy generated by renewables to the electricity grid, replacing coal-fired power stations.
This, among other concerns, were high on the minds of the more than 200 landowners, families and members of neighbouring communities who gathered at the Buloke Shire Council offices on Friday, June 20, hoping to hear from Vic Grid representatives attending a meeting with invited representatives from Buloke, Loddon, Gannawarra, Northern Grampians and Yarriambiack Shires.
However, the Vic Grid team did not show but arranged an online meeting with councillors behind locked doors instead.
Organiser Ben Duxson told the gathering that VicGrid was advised not to attend as the farmers could become disorderly.
Buloke Shire Mayor Alan Getley said the council was bound by law to heed the police in the case of them attending private properties if the proposed legislation.was approved.
He said the additional police at the event were for the safety of everyone there, especially as the event was held on the edge of a busy highway.
Gannawarra Shire Mayor, Garner Smith, said he accepted the invitation to attend, to hear what TCV had to say, but assured the gathering he would not be doing deals behind closed doors.
He said he made it clear to VicGrid that future meetings would be following the conditions set by the councils involved.
Both mayors reiterated that their councils had voted against the VNI-West in its current format.
Speakers Ben Duxson, Andrew Weidermann, and Ross Johns all delivered a similar message: be united in preventing the use of prime agricultural land for renewables.
Mr Duxson said he believed the agricultural community's united front was having an effect, and they should continue to stand together against corporations taking over farmland.
Wimmera Mallee Environmental and Agricultural Protection Association Inc., (WMEAP) President Ross Johns borrowed from Sir Winston Churchill's speech when he famously declared, 'We shall fight them on the beaches.....' delivered in June 1940 in the House of Commons.
Mr Johns received loud applause for his adaptation of the Churchill speech.
"We will fight them.
"We will fight them on the highways, on the freeways, on the country roads, and on the farm land.
"We will fight them and we will never surrender, if we stand together.
"Individually, we can be picked off.
"But nothing can beat a bunch of good, practical country people, and that's what we are.
"So stand together for the right reason and the right outcome for everyone - for Australia," he said.
Mr Johns outlined why the agricultural industry is important.to Australia.
"There are 8.2 billion people on the planet with an expected 10 billion by 2061, which makes agriculture important for humanity.
"Agriculture is 14 percent of Australia's export, and while Victoria is just 1.5 percent of Australia's land mass, it produces 25% of the agricultural export," he said.
He described the VNI-West as a ridiculous plan by the state government.
"It will obliterate agricultural land, much of which will never be used again for agriculture," he said.
The Wycheproof meeting was one of many being organised throughout the region by landowners and energy companies.
While the Friday meeting was primarily about the VNI-West, wind farms, turbines, solar farms, and mining were also on the minds of those being affected, either directly or indirectly.
A recent meeting in Woomelang attracted hundreds of farmers, trucks, tractors, and members of the public protesting the organisers, Cubico Sustainable Investments Curyo Wind Farm, and a meeting in Birchip attracted 300 people to hear from the legal profession about their right to protect their land, a farmer with a mine on his property, and others who have blocked what they call the invasion of energy companies on farmland, by locking their gates.