General News
26 May, 2026
Wind farm decision sparks backlash: councils warn on energy park impacts
Local government representatives and other groups have been speaking out more strongly after the Victorian planning minister, Sonya Kilkenny, released the recent assessment of the Environment Effects Statement for the Warracknabeal Energy Park.
This decision brings the $5 billion project closer to approval, but it still needs more permissions, including approval from the Commonwealth under national environmental laws, before a final decision is made.
The mayors of Yarriambiack Shire Council and Horsham Rural City Council have openly discussed the effects on their communities.
The Victorian Farmers Federation and the Wimmera Mallee Environmental and Agricultural Protection Association have also responded to the news.
The Wimmera Mallee Environmental and Agricultural Protection Association was especially opposed, accusing the government of acting in bad faith and treating the project approval as a done deal.
The planned 219-turbine wind farm would cover about 26,000 hectares of land – some of the area getting as close as about five kilometres to the town – and YSC issued a four-page statement in response to reinforce “the importance of community voice, fairness, and long-term regional benefit.”
Shires
Yarriambiack Shire Council mayor Andrew McLean said the council was formally advised late on Friday, May 15.
“Council was notified via email at 5.23pm on Friday that the Minister for Planning generally supports the findings and recommendations of the Inquiry,” he said.
“Shortly afterwards, the project proponent released its own statement, followed by a State Government media release the next morning.”
Yarriambiack’s statement covered multiple topics, including rating its advocacy success during the EES process and listing wins, partial wins, mixed outcomes, and unsuccessful outcomes.
There was also a section on ongoing community concerns with the project.
Mr McLean’s main concern was rejecting a “fragmented, project-by-project approach.”
He pointed out that handling this project along with major mineral sands mining developments would put extra pressure on the community.
“This scale of change brings significant challenges,” he said.
“It is vital that cumulative impacts are properly managed, and that there is coordinated planning.”
Horsham Rural City Council mayor Brian Klowss said that even though the project is outside their boundary, it would clearly have a big impact on Horsham if it goes ahead.
“The biggest problem (that) us as a council see with it, (is) there's been no strategic investment around it,” he said.
“Horsham being a service centre – we’re the bigger community, or town ... a lot of things will gravitate back to Horsham, even including workers.
“I think there's a distance (to the project) that they’d like everyone to work in, but unless they're going to set up like temporary accommodation, I think a lot of that's going to end up back in Horsham, and we've got housing shortages as it is ourselves, so we just need some strategic investment around that.”
Roads
Mr Klowss also said road movements for such a large project would need to be considered.
“The other big one is the roads, a lot of the material that goes into these wind turbines are going to come through our municipality,” he said.
“There’s 10s of 1000s of truck movements to do this ... there's no investment around any of the roads, or there's nothing seems to be coming back to the community.”
The transportation of the blades, in particular, will be a significant logistical challenge, with 219 turbines requiring 657 transports from Portland to the site for those components alone.
The Traffic Impact Assessment confirmed they would follow a similar route to the Murra Warra wind farm construction.
For that project, the 80-metre-long components could not safely negotiate the Bunyip Pub corner at Cavendish and had to detour via Coleraine and Harrow, north of which the trip began to involve some single-lane country roads.
But in this case, the blades have been described as “up to 100m”.
The TIA document foreshadows 3384 over-dimensional trips for this project, along with another 103,398 heavy vehicle trips.
Rejecting recommendations
The Yarriambiack Shire Council noted where the planning minister, Sonya Kilkenny, “generally adopted the Inquiry’s recommendations”, but also detailed two important areas where the minister did not – the first being mast marking for aviation safety.
“The Minister did not support mandatory full-height marking of meteorological masts, leaving this to be determined by the proponent in consultation with relevant agencies,” the statement said.
YSC was not alone – the Aerial Application Association of Australia issued a statement saying they were “reeling over the decision”.
They said the inquiry had recommended that the masts be marked in line with the AAAA Best Practice Guideline, which requires the entire tower to be painted to improve visibility, with lights provided for additional visual stimuli.
Speaking at the “Safeskies 2026 – Safety Collaboration 2.0” conference in Canberra, AAAA chief executive, Matthew Harper, called the decision “reckless and unfathomable”.
“Aerial application, which includes firebombing and agricultural work, can safely co-exist around a well-planned and appropriately developed wind farm,” he said.
“Actively removing safety systems is a reckless act which endangers not only pilots but the community they service.
“Flying toward a 200 metre tall, 50cm wide tower with restricted visual markings will mean activities such as firefighting will be curtailed in line with national workplace safety requirements.”
Secondly, YSC noted “the Minister did not require formal approval of the full Environmental Management Framework, instead leaving the implementation of mitigation measures to be resolved through statutory approvals.
Other concerns
YSC also addressed the perceived disparity between corporate gains and local infrastructure needs, such as insisting on financial safeguards (decommissioning bonds) and legislative reform to protect intergenerational farmland.
“The State Government has earmarked our Shire and region to play a critical role in Victoria’s energy transition, and it is only fair that the benefits are realised and reinvested locally in a meaningful and lasting way,” Mr McLean said.
Minyip farmer, Ryan Milgate, will take on the Victorian Farmer’s Federation president’s role on June 2, and said the organisation had a general view the public consultation process for projects seeking to use agricultural land for alternative purposes needed significant improvement – with so much at stake, the step was crucial.
“The whole community engagement part has been really challenging, and I don't think they’ve anywhere near got (it) right yet,” he said.
“(Australian Energy Infrastructure commissioner) Tony Maher’s saying that nationally – he's right in the trenches on this now – and he's realised that the whole engagement process has been terrible.
“You know, if something's not working and you keep forging ahead, it's generally not going to make it any better.
“We understand we've got members that want (to address) either side of the argument here.
“The core thing is the rural communities and the engagement.”
WMEAP president Ross Johns claimed the process was a foregone conclusion and “this project was set for approval from the beginning”
He said he was present for all 19 days of the planning panel inquiry and wasn’t impressed with the understanding of broad-acre agriculture and the environment of the Wimmera Mallee, but was even less happy with the outcome.
“To see that the recommendations from the planning panel haven't been adopted is particularly disappointing,” he said.
With a major concern surrounding noise pollution, he said, “sound is a very easy thing to measure, it's a very easy thing to identify” and the WMEAP had applied for a low noise threshold of 35 decibels at night to be adopted given the “low noise environment” of the area.
“However, the Minister rejected this measure and approved the New Zealand standard of 40dB, which was developed using vastly smaller turbines in a hilly and more humid landscape,” Mr Johns said.
He also echoed the two shires’ concerns about the cumulative impact of this with other projects, calling it “unbelievably huge”.
Mr Milgate said his major concern was how the project ultimately benefits the community once all the factors have been considered, including issues such as social cohesion and the flow-on effect on agricultural activity.
“Whether someone's got a turbine or not is sort of a side issue when you're starting to tear apart these regional communities that rely on everyone, because there's not enough people around as it is,” he said.
He also said the optics of timing of the release of the EES approval so close to a weekend would not help the scepticism of regional communities.
“There's a lot of concern that issues that were raised in the EES process may or may not have been dealt with appropriately,” Mr Milgate said.
“Generally, Friday night or a Saturday, if you get media releases ... you sort of feel like they're trying to hide something or just trying to push it through without maybe the scrutiny it would have got on a Monday morning.”
Both WestWind Energy and the planning minister’s office were contacted for comment.
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