Farmers offered $460,000/km in latest VNI West deal

Transmission Company Victoria is desperate to sign up farmers to VNI West easement deals, offering landholders huge easement dollars. See the details.

Proponents of Victoria’s two biggest new transmission lines have cranked up landholder and neighbour payments in a desperate bid to win over rural communities.

A slowdown in the rollout of Victoria’s 500kV VNI West transmission line, has prompted its proponent to offer landholders an extra $460,000 to sign easement deals.

Transmission Company Victoria is already offering up to $50,000 in sign-on bonuses, which comes on top of an annual state government contribution of $8000 per kilometre of the line built across landholders properties for the next 25 years.

A TCV spokesman said it had “not yet signed option for easement agreements”, with the process “just getting underway”.

Most landholders says they would block TCV gaining access to their properties, prompting the government to draft legislation imposing penalties of up $12,210 for anyone landholder who tries to block transmission

The Weekly Times understands the government and TCV are desperate to avoid seeing footage of farmers being arrested on the evening news and has come up with a plan to boost landholder payments.

Sutherland farmer Barry Batters, who has about 4kms of the proposed VNI West line crossing his property, said landholders were “willing to be arrested” in their bid to stop TCV accessing their land.

Such resistance has pushed TCV into upping compensation, recently briefing the VNI West Community Reference Group on a new “$46,000 per hectare landholder benefit payment”, which it developed in response to feedback that “compensation alone was not a benefit”.

The payment equates to $460,000/km on a 100m-wide transmission easement traversing a farm and comes on top of the government’s $200,000 over 25 years, plus statutory payments made under the Land Acquisition and Compensation Act.

Of the $46,000/ha, 20 per cent is paid upfront when the establishment and access deed are signed, then another 20 per cent when the option for easement is signed.

However TCV has failed to brief farmers on the tax treatment of the payments, which if defined as off-farm income could be taxed at 45 cents in the dollar.

Farmers are still sceptical as to how successful the new payment will be in getting landholders to sign up to easement agreements.

Dooboobetic grain grower and harvest contractor James Burke, who faces 9km of the proposed VNI West line being built across the family’s 3600ha property, said the additional $46,000/ha payment would make “zero difference” to those opposing the project.

“I don’t believe people understand what it’s going to do,” Mr Burke said. “We can’t operate the latest John Deere harvesters under it, and they’re getting bigger every year.”

“It’ll ruin some of the best dirt in Victoria - the Gooroc Plain.”

The slowdown has forced TCV to extend the VNI West completion date from 2028 to 2030 for VNI West.

The progress of the massive Western Renewables Link is also under a cloud, after proponent AusNet extended the transmission lines completion dates from mid-2027 to late 2029, due to landholder resistance and a slowdown in the pace of construction.

Both projects also face the uncertainty of what happens if a Liberal-Nationals government is elected in November next year, given the coalition is considering a Plan B alternative that would end the need for VNI West.

Australian Energy Market Operator Victorian group manager Claire Cass, who is overseeing the VNI West, notified landholders last week that the 2028 completion date for the project had been delayed until 2030, to “account for time needed to progress land access arrangements” and other planning and environmental assessments.

WRL general manager Gerard Carew said “we recognise that hosting infrastructure like the Western Renewables Link can be challenging and in response to landholder feedback, we have recently introduced a range of new compensation and benefit sharing initiatives for landholders.

“We are currently positively engaging with the majority of landholders.”

However AusNet has admitted its lack of access to properties along the 190km WRL route hampered its ability to prepare an Environmental Effects Statement for the project, which it finally released this week after months of delays.

“As we have not been able to access all sections of the proposed route, the data included in the EES takes a conservative approach to ensure all potential environmental impacts,” AusNet stated.

The EES states that while “construction of the (WRL) project may temporarily disrupt routine activities and restrict land use”, the longer-term residual impacts were assessed as minor for construction.

However the EES also states “potential impacts from restrictions and disruptions to routine activities, and the temporary isolation and redundancy of productive land may vary property to property and in some cases could be greater.

“Impacts will be managed through the development and implementation of property-specific management plans and strategies.”

Meanwhile AusNet is also trying to gain wider community support for the project by offering payments to the neighbours of affected landholders.

The WRL Near Neighbour Benefit program offers payments of $20,000 to anyone within 400m to 1km of the transmission line and $40,000 for those closer than 400m.

Victorian Nationals leader Danny O’Brien said the Coalition was considering the Plan B “cheaper, less disruptive option, as we finalise a position ahead of next year’s election”.

Plan B involves using 1321kms of existing powerline easements to lift the state’s transmission capacity by 16,675 megawatts, allowing more wind and solar farms to connect to the grid and eliminating the need to construct the VNI West project.