Western Victoria Transmission Network Project: Farmers protest with blunt message to Ausnet

A farming family has ploughed a clear message for energy giant Ausnet over its proposed powerline route, which they and others say will cut through valuable productive land.

Farmer Anthony Fraser and daughter Joee ploughed the message “Piss off Ausnet” into their property in protest of the The Western Victoria Transmission Network Project.

A WESTERN Victorian farmer has ploughed out a clear message for energy giant Ausnet – which plans to erect 190km of powerlines that farmers say will cut through some of Australia’s most productive farming land.

The Western Victoria Transmission Network Project includes plans to erect powerlines from wind farms at Bulgana, near Ararat, to Sydenham in Melbourne’s northwest, via a new terminal station to the north of Ballarat.

Anthony Fraser, with the help of his daughter, wife and brother-in-law, ploughed the message “Piss off Ausnet” on their property at Mount Prospect last week.

“We just used a John Deere tractor and a high-speed disc,” he said.

“It took about six hours to do. We had to cut it about five or six times.”

The Fraser family ploughed the words “Piss off Ausnet” into their property to protest The Western Victoria Transmission Network Project.

Mr Fraser, who farms potatoes, fat lambs, and lucerne and cereal crops, said he did it “the old-fashioned way” using eye sight and two-way radio on the flat down below instead of GPS.

“If we don’t do something we’re going to lose a lot of good-value productive land,” he said.

“The land is too valuable to put 85m-high transmission poles.”

Mr Fraser said it was a good time to display the message with extra traffic over the long weekend and being close to the Midland Highway.

“There’s been a lot of people driving up the road and taking photos,” he said.

“We just want to be noticed. We want to pass (the farmland) on to my daughter and her generation. We want to try and fight it. We haven’t got much time left.”

Mr Fraser wants to see the powerlines underground, following the Western Highway.

He said neighbouring farmers were planning to put other messages on their hills.

An Ausnet spokeswoman said the company understood there were community concerns and that the final route had not been decided.

“As part of the Environmental Effects Statement (EES) assessment process required for the project, we are currently conducting detailed investigations via independent experts that will look at the concerns of landowners and the wider community, including visual impacts, farming practices and a range of land use impacts,” she said.

“This is the start of the EES process and there will be many opportunities for landowners and the community to provide further input into the process.”