Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (19:08): My adjournment matter is for the Premier or Acting Premier, or whoever is in charge these days—Dan. In April I met pupils from Coimadai Primary School who were incredibly concerned by the threat the Western Victoria Transmission Network Project poses to their community and disappointed by the discourteous failure of Labor ministers and MPs to respond to countless letters and emails. The action I seek is an instruction to the local Labor MPs and ministers responsible to front up and actually respond to the regional people who will every day bear the cost of this massive transmission line.

Given the wilful deafness, I am going to read out a speech made by one very brave pupil:

My name is Brooke and I’m a grade 5 student from Coimadai Primary School. I am speaking to you to say I don’t think the Government should allow Ausnet to construct the high voltage transmission towers.

I believe this for a number of reasons:

Firstly, our school, Coimadai and … Bacchus Marsh … are in great danger of bushfires. These proposed towers would add to our danger. They could easily cause a bushfire. Bushfires are bad for the environment.

Ausnet wish to build the towers over Lake Merrimu … the firefighting aircraft will be unable to collect water … Therefore, transmission towers will put more danger to our community as our lake is a main water source.

Secondly, the process of building the towers will be long and will slow down our school immensely. It will … use a lot of resources such as petroleum, concrete and precious metals … there is a high chance it will make lots of noise in … creation and … our hearing sensitive students will be effected immensely … cutting down trees and using big machines, the ozone layer will be further destroyed and effect everyone.

Thirdly, it won’t just effect the school and local community, but the whole of our natural environment. In order to move the heavy machinery, trees will have to be cut. In our regular animal encounters, there is a pair of eagles that nest nearby and have done so for years. Think about all those animals in the environment. Swans and Pelicans fly down into the lake every year and with the towers overhead, I doubt our animals will come again. Another reason for not building the towers this that radiation from the towers will severely hurt our wildlife, students and environment.

There is a chance that the transmission towers could cause cancer, of all things. Radiation probably isn’t a good thing, from what I hear. Who wants to see Radiated transmission towers when coming to a school their child goes to? No one!

‘I hope this changes your mind’, Premier. ‘Thank you for listening to me’.

The PRESIDENT: Mrs McArthur, I know in the beginning you were struggling with who your adjournment should go to, the Premier or the Acting Premier, and then I think you called the Premier ‘Dan’ or something like that. I am not sure, but just in case you did that, that is not the practice. We call the Premier ‘Premier’, and I ask you to withdraw if you called him ‘Dan’.

Mrs McARTHUR: The Premier, or—

The PRESIDENT: The Premier.

Mrs McARTHUR: I withdraw ‘Dan’ definitely and name the Premier Mr Andrews.