Let me be blunt. The Victorian Government has decided to model its energy and infrastructure policies on the book Abundance: How We Build a Better Future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. On the surface, that sounds bold. It sounds forward-looking. It sounds like optimism. But when you peel back the layers, you find something far more troubling.

Because here’s the truth: Abundance is not a manual for governing. It’s a rallying cry written in Washington and New York about how America can bulldoze past bureaucracy, slash regulation, and build more, faster. It is an idea born in think tanks and media circles, not on the fire-scarred paddocks of Western Victoria. And when that ideology is imposed here, it doesn’t lead to abundance. It leads to arrogance and destruction.

Abundance in Theory, Scarcity in Reality

The book says that red tape, zoning, and endless approvals keep us from building what we need – whether that’s housing, infrastructure, or clean energy. The solution? Cut the tape, weaken the checks, and build, build, build.

But let me ask you: what happens when you apply that philosophy to transmission lines slicing through Victoria’s farmland and environment? What happens when the government decides to “cut through the barriers” and plow 500-kilovolt towers through bushfire corridors, prime agricultural soil, and family homes?

You don’t get abundance. You get scarcity – scarcity of safety, scarcity of trust, scarcity of respect for the very communities who keep this state running.

Communities Cast Aside

In Abundance, the problem is always regulation. In Victoria, the problem is that government refuses to listen. Farmers are not anti-renewables. Regional communities are not anti-progress. But they are sick and tired of being treated as collateral damage in a rush to prove political credentials.

The Western Renewables Link is not about abundance. It is about extraction – extracting land, extracting livelihoods, extracting peace of mind from people who have fought fires, grown food, and protected the land for generations.

And make no mistake, this is not a shared sacrifice. The burdens fall on the people in the regions, while the benefits flow to the corporations and urban centers.

Why Process Matters

Klein and Thompson tell us that process – the environmental reviews, the consultations, the slow hearings – is what blocks progress. But let me remind you: in Victoria, those processes exist for a reason. They exist because we have seen what happens when governments build without care. We have seen catastrophic bushfires made worse by poor planning. We have seen ecosystems devastated because someone wanted to move fast.

When process is treated as the enemy, safety becomes an afterthought, democracy becomes a nuisance, and communities are left voiceless.

A Different Kind of Abundance

I want to be very clear. I believe in abundance. But abundance is not measured in the number of towers we build. Abundance means safe communities that do not live under constant fire threat. It means protecting farmland that grows food for this state and this nation. It means energy policy that is clean, yes, but also fair, sustainable, and democratic.

The abundance I believe in is not the abundance of corporate profits or government press releases. It is the abundance of trust, safety, and shared prosperity.

A Call to Action

So here’s my message to the Victorian Government: stop hiding behind Silicon Valley optimism and American slogans. Stop modelling policy on a book written for another country, another context, another reality. Start listening to the people of Western Victoria. Start respecting the risks we face. Start planning not just for tomorrow’s headlines, but for the next generation’s future.

Because if you continue down this road, you are not building abundance. You are building resentment. You are building division. And you are building a legacy of arrogance and destruction that Victorians will not forget.

Two weeks ago, Darren Edwards and his family tragically lost their home in the Darley to a fire. Darren has been a steady and respected voice in our community. With his balanced but no-nonsense approach, Darren has worked tirelessly to challenge the Western Renewables Link and the transmission rollout, standing up for fairness, safety, and the rights of landholders. His leadership and courage have helped shape the community’s fight and inspired many of us to stay the course.

Now, it is our turn to stand with Darren and his family.

If you would like to help, one of the most practical ways is by sending a digital gift card directly to Darren at info@energygridalliance.com.au.

Alternatively, if you would prefer to contribute with a physical gift card or another form of assistance, please email us at info@stoplaborstowers.org and we will coordinate to pass it along to Darren and his family.

Every gesture, no matter the size, will make a meaningful difference as they begin to rebuild their lives.

As part of the WRL Environmental Effects Statement (EES), the Inquiry and Advisory Committee (IAC) will be conducting site visits along the proposed WRL route.

Importantly, only registered parties to the hearing may request a site visit. This means you must have lodged a written submission and indicated your intention to present at the hearing.

The IAC will conduct site inspections of properties, locations orfeatures. Parties who consider site inspections are required may make a request to office@planningpanels.vic.gov.au by 12 noon on Friday, 3 October 2025.

In submitting a request you will need to:

•        Provide the suggested property, location or feature, with a clearly identifiable property address and a EES map book page reference number
•        A brief explanation detailing why the IAC should visit the properties,
•        Locations or features whether the properties,locations or features are on public or private land
•        Whether the party considers the properties, locations or features should be inspected on an accompanied, partially accompanied or unaccompanied basis (AusNet are considered the accompanied party)
•        Any special transport or access requirements such as 4WD.

The IAC will determine which sites it considers it needs to visit.The IAC may not be able to accept all suggestions.

Parties must not make submissions at the site inspections. Parties are only permitted to point out matters of fact and answer the IAC’s questions with factual responses.

In Addition, if you are located within Moorabool Shire, you may copy info@moorabool.vic.gov.au into your request. The Shire is assisting landholders with site inspections while also preparing its own list of site submission to the IAC.

Fellow residents, friends, and protectors of our land,

A moment comes in every long fight when the news seems bleak, when the opposition’s machinery appears too vast, and when the whisper of defeat becomes a roar. Perhaps you’ve seen the latest announcement, read a government press release, or felt the crushing weight of the bureaucracy against our collective will.

The proponents of the Western Renewables Link (WRL) want you to believe their victory is inevitable. They want you to believe their towers will rise, their easements will be bulldozed, and your homes will simply become collateral damage. They are waiting for us to concede.

Where they expect surrender, we offer only defiance! Where they see an inevitable victory, we declare an unassailable resolve! This is our reply: NEVER!

This is not the time for weakness. This is the moment to remember exactly what we are fighting for and what we stand to lose. Our fight is not just about power lines; it is about our power to determine our own future.

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The Logos of Perseverance: A Choice Between Tyranny and Freedom

The government and the project proponents speak in sterile language: critical infrastructure, affordable energy, jobs. They speak in dollar signs and technical specifications.

We speak in the language of home.

In this moment of profound uncertainty, we must simplify a complex reality into a clear, binary choice.

What is our policy? To stand and fight.

What is our aim? Victory against a design that threatens our way of life. The logic is simple yet unassailable: the alternative is complete subjugation of our land and our local will.

To give in now is not prudence; it is self-betrayal. It is the precise weakness our opposition is counting on. We are not simply debating a project; we are facing a moral and existential crisis – a conflict between freedom and tyranny.

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The Pathos of the Common Man: Mobilizing the Soul of a Community

If we lose this fight – we lose everything. The WRL’s threat is not an abstract concept; it is visceral and personal. The proponents may seem like a political regime, but in their effect, they are a “crawling locusts,” a dehumanized plague upon our land.

We must use this threat to stir a righteous anger, turning our fear into a source of energy for action:

• Our Environment is Not a Trade-Off: We lose the pristine waterways, the native bushland, and the wildlife habitats that have been here for generations. The risk of catastrophic bushfire from high-voltage overhead lines is a threat to every living thing in our community.

• Our Homes are Not Just Assets: We lose the value of the properties we built, the farmlands that feed us, and the quiet dignity of our streets. This is an appeal to our “hearth and home”. Property values will plummet, our agricultural land will be scarred and unusable forever, and the peace of our rural communities will be replaced by the constant, humming presence of industrial towers.

• Our Future is Not Their Blueprint: We lose the right to decide what our community looks like for the next 50 years. We surrender our voice.

We must make the distant conflict a tangible, horrifying reality. Do not let them turn the moral outrage we feel into mere sentiment; let it be a tool for mobilizing our deep, abiding values.

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The Ethos of Defiance: Building Credibility with Truth and Action

A truly powerful voice is one that does not just speak to its audience but speaks for and on behalf of their deepest convictions. Our credibility in this fight is not an inherent trait; it is actively forged in our shared experience of crisis and our unwavering refusal to compromise with an uncomfortable truth.

They offer promises of “progress” and “clean energy.” We offer a stark and unvarnished truth: this battle will require our “blood, toil, tears, and sweat”.

Our ethos must be built not on promises of easy victory, but on a courageous and clear-eyed acknowledgment of a grim reality. Let our defiance be a performative act of personal and community character.

THE WAY FORWARD:

The time for despair is a luxury we cannot afford. The fight will be won in the details, in the continued pressure, and in our refusal to be silent. The system is designed to exhaust you. Do not let it succeed.

Let us now embrace the Hammer of Repetition. We will not stop our actions. We will not soften our voice.

We shall, through meticulous effort, refute their claims at every turn – uncovering the flaws in their economic rationale, challenging the integrity of their technical data, and dismantling the false necessity of their proposed route. Our task is a total and unrelenting intellectual and political war of attrition against the proponents, ensuring that every submission, every public hearing, and every piece of official documentation is met with an organized, evidence-based counter-argument that proves their plan is neither sound, nor necessary, nor inevitable.

Contact our MPs, not allowing them a moment of peace.

This verbal drumbeat creates a sense of unwavering determination and psychological unity. The proponents have won a battle, perhaps. They have not won the war. That war continues today, and it depends entirely on the courage you show right now.

We shall never surrender. Our homes, our environment, our future, and our past are not for sale. Stand up, fight on, and let the proponents of the WRL hear the roar of a community that refuses to lose.