With the state elections imminent, the recommendation of Steve Manning to stand as an independent for the Ovens Valley state electorate gives us voters an excellent opportunity to steer away from the coalition and (avoid One Nation.) The community group Voice for Ovens Valley was a volunteer group that sought views from the voters in Ovens Valley what their key issues were that required consideration. Voice for Ovens Valley then asked Steve Manning to stand as an independent. Steve sounds to me like a person who will listen to the community and will not be stuck with party dogma and policies made outside our community. A big problem for our incumbent state member Tim McCurdy is that his National Party are locked into climate denying policies. With the Liberal coalition, they are moving right away from a transition to renewables, and determined to explore further developments of nuclear, gas, and coal. If some farmers are against transmission towers and solar panels, which farmers wish to house nuclear waste near their farms for the next thousands of years? And nuclear power will still have to travel via transmission towers. And what are the costs of further development of gas and coal, apart from the cost of continued potential catastrophe for our planet. The Liberal/National Party coalition have recently promised to cancel the Victorian NSW West Transmission project, (VNIWest), which is a key renewables project. “No transmission lines” is their screaming headline. The coalition reckons 99 per cent of farmers are against the new transmission lines, although 40 per cent have already agreed to survey access, and as Craig McIntosh who owns 4000 acres near Kerang says, “we embraced the transmission lines 60 years ago, and you can farm underneath successfully. If we don’t do something now, in another 60 years we will say we should have built it 60 years ago”. Craig McIntosh and all farmers with property impacted, will also be well paid for the towers that are on his farm. The decision by the liberal NP coalition also impacts on NSW and their contribution and threatens base load powder supply integrity. With ocean temperatures at a never before recorded high, and with impending more serious weather calamities, drought, heat waves, and bushfires becoming more prevalent worldwide, we have the conservative side of politics in complete denial, and their only mantra is “lower power prices now”, which is unlikely to happen unless we all embrace the transition to renewables as fast as we can. The costs of developing nuclear, and more coal and gas just helps destroy our planet, our essential agricultural industry, and us human beings at an even faster rate. Most of the farmers I know in NE Vic (as a retired veterinary surgeon), are well aware of the necessity to tackle climate change in the interests of the future of sustainable agriculture, and many feel the National Party no longer represents them. Sky News and the News Corp owned Weekly Times are sometimes labelled the “global hub for climate misinformation”. Recently our Glenrowan solar farms in the Weekly Times were labelled a “tsunami of renewables occupying 17 per cent of the land”(sic), with zero acknowledgement of the CO2 reductions, plus no celebration of the lower electricity prices, especially during sunlight hours. I will be listening to Steve Manning and hearing what he has to say to support the people living in the Ovens Valley, and in particular, I am hoping he will be supporting an ordered transition to renewables with improved community engagement, and I am most likely to give him my vote. Graeme Blanch, Wangaratta
