After years helping Gippsland councils navigate offshore wind planning, Brent McAlister wanted to get out of renewables, so he moved for “a quiet life” to western Victoria. In the end, it was more like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
“October 2023, meeting in Stawell with 500 people, angry farmers, which has now generated into burning effigies of transmission lines, and then if you’re on social media, you’ll see Farmers Fightback,” McAlister, now the Northern Grampians council chief, said during a visit back to Gippsland last week.
“The centre of that is in the Northern Grampians Shire Council.”
But for all of that, in February nine north-western Victoria councils signed on to a pact called the Resource Ready Strategy that outlines what they need to do to prepare for the waves of energy and resources developments coming for their region.
Western Victoria is home to some of the state’s most promising wind and solar resources.
