“Intimidation and bullying:” As some anti-wind farmers stage a “fightback,” others are counting the cost

“Come for the fight, stay for the night.” So reads the invitation to a $50 a-head fundraising event being held this Saturday at Marnoo Cricket Ground by Farmers Fightback – a “proper country get together” that will be headlined by One Nation duo Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce – “kids welcome!”

Farmers Fightback was founded by Wimmera farmer Ben Duxson, originally in opposition to the VNI West transmission line – the contested grid upgrade the state LNP has vowed to scrap if it wins the November election.

But the group is now being billed and promoted as a national movement, “standing against industrial renewables being forced onto Australia’s best farmland.”

The picture being painted – in vivid colours by certain politicians and the Murdoch media – is one of fed-up farmers united in a David and Goliath battle against “state-owned transmission utilities, and a cast of foreign multinationals.”

But the story that isn’t being told is that some of the biggest victims of increasingly strident “grass roots” opposition to renewable energy development are other farmers – those who support and wish to benefit from renewables.

Craig Henderson, a fifth-generation Wimmera broad-acre farmer, says he has experienced continued “intimidation and bullying” since inviting a renewables developer onto his property to explore its potential for wind generation. And it has come from other farmers in the region.

One particularly troubling example Henderson shares involved his daughter-in-law, who on a visit to the local post office was introduced to someone by a mutual friend.

“And they said, ‘Are you Craig Henderson’s daughter-in-law?’ …and she said, ‘Yes.’ And they said ‘He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get shot’.”

Other incidents – many of them reported to the police – include being asked to leave a local National Party policy launch event held at a private property; having an anti-transmission sign hung on his front fence by a mob of “37 [people], I think I counted on the cameras;” and a sign saying “traitor” being hung on the fence of a separate property he owns in town.

But Henderson – who continues to work with WestWind on plans to host turbines as part of the proposed Wilkur Energy Park, south-west of Birchip – lays at least some of the blame for this “nasty” behaviour at the feet of politicians who are all too happy to fan the flames in the name of winning votes.

To this end, Henderson recently travelled to Victoria’s state parliament in Melbourne as part of a delegation of 12 pro-renewables farmers and community members from across regional Victoria, as reported last month by The West Vic Brolga.

“[The trip was about] saying that there are people – and the silent majority wants [renewable energy] – but there’s been a noisy minority ramping up and intimidating and bullying people,” he told Renew Economy in an interview.

“And the other side of it is we wanted to make sure that the community fund stays in control of the community … and we want the construction phase to leave long-term legacies in our area.

“So they were the main things; and to find out what the politicians really did know.”

On the latter front, Henderson – who describes himself as a lifelong conservative voter and an active member of the Mallee Matters group formed by local Nationals MP Anne Webster – was disappointed, if unsurprised.

“The Nats were good …  and there was a Labor guy and a Greens person … but let’s just say the other part of the Conservatives were a little bit what I [expected], I suppose. …I was disappointed in their attitude.

“I was extremely disappointed with one Conservative politician who was quoting old information about decommissioning and how much land [renewable energy] takes up and out. 

“He was just way out of whack. …And he got pulled into gear by one of the people on the trip, [who] said, ‘I’ve been to 180 different regions around Victoria talking about mental health, and there’s about 150 people each time. And the biggest single thing that creates depression in rural areas is cash flow.’ 

“If you can have good cash flow, that will ease the mental stress in the in the regions and even out their income.”

Henderson is similarly disappointed with the Victorian Coalition’s recent decision to scrap the VNI West transmission line if it wins the election.

“A Liberal government will not allow regional communities and farmers to bear the brunt of poor decisions out of Melbourne,” state Coalition leader Jess Wilson said in a statement last week.

“Victoria doesn’t need more unnecessary poles and wires that bulldoze through regional communities. It needs more gas and more firm generation and that is exactly what my team will deliver.”

But Henderson says this kind of oppositional policy-making – to “repeal and reverse” as the federal Coalition has this week pledged to do on energy – gives little consideration to what is best for the regions.

“Cancelling VNI West is just political. It’s about getting re-elected. It’s not about what’s going on,” he says.

“If they don’t want this to happen, I want to know their policy on how much capital they’re going to put in and help these regional areas that were being starved off over the last few decades.

“It’s easy to to appease these radicals and try and hold your seat. …It’s not what’s best. It’s politics.

“I actually hope they beef up the line that goes through our place. … and they pay me the compensation that was offered to the others, because it’s a fantastic amount of money.”

For Henderson, hosting wind turbines is mainly about doing what is best for his family, including his two adult sons who wish to carry on the business of farming crops including wheat, barley, lentils, oats and hay.

“Our regional areas have been starved of capital by both sides of politics for decades, and we just need some more capital development in this area, other than relating to rainfall. … So I thought [renewables] would be an excellent opportunity,” he tells Renew Economy. 

“So we invited [WestWind] in on two conditions: that [the turbine layout] had to be symmetrical to how we farm and commercially viable.”

The up to 698 megawatt (MW) Wilkur Energy Park proposes to install up to 97 wind turbines in two clusters across more than 10,000 hectares of cropping land – belonging to a group of different landholders – that would generate enough electricity to power around 530,000 average Victorian homes a year.

“I see it as win-win; for succession planning, for income equalisation, underpinning expansion, all those things, and the community, the number of people in the community is the biggest thing I want,” Henderson says.

“That’s my big thing, is we’re going to keep these communities alive. We’re part of the … fastest shrinking population in Victoria here in Yarriambiack [Shire].”

Henderson gets that some of his neighbours will never come around to the idea of having turbines in their back yard, over the back fence or even in the next town, for that matter.

What he is not prepared to accept – and what he is meeting with Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Tony Mahar to discuss this week – is the spread of disinformation and intimidation through farming communities.

One of the myths that particularly frustrates Henderson is the claim that panels, turbine towers and batteries are threatening to take up 70 per cent of prime agricultural land.

“The area taken up by the turbines isn’t a lot,” he says. “It can interfere with some efficiencies of our bigger gear … but another advantage is [with the addition of access tracks] … you’ve got somewhere for the trucks to park and and to get the grain out of the paddock.

“We’re going to have … these two projects over 10,000 acres, and they say [the turbines take up] …about 2 per cent of the area once it’s constructed.

“And if we’ve got a surety of income, we can underpin our crops better and push them harder. We’ll grow more. I’ll guarantee you, we’ll grow more. …But no one wants to hear that.

“Then you hear them run around and talk about farms being for food. This is the biggest one now. [One local farmer] was filmed last week in front of his son’s canola crop and saying how nice it was and that farms are for food and all that sort of stuff.

“But no one has said that half that crop is going to fuel renewable energy in the UK,” where it is processed into biofuel.

“The hypocrisy is bloody unbelievable.”

Of course, not all of the opposition to renewables is politically motivated. There are plenty of farmers who have had bad experiences with developers or government agencies – and not all projects are deserving of community support. For some people, it’s as simple as they just don’t like change.

“They want things to stay exactly the same,” Henderson says. “But the very thing they’re trying to protect, they’re going to lose.”

For his part, Henderson can’t get the wind turbines installed quickly enough. “And I’m hoping these will be fitted out at least twice, if not three times,” he tells Renew Economy

“Because the infrastructure’s under the ground and the connection power lines are all there. We’re just going to put new mills on.

“It won’t be any good for me, but it’ll be good for the kids and grandkids.”

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