Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Earlier this month I had the privilege of attending a community meeting in the small rural Victorian town of Dederang, where they are fighting back plans to build two huge battery storage systems in the beautiful Kiewa Valley in the north-east of Victoria. The Dederang battery energy storage system, BESS, will be the equivalent in size of 10 MCGs. More than 200 residents packed into the Dederang hall on Thursday night. This is a town with a pub and a football field. We got over 200 people along with my state Nationals colleague Tim McCurdy to support locals John and Sharon McEvoy alongside Friends of the Kiewa and Alpine Valley Inc.

The valley is renowned for its dairy products and pristine countryside. It is one of Australia's major food producing regions and it is also a region that is subject to severe bushfire risk. Ambient heat from the proposed battery storage system in summer can be above 65 degrees. Residents have real concerns about safety and bushfire risk because a battery fire can burn for several days, and it will be the local CFA that has to clean it up. It would also release toxic and flammable gases into the environment.

Young dairy farmers Darren Sagrera and Teressa Hicks live on a property 450 metres away and are concerned about water quality. The tourism industry will also be affected as anglers from right around the country come to fish for rainbow and brown trout, golden perch and the Murray spiny crayfish. This area is too valuable to destroy by large intrusive renewable infrastructure. It will be a blight on the Australian landscape and have serious environmental damage potentially for years. They never thought they would have to fight for the right to farm but that is exactly what is happening, and we will fight with them.