I object due to the immense cost blowouts associated with VNI West. Originally estimated at ~$3.9 billion, costs are now projected between $7.6 billion and potentially $11.4 billion . Such ballooning costs suggest an unreliable economic foundation and risk passing future burdens onto electricity consumers. The project’s scale and escalating price tag threaten its financial feasibility and undermine public trust in the transition.

I strongly object to the VNI West development on the grounds of elevated fire risk. As highlighted in the NSW Legislative Council report, communities within Renewable Energy Zones (REZs) face “devastating” bushfires, with land cleared for infrastructure likely increasing ignition points and hampering firefighting access and effectiveness . Transmission lines, substations, and maintenance tracks will introduce additional hazards. The fire-prone nature of the region, combined with climate-change-driven extremes, makes this a serious public safety concern. Ignoring such risks is irresponsible and potentially catastrophic.

To the Proponent, NSW Electricity Networks Operations Pty Ltd (TransGrid) and Council Areas: Murrumbidgee, Murray River, Edward River, Wagga Wagga
The experiment is over re 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Research says so.
Where is yours, nsw.gov.au, gov.au, vic.gov.au ? Where is it ?
You don't have it do you.
Who are you people ?
I Demand a Full Investigation of 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines. Who is planning a new 500kV double circuit Interconnector Transmission Lines from the Victorian border at Murrabit to the new Dinawan Substation in NSW near Jerilderie ?
Who ? Who ? Planner is it ? Where is his research, research on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines please.
I Demand a Full Investigation of Effects of 500 kv Overhead Transmission Lines on Australians exposed to 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Research says cease and Desist 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Yet someone's are to be irresponsible aren't they.
Who are these people being irresponsible toward their Fellow Australians that do Include children yes.
Is it the planner ? Is it ? Absolutely.
Are the councils Complicit ? Yes.
Councillors also ? Yes. Of course.
Ministers too ? Absolutely.
OK. Where is the research on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines effects on the Health and Well-being of Australians ? Show it to the People living near 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Halt All Further development of VNI West.
I Demand an Immediate Moratorium on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia, yes, Australia.
I also I Demand the Resignation of Minister Allan and Minister D'Ambrosio for breach of human rights.
Yes.
Today I was SHOCKED to feel the anger expressed by our Rural Communities Victorian toward both Prime Minister and Minister Allan.
How Dare politicians rule over their Fellow Australians.
Minister Allan and vic.gov.au all are breaching human rights, yes.
To force EMR infrastructure into homes and workplaces of Fellow Australians who grow Food for the Nation every day every day every day on their properties is a Crime Against Humanity. Is.
I Demand an Immediate Moratorium on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia Immediately. Research says so.
I Demand a Full investigation of the effects of 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines on Australians living within 80 metres of any 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Council Areas Murrumbidgee, Murray River, Edward River, Wagga Wagga be warned.
EMR issues include the now upgraded 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines as potential risks to human health and well-being.
Research is ?? Where is it ??
Where ?? Where ?? On Duck Duck Go etc.
Watch out councils. You are fully accountable and need to be held accountable if if if any 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines come within 40 metres of a biological human, existing as a Form Field Phenomena upon Earth, once natural, not now.
500 kV Transmission Lines Exposure time can be under 3 hours to over 8 hours, dependant on the individual.
Show me your research you have collected on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines effects on humans living or working within 80 metres.
Some humans are more sensitive than that. Some are. Some are.
Children.
Children.
Children.
In case you didn't know, farmers live and work at home you see.
Some live and work there 24/7 day after day year after year.
Show me your research on EMR Effects on Animals With Nervous Systems please in connection to 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines.
Risks are too high you see.
Risks.
Risks. I say Risks are too high re 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines I Demand be Banned in Australia Immediately.
Who will help ? Who ?
Politicians will be held accountable of course.
As will mayors , councils , Councillors, yes.
Time they were isn't it.
These days there is No excuse to be ignorant about EMR Effects on Animals With Nervous Systems.
240kv Transmission Lines are about the Limit of Safety you see.
I Demand a Full Investigation of the public exposed to any 500 kV Overhead Transmission Line who live or work within 40 metres of, and out to 80 metres for the sensitive community being the Children now living in a quite Unreal World to those children who have lived a Wireless Life over their entire life, no, but over half their life or so.
A World we live in changes due to gov.au.
Who ever asked us, the Australian People, did we need 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines or even 320kv.
Who makes these decisions is a Question.
I Demand a Full investigation into the few humans deciding the Futures of their Fellow human beings and Fellow Australians that Include children yes.
I say Cease and Desist 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines Immediately Immediately Immediately in Australia.
That does include Victoria.
The Victorian Government breaches human rights. Oh Yes they do. Have. Still do. Include NSW Government.
It is about time politicians were held fully accountable for all the decisions made affecting their Fellow Australians, which includes children.
When will it be time ?
Who will be Held Accountable ?
Minister Bowen of course.
Minister Watt plus Minister Plibersek of course.
Minister Allan, the female Hitler in a team experimenting on their Fellow Australians. Yes. Experimenting.
Who else ? All councils, yes, yes, All councils , yes.
We cannot get a Say. Do you understand ? There is No excuse for being ignorant about EMR Effects on Animals With Nervous Systems.
I do not know how you get away with it.
I want to know how you get away with it.
There is No excuse for being ignorant when it comes to the Health and Well-being of your Fellow Australians that do Include Children yes Children, children, being experimented on worse than Ever before.
How Dare You All.
Planners in gov.au are to be Held Fully Accountable for Harm and Loss to their Fellow Australians including children.
I understand Fields of Harm you see.
That is my research you see. 15 years researching EMR Effects on Animals With Nervous Systems says Ban Outright 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines Immediately in Australia. The experiment is Finished. I await the results gov.au must offer me.
That includes from councils Enabling any 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines anywhere near children, children, children.
I live in Grief at How this World changes.
Children must be Cared for.
Where is the Risk Assessment research re 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines please? Where is it ? Where is it ?
We really have No rights. That is Wrong.
To have No rights is wrong. I do Demand those responsible be Held Fully Accountable.
EMR issues are Real. Yes, Real.
Ban AI Today.
Cease and Desist any need for 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia Immediately. Ban AI Immediately. Surely you know why.
Surely you know why.
Surely.
Net Zero I Demand be Under Investigation Immediately. Unnecessary excess Infrastructures reasons.
If you understand EMR Effects on Animals With Nervous Systems then it will be an Immediate Moratorium on 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia.
I Demand those responsible for Enabling 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines be Held Fully Accountable and be under investigation.
Children are in View.
Children, born into an Unnatural world. Unnatural. A completely EMR World children live in now. Slow down, gov.au, nsw.gov.au, vic.gov.au. You have No idea what you are doing to your Fellow Australians living and working environments and must be held fully accountable. Yes.
Mental anxiety can be an EMR Syndrome issue. Mental anxiety. Cancers too. Nervous Systems are in View that are interconnected all parts of the body mind and spirit of a being, animal, living on Earth, exposed to Hideous Harming EMR Fields of Harm worsening why ? Why ? Why ? Why ?
I need a Full investigation into 500 kV Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia and an Immediate Moratorium on All planned 500kv Overhead Transmission Lines in Australia until this Full investigation has been completed.

Given cost misrepresentation, missing EDC report, substantial clearing, major agricultural/aviation constraints, material visual intrusion and cumulative impacts, the application should be refused, or at minimum re-exhibited with corrected information and a SEARs-compliant alternatives assessment including route-specific and partial-underground options.

EMF and Health Hazards have been completely ignored by terrible TransGrid who are already torturing the people of NSW with Energy Poverty, Environmental Vandalism and Agricultural Destruction - due to their sabotaging CON - Project Energy Connect!

High-voltage transmission infrastructure brings electromagnetic field (EMF) health risks, especially when built near homes, schools, and farming communities.
Personal Discomfort caused by Electrical Force equals CRIMINAL ASSAULT.

These risks are downplayed or ignored in the EIS—which can only be described as “ lack of care that demonstrates reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others, which is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety.”

I object to the construction of VNI West SSI 1-72887208 for the following reasons;
These are only some of the issues I see with needless construction of high voltage transmission lines?
Firstly, like other high voltage transmission line projects mooted, approved or underway in Eastern Australia it is to be constructed to support an ideology, the need for Net Zero (refer to multiple deliveries from qualified people such as Professor Ian Philmer on both alleged anthropological induced Climate Change and Net Zero to the contrary) rather than a nationally secure rational? (Allowing foreign interests to operate generation and high voltage transmission lines?)
There has been much discussion on Net Zero of late and the relevation that this ideology isn't and cannot work in changing the world's climate? Australia is being penalised by its current governments and its taxpayers made to "foot the bill" for erection of so-called renewable energy projects then, the added cost of unnecessary high voltage transmission lines to "pseudo" connect the coastal load centres with so-called energy hubs or REZs 100s of kilometres inland? According to AI Overview the cost of the 500KV VNI West has blown out almost double, from original estimate of $3.9 billion to $7.6 billion as of August 2025. Estimated completion date for the 500KV VNI West has likewise blown by years now with stage 1 "expected" early 2029 and stage 2 now "expected" 2030? Realistically where does TransGrid (essentially not an Australian owned company) the construction company for 500KV VNI West expect to find the qualified linesmen to construct concurrently 500KV VNI West, 500KV HumeLink East and West as well as EnergyConnet? 100s of qualified linesmen? Intending to rely on intermittent grid destabilising generation sources such as wind and the sun, combined with the massive "land grab" required to site mega numbers of wind driven turbines and likewise mega square kilometres of industrial solar power generation sources is counterproductive to maintaining and utilising the existing coal-fired power stations and Victorian wide transmission line system set up by revered WW1 General and respected Civil Engineer Sir John Monash as chair of the State Electricity Commission from 1920 until his death in 1931. To transfer from a once reliable Australian owned energy source to foreign owned so-called renewables is not in Australia's best security interests?
For that intent on constructing the 500KV VNI West high voltage transmission line needs to assess will 500KV VNI West high voltage transmission line (1.93GW transfer capabilities AI Overview) in conjunction with EnergyConnet as 330kv (800MW transfer capabilities AI Overview) project be capable of transferring the alleged generation output of the South West REZ of 3.56GW reference AI Overview.
The construction of VNI West will ultimately add to the environmental vandalism that will be a result of the South West Renewable Energy Zone, with 2 bird species being only a small proportion of species that that project will heavily impact? The endangered Pink or Major Mitchell Cockatoo Lophochroa leadbeateri and the endangered and unique Plains Wanderer Pedionomus torquatus are but 2 of the bird species impacted by the South West Renewable Energy Zone? Combine the impact of the South West Renewable Energy Zone, with but 1 of its "spin-off" high voltage transmission lines VNI West as an overhead option with an estimated easement of 70M to 100M over a distance 475kilomteres according to AI Overview an easement permanently denuded of trees is not conducive to environmental stability? Now that Victoria has introduced legislation that property owners have no rights to restrict transmission line companies accessing their private property is an injustice of the rights of private property ownership?
Over a distance of 475 kilometres VNI West as a High Voltage Alternating Current option the transmission power losses will be significant?
Due to the insistence that this project be installed as an overhead option both fire ignition and aerial firefighting suppression will be impeded? At the last ever TransGrid HumeLink Community Consultation Group meeting held in Gundagai NSW on the 29th March 2023 a TransGrid representative attempted to inform those gathered that overhead high voltage transmission lines did not ignite fires. Unfortunately, he wasn’t aware that he had a “roomful” of NSW Rural Fire Service volunteers. Quite a few of whom had witnessed fires ignited by the 03 330KV Tumut 3 Hydro Power Station to Yass 330KV transmission line on the 8th January 2003. Then TransGrid informed us that they would not de-energise HumeLink meaning as carbon filled atmosphere is a known conductor any firefighting volunteers working near HumeLink are at risk of high voltage electrocution? If the same no de-energisation of VNI West applies volunteer firefighters’ lives will be at risk?
Regarding the inhibiting of aerial firefighting due to lack of visibility and the smoke obscuring the transmission line as both are of a similar colour aerial firefighting will be non-negotiable? I witnessed this exact scenario for myself in January 2018 when attending the fire ignited within the footprint of the Taralga Wind Turbine Project due to the common grey colour of the smoke and the wind turbines themselves the aerial firefighters refused to operate and the aerial suppressing helicopters were grounded locally and the fixed winged water bombing aircraft had returned to their allocated airstrips?
I would point out here should VNI West like TransGrid inform us that HumeLink will not be de-energised in the instance of a major fire there is also a flashover possibility from the 500KV transmission line to any aircraft working near it in a smoke-filled atmosphere? Either way if VNI West was to be impacted by fire and it was not de-energised then volunteer firefighters lives are at risk?
Compare Victoria's option of installing close coupled generation sources close to the coast as already exists via the existing coal-fired generation system, or alternately replicating what I witnessed for myself in Belgium in June 2013 pertinent to the Antwerp Container Harbour with wind turbines driven off the North Sea interspersed adjacent to the load of the Antwerp Container Harbour, therefore place the wind turbines and commercial solar panels intended for the South West REZ the in suburban Melbourne essentially cutting out the need for hundreds of kilometres of transmission lines?
Australia's rural community should not be made to carry the burden of their city cousins when it comes to power generation and high voltage transmission lines?
I hope that you will take on board these items and reconsider constructing an overhead VNI West 500KV transmission line?
Best regards John McGrath

Very sad to see the NSW Government sacrifice farmers, agricultural land and most importantly the Environment for an ill planned project in the proposed route for the VNI west transmission line.
This transmission line and other renewable projects are in direct contravention of article 2.b of the Paris Agreement.
The NSW government continues to threaten food production by clearing and damaging prime, actively farmed agricultural land.
When will leaders be strong and say Money does not dictate how we look out for the environment and food production.
Blowout costs are already occurring in the billions, and it hasn't even started been built yet..... Australian taxpayers are REALLY going to suffer with this project.

A Missed opportunity!

Wow. What a missed opportunity. A missed opportunity by the NSW Parliament to demonstrate to the NSW electricity consumers and public that the VNI West (NSW) transmission project takes seriously the protocols of the “Precautionary Principals” of environmental planning and groundtruthed either by conferring with the district and community and those affected that the plain over which the project transects is in fact a plain dominated by the Chenopodiacae family of plants and taken appropriate actions. Offices of the NSW Government have been alerted to bad outcomes foreshadowed in this project and all efforts to find a suitable alternative route shunned.
The EIS for the NSW section of VNI west is just an iteration of all the provisions and protocols of the EPBC Act 1999 that the Parliament has passed to the proponent (Transgrid). Transgrid have used this document to mercilessly remind the government and attempted to cut out any last-minute interaction by Government to get a better outcome for the Environment.
The outcomes for the cultural and heritage inspired First Nations people has been cropped by the initial agreement to compensate these peoples with a payment of at least 7% of the total cost of the project. Contemporary Australians have had a lip service of $27m set aside for community benefits!

This project can be described as effectively racist and regressive. It serves the Paris agreement well but is merely a project to mobilise overseas capital and provide a neat return for foreign investors.
Rather than “tick and Flick” the document the NSW Government could order that further opportunities be explored to enhance the environmental outcomes and cultural involvement.
The proposed route destroys the environment by transecting within 500m of significant clumps of old trees and significant cane grass ephemeral lakes for many properties. These clumps and lakes provide refuges and nesting sites for a number of endangered species.
The proposed route intersects with and interferes with a large area of suitable habitat of the Plains Wanderer. This area is comparable to the Victorian Governments set aside in the Pathos Plains to protect the Plains Wanderer. An opportunity exists for the NSW Parliament to explore alternative routes that saves areas from the impacts of construction and enduring raptor presence.
The proposed route intersects with and interferes with so many peoples’ properties stock and domestic water supply systems.
The proposed route intersects with and interferes with many property’s operations and therefore significant changes to management yards and fence alignments will be required. Exclusion fencing of some parts of the easement may be needed to enhance endangered species survival. Which would increase the overall cost to the taxpayer.
The proposed route intersects with and interferes with the floodplains. This adds to the cost of access roads and will by necessity require deconstruction after completion. Large non-permanent construction bridges will be required to provide access from nearby main road access asset.

All these infractions could cause the consumers of NSW an added cost of at least $173m for one property alone and forever leave the perception that the NSW Parliament (2025) is not interested in sustainable, endurable and reportedly good outcomes for the environment.