Australian Story: August 5

Monday’s Australian Story features a “people power” battle between residents of Manning Valley, NSW and state-owned electricity operator Transgrid.

The Manning Valley is spectacularly beautiful. Dotted with small farms, this fertile river valley is the home to cattle breeders, dairy farmers and ex-city types seeking a quieter life.

Two years ago this piece of paradise came under threat when state- owned electricity operator Transgrid announced its plans to build an electricity superhighway through the very heart of the valley. Residents were alarmed by the possible health effects of these huge towers , the visual pollution and the devastating effect they would have on property prices. Many would have had to sell up.

Community leader and head of the Manning Alliance, Peter Epov, recognised the need to bring the community together to oppose this project. He and local resident, best-selling author Di Morrissey, plotted a campaign to unite the community and launch a fight, the like of which Transgrid had never seen before.

They didn’t have money, they didn’t have power but there was plenty of passion. Grassroots action, petitions, town hall meetings, the local media, these were the first steps.

“We just felt it was time for people to actually stand-up and say to this multi billion state owned power company ‘enough is enough’, we’re going to fight you,” says Di Morrissey.

And when the Alliance, including former fund manager Bruce Robertson, started to investigate the very basis of the proposal things began to unravel for Transgrid. “I said what goes into your forecasts and they said ‘ oh you wouldn’t understand Mr Robertson and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up literally. It kind of rang alarm bells when they said I wouldn’t understand something.”

Closer scrutiny exposed the fact that there was absolutely no need for these poles at all.

There was no increased energy demand in the valley as Transgrid argued, in fact it had been falling. This was a simple case of ‘goldplating’ where the builder of lines gets a monetary reward for building towers-even when they are not needed. And who ends up paying? The consumer. The Alliance demonstrated that our electricity bills have been bloated far more by the cost of poles and wires than by the more popular scapegoat, the carbon tax.

The Alliance had the facts, now they just had to convince the people in power, and that was no easy task. They had to get their story heard outside the valley.

When the Herald writer Michael West ran a series of articles about this ‘David and Goliath’ battle’ people began to listen- what started as a local story became part of a national debate over the cause of rising power bills.

The Alliance found themselves at state parliament, then in the nation’s capital. Suddenly the doors of power were opening, the Prime Minister was parroting the group’s goldplating claims, the energy regulator sympathised and Transgrid found themselves without a leg to stand on.

This May after a series of reports backing up the Alliance’s claims Transgrid finally had to shelve their plans. People power had won.

Monday August 5, 8pm on ABC1