Tempers are running hot in Victoria as the Victorian Parliament has just passed legislation allowing or forcing essentially farmers to allow others to come onto their land

for the purpose of putting in infrastructure and potentially other things as well. On Friday, we saw scenes where the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen were heckled and indeed blocked by tractors in rural Victoria or regional Victoria, rather I should say as people are getting very, very hot under the collar. Well, one person who was there for the vote is David Limbrick, MP. He’s been fighting on behalf of farmers and for their right to property all the way through this process. David, thank you so much for joining me here on the Topher Project.

[From video] Thanks for having me. [End video]

Despite the best efforts of yourself and others, this legislation was passed. Can you brief people what is this legislation? Why are farmers up in arms? And what’s just been passed through the parliament?

[From video]

Okay, so Victoria, in order for the Victorian Government to roll out their renewables energy transmission infrastructure, they’re setting up this new entity called VicGrid. And what it needs to do is run these transmission cables and other infrastructure all over the state. Now, what they’d like to do is to have these companies, you know, come to negotiations with landholders for putting transmission infrastructure on their land. But in some cases, of course, these landholders are not going to agree and they’re going to resist. And in those cases, what the government attempted to do with this bill and has successfully done is said, put in these fines and things like this. If you try and stop someone coming onto your property, there’s a series of fines and there’s a whole series of other things as well. [End video]

I’m sorry to interrupt this interview with David Limbrick, MP. I’ll just be a moment. My name is Topher Field. This is the Topher Project, and I am 100% viewer supported in what I do. What is it that I do? Well, I do things like this, bringing you stories about things that matter, that help you to make sense of the nonsense that surrounds us and cut through the crap that is served up by the mainstream media. If you appreciate what I do, then I’d appreciate you helping me to keep doing it by buying me a coffee via the button at topherfield.net. And if you haven’t checked out my books, my DVDs, and my range of merch at goodpeoplebreakbadlaws.com, then head over there and do that now. I really appreciate because every single purchase helps me to keep doing what I do.

So without further do, let’s get back to David Limbrick, MP.

[From video]

And so, you know, from a libertarian point of view, we see this as a property rights violation. You know, if a farmer voluntarily wants to come to some agreement with a company or the government, then fine. But if they don’t, then they should be able to say, “No, we don’t want you on my property.” But that’s not the situation at the moment. This is what farmers are so upset about. It was watered down a little bit through amendments in the House last night, but it’s still pretty, pretty draconian, many of these things. So yeah. [End video]

Well, this has been a long-running battle. I spend a lot of time out in the regional areas, and you drive through parts of Western and Northern Victoria and you will see hay bales set up and spray painted with slogans against these various towers and against the organizations and the companies that are going to be responsible for them. Some people might be wondering why are they building all these towers? We’ve had a grid in Victoria, in Australia, obviously for many, many decades now. These towers are part of the net zero transition. Do we have any idea of how much money is being spent and just how many kilometers of these towers are going to end up crisscrossing the countryside?

[From video]

Well, in order to get to net zero, no, we don’t actually know. We know for individual projects, but you know, as with all government projects, they always blow out. Ultimately, what’s going to happen is this is going to come out of people’s electricity bills. Ultimately it’s going to be incorporated into the cost. The reason that we need to build these transmission infrastructure all across the state and indeed why we need these gas peaking plants and batteries and all these other things is because we’re transitioning from a power supply where we’ve had most of our power centralized through coal power generators in east of Victoria, through to a system where we’re getting power generated all over the state and also we’re having interconnectors between the states. And because of that, you need to transmit that power to the city or to wherever it’s needed, and that requires more transmission lines all over the state. And really we’re just getting started on this in Victoria. You know, what we’ve seen with this resistance to what’s happening is really just the start of it because they’re going to require much more of this. You know, a large proportion of our electricity in Victoria is still produced by coal and so that’s going to end up with more of this in the future. [End video]

Now, you spoke very well in parliament and I applaud you for doing so even though it was in the end a losing fight. You fought very well and you spoke very well on behalf of farmers, and you made the point that many communities, despite this legislation, are still going to organize and they are still going to resist. For many farmers, they are multigenerational farmers. They have a very deep sense of attachment to the land that they’re on and they feel in my view correctly, but that’s obviously what’s being debated and is disagreed with by the government of Victoria that their property rights are being infringed upon. Do you have any sort of a crystal ball on how this unfolds? Tempers are very hot, people are very passionate. I don’t want to see anything ugly happen, but unfortunately we have already seen some heckling and some blockading almost of both the Prime Minister and the Premier of Victoria in Ballarat just the other day. Where does this go from here?

[From video]

Yeah. Well, look, as I said in parliament last night, I think that some of the farmers will come to agreements with the government and the companies voluntarily. [End video]

Which they’re free to do.

[From video]

Which they’re free to do and I don’t have any objections to that. The government is trying to sort of buy off the social license of these communities. They’ve set up this thing as part of this bill called a Community Energy Fund. The idea is that they set up these, you know, batteries and local infrastructure for local communities. Ultimately, it’s like to slosh a bit of money around in the local communities. It’s their own money though, I might add. They’re just giving it back to them ultimately.

And so one of the amendments last night that the Greens agreed to the government with was to allow that Community Energy Fund to be used for a wider range of purposes other than just energy. So like things like biodiversity projects and research and of course, you know, just these things are always a magnet for corruption in my view and mismanagement of resources. But you will still get some farmers that will say, “No, get off my land.” And they will resist. And as I predicted last night and I think that this will play out they will resist. And what you’ll see, I think, is a lot of people will be sympathetic to these people. As I said, a lot of Victorians like farmers, right? They acknowledge that it’s vital. They’re a vital part of Victoria. They’re a vital part of our economy. They’re a vital part of our survival. And people like them. They’re sympathetic to them. And when they see what is required for this net zero transition that we’re aiming for in Victoria, I think that a lot of people will start to go against it.

And what I said last night was, the polling both the government and the opposition seem very comfortable with net zero at the moment because they got this polling that says people support it. And I think that the polling is really just saying asking people, do you not like nice things? And what the polling really needs to ask is, do you like net zero? And what are you willing to pay for it? Because that’s what it really comes down to. Victorians are eventually going to realize that there is a cost for these things not just a financial cost, but also a cost in this case of property rights. And those costs are going to get higher and higher and higher. I think that resistance will get higher and higher. And I think that the government’s going to have trouble on their hands and it’s not going to be anywhere near as easy as what the government thinks. [End video]

Yeah. And also this legislation, like we see so often with legislation, it’s brought in for one reason, for use in one context, but the way that it’s written, it can be used much more broadly than that. There is a risk here that they aren’t just enabling the government to trample property rights of farmers for the purposes of these towers, but it’s entirely possible that future governments may use it for entirely different reasons.

[From video]

Well, that’s always possible and it sort of sets the precedent of this type of thing happening. I note that, you know, the interesting thing when I spoke to the farmers when they came to parliament was lots of them were concerned about mining as well, and they were concerned about the same sorts of things. Now, they wouldn’t be able to do that under this legislation, but it’s very easy to conceive of a very similar type of legislation being brought in for the purposes of mining to trample their property rights in a very similar way. And again, you know, I don’t oppose mining. Libertarians don’t oppose mining. We don’t oppose electricity transmission infrastructure. What we’re concerned about is defending people’s property rights. And that’s what’s being infringed here. The government is setting the precedent. There’s no reason that that precedent can’t be used in other contexts. [End video]

Yeah, it’s a difficult one to see how this plays out. There’s a little bit of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object here, I suspect. And things are likely to get quite spectacular. Well, David Limbrick, MP, thank you so much for fighting the good fight, defending farmers’ rights and property rights for Victorians in your work and in the Victorian Parliament. Unfortunately, it didn’t go your way this time, but we appreciate your efforts and thank you for coming on the Topher Project.

[From video] Thanks for having me. [End video]

Thank you for watching my interview with David Limbrick, MP. You can help me to keep the Topher Project going by buying me a coffee via topherfield.net. You’ll find a big button there that says “Buy Topher a Coffee.” And also, if you haven’t already, then please check out my books, my DVDs, and my merchandise at goodpeoplebreakbadlaws.com. There’s a whole range of different tops in long sleeve tee, short sleeve tee, and hoodies in a range of different designs, two different bestselling books, and a multi-award-winning DVD. And everything you buy is going to help me to keep the Topher Project going.

Thank you so much for watching to the end. The algorithm loves you, and so do I. Please like, comment, subscribe, share with other people that you think would benefit from knowing about this story.

And as always, think free.