Mar 25 2009

INSIDEOUS INVASION

Few Victorians outside the Victorian Wimmera and Mallee will have noticed the activities of Mineral Sand Miners. Site by remote site, near small hamlets or just dots on the map have appeared mines or notice of intention to mine, which will progressively STRIP away farmland to access ancient mineral deposits such as zircon, and in the process DESTROY privately owned assets, remnant native trees and grassland, farmers livelihoods and European and Indigenous heritage.

This mining is being helped by Department of Primary Industry which used to assist farmers in their struggle to compete in a global economy.

Complicit in this RAPE of the countryside is the University of Ballarat (my first discovered reference being in Victoria’s “Golden West Strategy”) which saw the mining as a potential benefit for the region in a 1999 publication. At that time there would have been ample available water (prolonged drought was not anticipated) for farming, people and Sandmines which are voracious users of water, if the long established earthen water channel system was replaced by pipes. The piping of the area is now almost complete with the approx $ 1 billion capital cost to be largely paid for by the local community per tariffs over time. This ATTACK on people and their private ownership of land is therefore a two pronged ASSAULT facilitated by the Victorian Government, the University of Ballarat and global owned Mining Companies.

The once politically active Victorian Farmers Federation has remained silent while one time Members are DECIMATED (a word from the Latin meaning to kill one in ten of a troublesome population so as to keep them compliant). The process continues in our time using deceit and manipulation in the media which is perhaps less bloody but equally effective. Recently a local Shire Councillor is reported as saying that “Iluka Resources Ltd will be trucking Mineral Sands South to Hamilton via the Calder Highway using ‘B’ Double trucks every few minutes, 24 hours each day from a location near Mittyack”. Similarly the press reports a resident of Toolondo objecting to the continuous line of huge trucks heading to Hamilton with minerals for processing there from near Horsham. Another press report concerns the “sale of water from “Pipeline Savings” out of Rocklands Reservoir to Hamilton @ $186 per megalitre (about ¼ the going price) as per Government directive”.

Perhaps my use of the word INSIDIOUS should be changed to BLATANT?

Oliver Guthrie

By admin • Farming-Rural, Government, Water •