MEDIA RELEASE
24 SEPTEMBER 2008
DESAL PANEL UNLIKELY TO BUCK GOVERNMENT
The panel appointed to assess the Wonthaggi Desalination Plant
Environment Effects Statement (EES) had the potential to be densitised
to social impact issues and reluctant to make adverse recommendations
to government.
Victoria’s Power Grid Option Group chairman said each member of the Panel
had made a career as either a public servant, in planning or from
infrastructure and likely have rigid bureaucratic ideas of what was acceptable
or inappropriate development.
For example, the chair has been a member of the Panel for 12 years and may
be unlikely to rock the government’s boat, Mr Fraser said.
He said the Panel’s deliberations could be impervious to the genuine social,
aesthetic and technological aspects of supplying power to the plant and might
concentrate instead on the policies and politics associated with the project.
To make matters worse, none of the Panel appeared to have any technical
experience associated with providing power to and from the Desalination
Plant, he said.
“This means the Panel members will probably rely heavily on the flawed EES
reference project, which examined in great detail old leaky, overhead cabling
that has scarred Victoria’s urban and rural landscape for decades.”
Mr Fraser said every aspect of the Desalination Plant needed to innovative,
high-tech, and world-class not just ”those bits that are within the high profile
ring of sensitivity immediately surrounding the project.”
“A glimmer of hope is that the Panel members might recognise their role as an
opportunity to provide the people of Victoria with a project that dares to be
different, and genuinely innovative in every aspect,” Mr Fraser said.
The PGOG will make both written and verbal submissions to the Panel.
o0o
For further information:
Alan Fraser
Chairman
Power Grid Option Group
0428 388956
NEWS 
