General News
6 November, 2025
‘Consultation’ and the risk of fatigue
THE northern Loddon community of Pyramid Hill has become consultation central, writes Loddon Herald editor Chris Earl
Consultation - the 21st century variety that also calls itself community engagement - that can be likened to ticking a box, winning over people or simply explaining what’s going to happen.
Around Pyramid Hill, local people can expect to be part of the process for at least two wind farm proposals and a solar factory plan that has already had State Government fast-track approval and could be on the State Government’s desk before Christmas.
Stretching further across the shire there’s the push to give Kow Swamp a spot on the National Heritage register and, of interest to all rural people is the feedback on federal proposals to lower the speed limit on country roads.
All this, and perhaps even more, during harvest when every waking hour is spent cutting and baling hay, monitoring and selecting the next crops zip the harvester over and yield grains and pulses that will financially sustain business for another year.
There’s emerging fatigue in the north. How many consultation sessions can one attend? How many submissions can be made? It’s becoming a juggling act as bureaucracy sets timetables that only pile on the pressure.
Mallee MP Anne Webster on Monday claimed a victory when the Federal Government extended the deadline for consultation on Infrastructure Australia’s consultation as part of a regulatory impact analysis to reduce the open road speed limit.
“Regional Australians need more than a sneaky shifting of the consultation dial, pretending nothing was amiss here,” Dr Webster said.
“The Coalition have done the heavy lifting making all Australians aware of Labor’s plan to slash road speed limits from 100 to as low as 70kmh. The Minister didn’t even bother doing a media release, even though she had promoted other consultations.
“The consultation now runs for the usual length of 42 days, not the abysmally short 28 days,” she said of the new November 10 cut off.
How did the Government let people know of its analysis? Put it up on a website.
The Kow Swamp proposal has appeared as a photocopied and laminated document in the window of Pyramid Hill Post Office. If you don’t stop for a chat outside the front window, you wouldn’t know about the proposal or that the Australian Heritage Council will only take comments for a month, closing feedback in November.
But when plans are confirmed, the Government will fall back on the line that people were consulted, had the chance to express views.
At least some of the wind and solar speculators have become more up front over the past month, sharing information on their plans for current farmland at Mincha and Mologa, and we know Macorna will soon be on that same list.
However, will consultation make any difference to the outcomes? Loddon people against the VNI West renewable energy transmission line project have spent almost three years railing against that plan and left totally browned off by the style of consultation, saying it is only “tick a box” and whether AEMO, Transmission Company Victoria or the State Government, their criticism and complaints are heard but not listened to. Very few changes, minor at that, have emerged around VNI West planning.
Yes, Loddon communities are at the epicentre of consultation and you can expect that will continue for some years as more renewable energy speculators circle the district.
Then add in projects, plans and proposals that the shire council wishes, or is obliged, to put out for public comment.
Some consultation will come in the form of last-minute pop-ups. Councils and authorities like Coliban Water has shown a penchant the last couple of years to hit the road with a day or two’s notice in the name of consultation.
This surge in activities of consultative inclusion will be an added burden on our small communities where organisations, businesses and individuals are not necessarily equipped with capacity let alone time to put forward responses to proposals as they pop up in Boort, Pyramid Hill, Mysia, Wedderburn or even in the southern patches of Loddon Shire.
They will not be able to put together stunning and substantial submissions, as the Bendigo-based DJAARA’s feedback to Loddon Shire’s new four-year plan was described to be by several people this week.
Our Loddon towns are probably Davids to the Goliaths that are government and multi-national corporations, being put in the centre of a sustained periods of consultation for multiple projects.
The pace, it could be said haste, that projects are being unveiled will not diminish while government policies remain unchanged.
Loddon, lile other country areas, is being whacked and swamped. This harvest risks becoming a season of consultation fatigue.