Council's WRL response

Published on 15 September 2026

Moorabool Shire Council has responded to the Minister for Planning's Assessment of the Western Renewables Link, released on 14 September 2026, acknowledging the independent process while expressing disappointment at aspects of the outcome for the Darley, Ballan and broader Moorabool communities.

Council was the principal local government participant in the project's Inquiry and Advisory Committee hearing, engaging expert witnesses in bushfire risk, planning and social impact across fifty-three sitting days.

Council CEO Derek Madden said Council recognised the significant impact and prolonged uncertainty this project has had on many in the community and was grateful that the Inquiry and Advisory Committee gave a hearing to the concerns raised by Council and the Moorabool community throughout that process.

“Council note that the Minister's assessment adopted some of the committee's recommendations, although the committee found that cumulative impacts on the Darley community were likely unacceptable and recommended that the relevant section of the proposed route be excised pending investigation of an acceptable alternative. The Minister's assessment did not adopt this recommendation,” Mr Madden said.

“We hold particular concern about the basis on which that conclusion was reached. In her assessment, the Minister states that even if she had found an individual project impact in Darley to be unacceptable, she would still have found the project's impacts acceptable in the context of the benefits it will deliver to the Victorian community.

"We respect that the Minister is not bound to accept every recommendation of an independent committee," Mr Madden said.

"Our concern is more fundamental than that. The Minister's own assessment states that no individual finding about the severity of harm to the Darley community could have changed her conclusion. That raises a genuine question about what the assessment process could ever have delivered for the families who engaged with it in good faith, at real cost, over more than five years, believing their evidence would be weighed on its merits."

Council also raised significant concerns during the hearing about the temporary workforce accommodation facility proposed for Ballan, which will house up to 350 construction workers. Basic servicing arrangements, including wastewater management, had not been resolved at the time of the assessment, and detailed operational and emergency management plans for the facility had not been finalised. Council does not consider a facility of this scale should be approved to proceed without these fundamentals settled in advance.

"A facility housing 350 workers needs its basic servicing and operational arrangements resolved before approval, not worked out afterwards," said Mr Madden.

"Council will continue to press AusNet and the Department to finalise these matters well ahead of construction."

Council has written to the Premier, the Minister for Planning and other state and opposition representatives regarding the outcome for Darley and the ongoing costs borne by Council and residents in participating in the process and will be writing further to seek a direct explanation of the reasoning set out in the assessment.