AH, VICTORIA, the place where democracy is almost alive and well, provided you don’t mind the government walking straight into your home, paddock, or private property without so much as a how-do-you-do.
The Power of Entry Bill, now paired with the equally charming VicGrid Stage 2 Reform Bill is the latest masterstroke from a government that’s clearly taken George Orwell’s 1984 as more of a how-to guide than a cautionary tale.
Apparently, building a modern electricity network now requires bulldozing centuries of legal principle. Your land, your rights, your front gate? Mere speedbumps on the path to “progress.”
Remember the time when compulsory acquisition meant a drawn-out legal process, some fair compensation, and at least a basic recognition of your rights as a citizen?
Now, it’s open season for state-backed energy expansion, and you’re expected to smile politely while someone in hi-vis climbs your fence with a clipboard and a mandate to “reasonably” force their way through.
And spare us the tired “if you’ve got nothing to hide…” defence. That’s the calling card of lazy tyranny. The issue isn’t what you’re hiding — it’s what they’re trampling over, literally and figuratively.
The Andrews era may be over, but his legacy of executive overreach lives on in vivid, high-voltage technicolour. This is not just about electricity, it’s about precedent. If the state can justify physical intrusion on private land in the name of infrastructure today, what can’t it justify tomorrow?
We’re told it’s about the “greater good.” But when the greater good requires using force to override individual freedoms, something has gone terribly wrong with the way we define “public interest.”
So maybe it’s time to update your doormat. Forget “Welcome.” Try: “Privacy No Longer Lives Here.”
After all, in the new Victoria, you don’t own the land, you merely borrow it, until someone with an “authorised officer” badge and a transmission tower decides otherwise.
But then that’s just my opinion.
