MY earliest memory of having a true ‘sense of place’ was at my uncle’s old house where he had a pet sheep in the backyard, a cat and what seemed like a huge paddock to run around in to escape the pet sheep who was prone to knocking me to the ground whenever it got the chance.
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As I grew up I was lucky enough to enjoy riding my horse around the town, playing tennis with the local kids and taking part in all the other wonderful activities a small yet thriving community has to offer.
My earliest bonding sessions with the sheep were the start of a deep love affair with a village I would later learn has been a part of my family’s history for well over 150 years.
These days the village of Wollar is a much different place to what it was like in the ’70s.
The families have gone and the tennis courts overgrown. Instead of a constant flow of vehicles and friendly faces at the general store, we live with a constant flow of mine spec trucks and Hi-Vis nameless people who live in our town in mine-owned houses on a temporary basis, not to mention the noise and the dust.
When the Wilpinjong Coal Project started in 2006 to supply coal to Bayswater power station, the community was fed a whole lot of rhetoric about how this mine would create jobs, strengthen the community through company involvement and generally be of benefit to the village of Wollar.
In fact, what we’ve seen is an aggressive campaign to rid the village of all people who might or might not stand in the way of the Peabody juggernaut.
They have purchased every laneway, road and piece of property they can get their hands on, even down to our two beautiful churches which were both built by the community, yet were acquired with almost zero community consultation.
On top of the thousands of acres they own, they even took over the lease of the travelling stock reserve.
The ‘buy everything’ policy has been the sole mitigation strategy to deal with the noise, the dust and the spontaneous combustion.
So on Wednesday, I travelled to Sydney to represent the Wollar Progress Association at the AGL AGM.
I want to know about the future of the project.
I want to know what AGL have planned with regard to a transition away from coal-fired power. I also want to know when this madness of expansion after expansion of Wilpinjong mine is going to stop.
This little trip is yet another instance where I gave up precious time working in my business or time with my family, to stand up for something I’m passionate about. I’m not the only one who gets involved in this way.
Thankfully the message is getting out there to the wider community, but unfortunately the damage has been done in Wollar.
My hope is that my children can continue to enjoy life in Wollar and that maybe, after the mine has gone, they will see the community rebuild to a point where some families move back in and the social fabric of the place returns.
I’m proud to say that my 13-year-old has the strong ‘sense of place’ that I gained from an early age, so with people like her coming up through the ranks and the growing awareness of the need for clean energy, little places like Wollar can still exist into the future.
