That turnout alone shows how serious this issue is for our community.
People are angry. People are scared.
We are not activists looking for a fight — we are farmers, families, business owners and community members trying to protect the future of the place we call home.
Dookie was never consulted when the real decisions were being made.
Our region was added after the consultation phase that influenced outcomes had effectively closed.
Since then, this community has spent months seeking clear answers about what inclusion in the REZ could mean for our land, food production, environment and future.
Instead, we have been met with vague responses, avoided questions and a process that feels designed to justify a predetermined outcome.
The only reason these public meetings occurred was because community members discovered VicGrid representatives were engaging landholders individually behind closed doors.
Decisions that could affect generations of farming families should never happen that way.
This community has provided independent reports, agricultural data, floodplain mapping, cultural concerns and environmental evidence questioning why Dookie was included at all.
Yet despite this, Dookie remains under consideration.
This land is not empty space waiting to be industrialised.
It is some of Victoria’s most productive agricultural country.
It supports food production, local businesses, tourism, biodiversity and generations of farming knowledge.
Consultation must happen before decisions are made — not after lines are already drawn on a map.
Our message to the State Government is simple: remove Dookie from the REZ, or provide this community with the same genuine consultation and time afforded to every other region.
Not here. Not now. Not ever.
– Jodie Fleming, on behalf of Protect Dookie & the Goulburn Valley Group
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