Media release – TasNetworks, 23 November 2023
TasNetworks announces 2023 Community Grants recipients
TasNetworks has tripled its Community Grants investment to help build stronger communities and ease cost-of-living strain.
With a huge increase in applications, TasNetworks has boosted its Community Grants budget this year from about $40,000 to more than $110,000.
TasNetworks CEO, Seán McGoldrick, said “TasNetworks plays an important role in the Tasmanian community and we’re excited to be supporting 14 projects that will make a positive difference in the lives of Tasmanians.
“We’re partnering with organisations who are dedicated to building resilient communities and addressing the rising cost of living in communities right across the state, from Smithton to the Huon Valley,” Dr McGoldrick said.
“Our grants program is important as it gives community organisations the chance to secure funding for projects that will benefit many people in their local community.
“We know that many of our communities are facing a range of challenges, especially in current times. We also recognise the importance of resilience and how this can better equip people to respond to and recover from emerging challenges,” he said.
The 14 successful grant recipients for TasNetworks’ cost-of-living themed 2023 program are:
- The Salvation Army – The Salvos Sunday Dinner – funding a full year of weekly hearty dinners;
- Riverside Lions Club – RESiPacks (RESilience) (RESpect) – funding the creation of life-changing backpacks for homeless people;
- Gagebrook Community House – inaugural Learn, Laugh, Cook – two rounds of ten-week cooking, numeracy and literacy courses;
- Dunalley Tasman Neighbourhood House – Mental Health First Aider training and peer support program;
- Tamar Sea Rescue Services – update of digital radio equipment to ensure the safety of mariners;
- Sunlight Kitchen and Garden – The Fresh Produce Project – kitchen garden project for Afghani refugees;
- Huon Valley PCYC – Operation Happy Birthday, supporting children from vulnerable backgrounds with free birthday parties for them and their friends;
- Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation – The creation of a new Kitchen Garden at Claremont College;
- Hobart City Mission – Support for Small Steps young mothers housing program;
- Rural Health Tasmania – Supporting disengaged young people to make a positive difference across Smithton and Wynyard;
- Kentish Community Men’s Shed – replacing a range of important tools to enable them to continue to deliver community projects;
- Burnie Community House – Fakeaway: Creating takeaway meals at home, reducing costs and making healthier choices;
- City of Burnie Lions Club – purchase of sewing machine and overlocker for clothing alternations lessons;
- Whitemore Tennis Club – safety and access upgrade for elderly and disabled members of the community.
Ben Marshall
November 24, 2023 at 10:21
As Chair of a community that is fighting TasNetworks’ proposed new transmission grid (the other half of Marinus), I can assure readers that while the recipients of TasNetworks’ cash-splashes deserve every cent they can get, it’s not kindness that’s driving TasNetworks “Community Benefits Program”.
These cash splashes are part of a long-established PR strategy to soften opposition to bad infrastructure planning (Marinus and the North West Transmission Development) and to reduce dismay at fresh reports of TasNetworks as a toxic workplace, divert attention from TasNetworks’ ongoing executive program to sack staff and outsource workers on ‘lowest bidder wins’ basis, and prompt communities to think they’re receiving something as an act of generosity while TasNetworks quietly pursues a strategy of ‘supernormal’ profit-taking via our power bills.
TasNetworks has spent tens of millions of dollars on PR to foist Marinus and the NWTD on Tasmanian taxpayers, and the pennies they scatter in the Community Grants are directly tied to that PR allocation. As the most impacted community, the Loongana Valley community has been ignored, derided, kept uninformed, and strategised against, as TasNetworks seeks to bulldoze a vast double transmission line through our biodiverse forests – a new network designed not to serve Tasmanians but to attract foreign investors, plus pay the sole shareholder, the Minister for Energy, an annual dividend.
If the grid is allowed to happen, our local tourism small businesses will suffer or even close, our water catchments will be polluted, our karst cave systems will be flooded with run-off and multiple threatened and endangered species will die or flee the valley. Our fire risks will increase, our property values will plummet and the iconic spots for tourists – Cruikshank’s Lookout, Leven Canyon Walk, Black Bluff trail and Winterbrook Falls – will be blighted by access roading, 90-metre-wide easements through forests, and 50-60 metre high towers.
The nesting eagles, masked owls, white goshawks, and so many other flying creatures including pollinators, will be at permanent risk from the transmission lines. A beautiful, critically important valley will be given over to the needs of foreign investors, and we’ll be left to pay for the infrastructure that sends privatised Tasmanian power to the mainland.
So while we wish all the recipients of these small grants the very best, we hope that a few will spare us a thought, and understand that the TasNetworks PR team – wearing those trademark confident smiles and offering firm handshakes – aren’t working for you, or for Tasmania, but rather are working for TasNetworks’ own narrow material interests.
Marinus and the NWTD is a classic ‘long con’, and “Community Benefits Programs” are just one smiling step toward a massive theft of our money into TasNetworks’ coffers.