News
4 October, 2026
Yass Valley continues push for HumeLink compensation
Yass Valley Council will continue its push for a “modest” amount of compensation from Transgrid for electricity infrastructure relating to the HumeLink project.
Yass Valley Council will continue its push for a “modest” amount of compensation from Transgrid for electricity infrastructure relating to the HumeLink project.
Council resolved at its September meeting to take the matter up with the NSW and Australian governments, given there is still no community benefit agreement.
Yass Valley – and the four other councils hosting HumeLink infrastructure – wants an annual compensation payment of $10,000 per kilometre, per annum for a minimum period of 20 years.
Yass Valley mayor Jasmin Jones has described it as a modest and sensible amount given HumeLink infrastructure will “fundamentally change” the regional landscape.
She said the benefit to Yass Valley over 20 years would be approximately $10.2 million.
“Such funding would provide a long-term community benefit capable of supporting locally determined priorities including roads and bridges, drainage, water and sewerage infrastructure, or equally, sporting, aquatic and cultural facilities, community services, waste and resource recovery, parks and gardens and other infrastructure required to support the resilience and liveability of the Yass Valley,” Cr Jones said.
Council will write to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bown, NSW Premier Chris Minns and NSW Minister for Climate Change and Energy Penny Sharpe, looking to establish an equitable community benefit agreement before the end of the year.
It will also seek a meeting between Mrs Sharpe and the mayors of Yass Valley, Snowy Valleys, Upper Lachlan, Wagga Wagga City and Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional councils to progress the matter.
In a Mayoral Minute tabled at council’s September 24 meetings, Cr Jones said approximately 365 kilometres of transmission infrastructure was under construction across the five local government areas.
More than 50 kilometres of the alignment is within the Yass Valley.
Cr Jones said local communities were not only sacrificing landscape amenity for the project to go ahead.
They were also providing the lands, roads and local government services that enable the infrastructure “while the primary benefits of the electricity network will flow well beyond our region”.
“Landowners receive strategic benefit payments, yet the councils responsible for the roads, community infrastructure, planning and services supporting these projects receive no equivalent developer contribution,” Cr Jones said.
“This is not an argument against nation-building infrastructure. It is an argument for fairness in nation building.”
As part of its resolution, council will also take steps to highlight the inequity in funding for HumeLink host communities and communities within declared Renewable Energy Zones.
It says HumeLink host communities should not be treated as “second-tier communities” simply because the infrastructure is transmission rather than generation.
Council will call for a parliamentary inquiry into infrastructure delivery in regional NSW, including “whether current government policy provides an equitable framework for compensating host communities for non-monetary impacts associated with major infrastructure”.
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