Find a better position for the Yanakie Monopole

This petition is to ask the South Gippsland Shire Council to deny Planning permission to erect a 30m high NBN monoploe at 35 Shellcott Road, Yanakie.

We argue that placing the pole so close to our house and in a place where it is massively visible from our kitchen window will have a huge negative impact on our property value, quality of life and our health. It will aslo negatively impact on the property value of every property in the road. I have written confirmation of this from a local RE Agent. We insist that with a little bit of flexibility and community dialog a site could be found that leaves everybody satisfied.

My wife Helen Wilkinson and I bought the property at 15 Shellcott Road in 2001. For the past 11 years we have worked tirelessly to bring what is a magnificent garden (planted by Jack Shellcott in the late 1950s) back from decades of neglect. The work continues. Our property together with a small parcel of Crown Land accross the road is an oasis for wildlife in an area which has been stripped of native vegetation. The sheer variety of mature trees on our property makes it a unique Botanical Garden to rival anything in the whole area of South Gippsland. We are very proud to be custodians of this land and have planted over 1200 native trees to augment what is already here. This monopole will loom over the property and utterly destroy it's heritage value.

The site analysis which was conducted identified our home as a farm building. This is incorrect and therefore the design response is wrong.

We love to share this place through frequent gatherings here. As well, we share the beauty of it through our atwork, which features sculptures, prints, drawings and paintings of some of the life in our garden and the local area. We work extremely hard on this and have staged many shows in the local area including two since Christmas as well as holding down jobs and running businesses. This tower will make it impossible for us to continue as our hearts will be broken.

There are big concerns over the possible health effects of these towers and poles. Helen and I have been studying electro-magnetic energy for the past six years. Helen actually works in the area of energetic medicine as a SCIO therapist at the rear of Leongatha Health Foods, as well as serving customers three days a week. We have learnt about the amazing role that frequencies play in communication, navigation and health in all animals and plants. Despite my initial scepticism, I now realise this is not some new-age mumbo-jumbo, but proven facts.

Humans and the planet earth have an identical electrical pulse called the Schumann Resonance, which is measured at 7.83 Mz (oscillations per second). We are all electrical beings. There have been hundreds of studies on melatonin - the body's wonder drug which mops up cancer-causing free radicals on a nightly basis. All the studies point in the same direction - that radio frequencies disturb the body's melatonin production. I can't prove that the towers are making people sick, but Helen and I believe very strongly that living very near them could be ptentially hazardous, and there are enough examples from around the world of so called "cancer clusters" for this fear to be founded in truth. Why risk putting them very close to houses when there are other alternatives?

As well as health consequences for humans, there are implications for wildlife, too. Over twenty different bird species, as well as many frogs, small marsupials and a healthy hive of bees have their home here. Birds, as well as bees are very sensitive to electro-magnetic frequencies.

Birds as well as humans have what are called Chiptochromes behind their eyes which allow them to sense electro-magnetic fields.
Bees can detect a massive spectrum of frequencies and use the earth's electro-magnetic field for their navigatiion. Tests prove that bees' ability to find their way back to the hive is hindered by electro-magnetic radiation from wireless devices. Bee populations have been decimated world-wide since 2006.

We are worried that a monopole this close to the property will have a detrimental effect on the life here.

Why the rush? In it's haste to roll out the NBN, decisions are being made which are ill-considered.