
A state government has promised regional jobs and growth after rubber-stamping one of the world's largest rare earths mines, but farmers say their concerns and rights have been bulldozed.
Mining company Astron's Donald Rare Earths and Mineral Sands Project won Victorian state government approval on Wednesday, the last regulatory hurdle for mine's first stage, which will upend more than 1100 hectares of broadacre and livestock farmland in the state's west.