Last week a government report on how rural people view renewable energy projects was published. The review surveyed 250 landholders and community members who live near planned wind, solar or transmission projects what they thought.
The results were shocking: 92 per cent of the community are dissatisfied with the engagement of project developers and 85 per cent said their concerns were not addressed in a timely manner. I reckon the NSW Rugby League team has more support in Central Queensland than renewable energy does.
It is almost impossible to get 9 out of 10 people to agree on anything. But renewable energy developers have achieved the impossible. These often foreign investors arrive in our towns with the messianic zeal of someone who thinks that they are saving the planet, even while they are set to make a huge amount of money themselves.
So when humanity’s very existence is at stake, if a few koalas have to get hit on the head in the process, that’s just the price we must pay. I am not exaggerating this bit. The approval for the Clarke Creek Wind farm says that when animals are injured that “Euthanasia will be conducted using blunt force trauma. This is a hard, sharp blow to the base of the back of the skull with a blunt metal or heavy wooden bar.”
Under the Government’s plans an area the size of half of Victoria will be blanketed with solar, wind or related infrastructure over the next few decades. That is a lot of koalas and a lot of bushland.
Even before we get to that level of destruction, rural communities are outraged at the planned devastation. This week thousands of people descended on Canberra for the first day of Parliament’s. They were there to protest and stop the destruction of their local environment.
Thousands travelled to Canberra because they are sick of being lectured to by their so-called representatives. It would be better if politicians listened to the concerns of the 90 per cent of people who live in the bush.
What galls many people in Central Queensland is that we have been told for years that land clearing causes damage to the Great Barrier Reef. A farmer can go to jail now for having the temerity to cut down a tree on his land without approval.
But now foreign owned renewable energy developers can clear whole forests and chop the tops off mountains without any problem.
This week I introduced legislation make sure that all renewable projects would have to go through the same environmental approval process as farmers have to, and that they could be stopped if they have a significant impact on the local environment.
Solar and wind investors promised a lot, but they have ended up breaking more promises than Anthony Albanese. They promised to save the environment and lower power prices. Instead, we have ended up with higher power bills, an electricity grid held hostage to the weather and destruction of environment.
We must stop these things before it is too late.
