This week, the Environment Minister, Murray Watt, visited Brisbane to lecture regional Queenslanders that we were missing out on jobs by opposing renewable energy.
He singled out the Queensland LNP Government’s decision to remove approval for the Moonlight Range project west of Rockhampton.
This project would have delivered a sum total of 10 permanent jobs to Central Queensland.
The new Oporto store on the Bruce Highway has delivered more economic opportunity for us.
On top of that, the Moonlight Range project would have built 88 wind turbines at a height of 280 metres, permanently tarnishing the view west from Rockhampton.
They would have disturbed 800 hectares of high-value koala habitat.
No other industry would get anywhere near approval for this.
But the climate alarmists among us seem to think that we will protect the polar bear by killing the koala bear.
That is why, when the Queensland Government surveyed our area on the project, 88 per cent of local submissions were opposed to it.
A good government listens to local people, and when 90 per cent of people are opposed to something, they will act.
Thank God we have a Queensland Government that now listens to the people.
The implication of Murray’s criticism is that the people can go jump.
He is clearly not listening to Central Queensland in his obsessive support for renewable energy.
Instead, he appears to be listening to the large multinational companies that benefit from his government’s almost endless taxpayer subsidies for unreliable forms of energy.
The latest round of Labor subsidies for wind and solar involves subsidies to BP, Petronas (a Malaysian government-owned oil and gas giant), Twiggy Forrest’s company (fresh from wasting millions on failed hydrogen projects), and a Chinese company, Risen Energy.
When Australians are struggling to pay their power bills, why is our government using taxpayer funds to help big businesses pay theirs?
Unlike Murray, I spend lots of time talking to people who are on the “fenceline” about our mad rush to renewables.
These farmers and families feel under siege, as their fences, that used to mark their ownership, now mean nothing.
This week, I attended an informative session on the renewables rollout in Biloela, organised by Colin Boyce, the local Federal Member of Parliament.
Over 130 people came along and sat intently through three hours of fascinating presentations.
We heard from Bouldercombe residents who were aghast at the planned massive batteries that were proposed for their town.
Until recently, you didn’t even need to go through an extensive local government planning process to install a massive battery, which are fire hazards.
There are more hurdles if you want to build a new house on your land.
While the Moonlight Range decision was welcomed, there remain an astonishing 94 separate renewable energy projects in just the Flynn electorate.
This includes the Smoky Creek solar farm, a six-year saga that proposes to blanket black soil land with panels and now batteries.
The former Greens candidate, Steve Nowakowski, showed us maps of all these projects, which reveal the shocking scale of widespread destruction of the Australian bush.
Sadly, most of those in the modern Greens party seem more interested in the money offered to renewables than in protecting the beautiful Australian bush.
The reason the Labor Government continues at pace with this environmental destruction, regardless of local opposition, is because they are trying to win the support of climate-conscious voters in the city.
Ironically, these massive industrial projects are never proposed for places where Green or Teal voters live.
And when they are, like the wind turbines recently proposed offshore of Manly, the Teal Members of Parliament oppose them!
Australians will eventually wake up to this green scam.
I will do my best to represent the people and hasten that day, so we can get back to supporting power options that work, that bring down power prices and do not destroy our natural environment in the process.
