Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to support the member for La Trobe. Wind energy is indeed an important and safe source of renewable energy. Wind energy generation will play a crucial role in enabling Australia to meet its existing renewable energy targets. I hear there are people coming to Canberra tomorrow to protest against wind turbines. Unfortunately, some people get scared by the nonsense and misinformation being peddled on the internet. I suggest they will be reassured if they look at two recent reports, which they can also find on the internet, which represent serious scientific research rather than voodoo and witchcraft.

The first is the recent information paper by the Victorian Department of Health entitled WindFarms, Sound and Health. This paper found that the inaudible sound caused by wind farms is no more significant than that from other rural and urban environments and does not affect human health. The evidence indicates that sound can only affect health at sound levels that are loud enough to be easily audible. This means that, if you cannot hear a sound, there is no known way that it can affect your health. This is true regardless of the frequency of the sound.

Tens of thousands of people around the world live near wind farms without suffering ill effects. Many have done so for decades. The health department review assessed the evidence and found that it does not support claims that inaudible sounds can have direct physiological effects. Physiological effects on humans have only been detected at levels that are easily audible. The report says that infrasound is generated by many sources, such as trains, breaking waves and air conditioners. The department found that the evidence showed wind farms produced no more infrasound than the background level in other environments. The report says:

Humans have been exposed to high levels of infrasound throughout our evolution, with no apparent effects.

Wind energy has an excellent health track record. The Australian wind industry takes health concerns very seriously. According to the Clean Energy Council, there is no peer reviewed scientific evidence that wind turbines have an impact on health. There are nearly 200,000 wind turbines across sites all over the world, many of them close to people's houses. Some 17 reviews of research literature conducted by leading health and research organisations from all over the world, including Australia's National Health and Medical Research Centre, the UK Health Protection Agency and the US National Research Council, have found no direct link between wind farms and health effects. So the claims of opponents of wind farms about infrasound are shown to be without foundation.

In fact, as the Clean Energy Council indicates, there are many health benefits that come from using wind energy over conventional forms such as coal and gas. As wind energy is greenhouse gas free, it improves overall air quality by reducing the amount of pollution. The World Health Organisation says that wind power represents one of the most benign of all forms of electrical generation in terms of direct and indirect health effects.

The second report that tomorrow's protesters should track down on the internet is today's report from the Australian Climate Commission titled The Critical Decade: Climate science, risks and responses. The report found that the duration and frequency of heatwaves and extremely hot days has increased across Australia and around the world. The number of heatwaves is projected to increase significantly into the future. Heat causes more deaths than any other type of extreme weather event in Australia. Increasing intensity and frequency of extreme heat poses health risks for Australians and will put additional pressure on health services. Heatwaves kill people. I want to reassure tomorrow's protesters that wind energy is lifesaving technology and they have nothing to fear. I urge them to stop running interference on it and give wind energy their full support.

The Victorian Department of Health report is a damning indictment of the Victorian government, which is blocking wind farms by allowing any household to veto a new turbine within two kilometres of their home. This attitude stands in stark and hypocritical contrast to its approving a massive expansion of the Brunswick terminal station in my electorate—in the process, taking the decision-making out of the hands of the local council and the local community and displaying utter contempt for the health and other concerns of local residents.

Wind power is a significant component of any effective response to climate change. Building more wind farms will help facilitate the structural change we need to become a low-carbon economy, and for that reason we should be encouraging its development.

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