Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to contribute to this motion moved by the member for La Trobe. From the outset: I would love to see the day that clean renewables can replace fossil fuels. If we can make clean renewables cost-effective they will be taken up worldwide and there would be no need for government subsidies.

But what I am concerned about is wind turbine syndrome. Wind turbine syndrome, or perhaps we should call it wind turbine fever, is something that does exist. It is not just a physical malady. It is an affliction of the mind. Wind turbine fever has serious effects on otherwise normally sane and intelligent people. It causes them to abandon rational thought and logic. It causes them to argue for the spending of billions of dollars without the need of any cost-benefit analysis. But, most disturbingly, it causes them to develop a callous disregard for the human health and wellbeing of their fellow Australians.

Like infrasound, wind turbine syndrome afflicts different groups in different ways. The first group afflicted is similar to those who suffered from gold rush fever during our colonial days—those who see rivers of gold and large fortunes to be made, or the expansion of their political power, in the wind industry. The second group afflicted by wind turbine fever are activists who have, no doubt, good intentions but, like religious devotees, they have developed an evangelical belief. They simply believe in wind turbines and anyone who questions any aspect of that belief or the economics is simply guilty of heresy and labelled a denier. The path we are heading down as a nation will see $17 billion of our limited capital and resources spent building wind turbine farms; so one of the effects we see of wind turbine fever is the inability to acknowledge that wind turbines are a costly and inefficient method of generating electricity which will have the effect of increasing the price of electricity to consumers and businesses.

The problem with wind turbines is that without a government subsidy no-one would build one. We need to take off our ideological blinkers and ask—and I note this was not mentioned by any speaker on the other side—how much will our electricity prices rise? How much more will consumers and families have to pay to get a return on that $17 billion we are seeing invested in wind turbines in the next seven years? How much hardship will this cause families who are forced to pay more for their electricity? How many Australian businesses will be forced to abandon Australia and move to countries which do not have such high electricity prices? We must admit that if we go down this track, it is a recipe for retarding economic growth and increasing poverty in our nation. We must remember that our wealth will never come from subsidising inefficient technologies and that jobs are not created by taxing the rest of the economy to pay for uneconomic green jobs. We also need to consider the opportunity cost of our nation investing $17 billion in wind turbines. No-one will ever know what new products, processes or medical breakthroughs will fail to come into existence, killed before they were born, because of our nation's diversion of these precious and valuable resources into wind turbines.

Most disturbing of all is the callous disregard for the health and wellbeing of our fellow Australians. We have heard members on the other side simply dismiss these people, saying it is all in their heads. I would like to read a letter I have received from one such constituent:

Last night was the third night with no sleep. Our whole house is shaking and has been all week. The turbines have been roaring consistently since Monday afternoon. It is now Friday and today is worse than all other days. I cannot work in my paddocks under these conditions. I have headaches constantly, with no sleep for three nights. My physical ability is deteriorating rapidly.

These people deserve a study to find out— (Time expired)

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