Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

What we have to ask ourselves is: how is removing all the environmental conditions—so one tower, one raptor per year is perfectly acceptable! Removing vegetation in rainforests is perfectly acceptable! Drowning people out, drowning areas out is perfectly acceptable! Completely imposing yourself on the free property rights of people in regional areas is perfectly acceptable! However, the virtue does not extend to metropolitan suburbs. Not one wind tower do they want at Middle Head or off Manly or off Palm Beach or in Parramatta—not one. It would be obscene; they would never get re-elected. So where do they dump them? They dump them in regional areas.

We have to clearly understand, this path is insanity. You have no chance—none, zero, zip—of reaching 82 per cent renewables. And there is nothing renewable about them. They go to landfill. It's just nomenclature—'windfarms'? What do they grow—spuds, carrots, peas? You have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. But you are not going to reach 82 per cent. It is just insane.

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