Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House recognises that:

(1) wind energy is an important and safe source of renewable energy;

(2) wind energy generation will play a crucial role in enabling Australia to meet its existing renewable energy targets;

(3) bipartisan support for Australia's renewable energy targets is essential to reducing carbon emissions in Australia's electricity sector; and

(4) any move to diminish or abolish the current legislated renewable energy targets would have serious and detrimental impacts on investment in renewable energy, impede Australia's ability to reduce carbon emissions by at least 5 per cent below year 2000 levels by 2020, and undermine the move to a clean energy future.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Laura Smyth (La Trobe, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are moments in our nation's history when opportunities have been seized which were critical to our country's long-term prosperity and the quality of life of our citizens. We are at another of those tipping points right now. As a result of the actions of this government we are starting to make real strides in clean energy industries, real gains. Investments are up and emissions are being reduced. There is innovation, employment, diversification and a transition away from such a heavy reliance on older, polluting industries. It is why this debate about wind energy and other sources of renewable energy is so important. It is why the renewable energy targets are so important, and it beggars belief that there are those in this place who would try to turn back this transition to a clean energy economy.

Bipartisan support for Australia's renewable energy targets is essential to reducing carbon emissions in our electricity sector. Sensible, rational policy debate is essential at a time when clean energy presents our nation with both economic opportunities and the chance to play a part in responding to a global solution to climate change. If we cannot have bipartisan support, let us at least have honesty in the debate. Let us not have people hiding behind junk science and puffed-up claims that are simply not borne out by credible evidence. Let us acknowledge that opposition to renewable energy and opposition to wind energy is almost entirely ideological.

Let us have the debate that I suspect so many of those opposite, in fact, want to have but cannot have because they will look like the fringe dwellers that they are. It is the debate in which they come out and say what we know they want to say, that they think climate change is not real. Let them say what they want to say—that they do not believe that human beings have an impact on climate change, that they do not believe in renewable energy and do not want to support it, that they really want to stick with exclusive reliance on older polluting sources of energy without any change. But they will not be upfront. They will hide behind the junk science and the anti-wind farm scare campaign because at least some members of their party room realise that renewable energy has mainstream support in this country, so they cannot completely attack it.

Sometimes you do get a glimmer of what they really think. For instance, we know that last week the opposition leader's proposed business adviser Maurice Newman is reported by the Guardian Australia to have described support for renewable energy as 'a crime against the people'. Mr Newman, who I understand is to chair the coalition's proposed business advisory council, is reported to have rejected the science of climate change and to want the renewable energy target scrapped entirely. We know that there are comparable calls to scrap the renewable energy target entirely from people like Senator Ron Boswell and the candidate for Hume and the member for Hume. So sometimes we get to see the real debate, the debate that they want to have.

This resolution recognises wind energy as an important and safe source of renewable energy. It recognises that wind energy does and will play a critical role in enabling Australia to meet its existing renewable energy targets and those targets are important.

But there are others who say that wind energy generation is a hazard. There is a contention from some that exposure to noise from wind farms produces a cluster of symptoms which has been called wind turbine syndrome. The National Health and Medical Research Council has an ongoing agenda which involves looking into the possible health effects of wind farms. The NHMRC's Wind Turbines and Health report in July 2010 considered that the so-called 'wind turbine syndrome' is based mainly on the work of one individual whose assertions were then yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and had been heavily criticised by acoustic specialists.

Notwithstanding that, let us have a look at what are raised as health impacts and what some other people have had to say about them. These concerns appear to relate to long-term exposure to infrasound—that is, very low frequency vibrations below the threshold of hearing—and exposure to continuous noise, to intermittent audible sound and to flickering from blades. The NHMRC's 2010 report points out that infrasound is not new nor is it solely connected with wind turbines. It is constantly present in the environment being caused by air turbulence, ocean waves, some ventilation units in buildings, aircraft and some road vehicles and some sorts of machinery.

A report by the South Australian EPA in January this year has also found that infrasound from wind farms is 'no greater' than infrasound in other rural environments. The South Australian EPA has said:

… the contribution of wind turbines to the measured infrasound levels is insignificant in comparison with the background level of infrasound in the environment.

Let us also have a look at a paper prepared in January 2012 for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health which looked at aspects of wind turbines that have been reported to cause health effects. According to the authors of the paper:

… the weight of the evidence suggests no association between noise from wind turbines and measures of psychological distress or mental problems.

It goes on to say:

There is no evidence for a set of health effects, from exposure to wind turbines that could be characterised as a "Wind Turbine Syndrome."

Closer to home we have a recent journal article by the Professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, which tried to determine the basis for claims that wind turbines are associated with something called 'vibroacoustic disease'. Indeed, his research found that only a small proportion of residents living near turbines do actually complain and, when they do, the complaints seem to bear a correlation with the campaigning of anti-wind energy groups. The report notes that vibroacoustic disease:

… has received virtually no scientific recognition beyond the group who coined and promoted the concept. There is no evidence of even rudimentary quality that vibroacoustic disease is associated with or caused by wind turbines.

He goes on to say:

The claim that wind turbines cause VAD is a factoid that has gone 'viral' in cyber space and may be contributing to nocebo effects among those living near turbines.

Before I inevitably become a target for complainants I should say that I do not doubt the sincerity with which so many people hold the belief that they are the subject of so-called wind turbine syndrome or vibroacoustic disease. My complaint is not with those who consider themselves affected by wind turbines in some deleterious though unspecified way. To those people I say this: the NHMRC is already charged with investigating public health impacts. It is a reputable and an impartial body. This is the correct body to be considering your concerns. In addition, if it is actually an objection to development near your property, then that is another issue entirely.

My complaint is with those who would seek to use unsubstantiated claims about these ailments in order to advocate to stop an important source of renewable energy. Wind energy has accounted for approximately 38 per cent of all renewable capacity installed since 2000. It has attracted over $5 billion in investment directly in Australia since 2001 and it is expected to continue to be a very significant contributor to our renewable energy mix. But this is just to speak of one source of renewable energy. This government's agenda has been to foster growth in renewable energy overall. And so it is troubling that the opposition now seems to be backing away from the RET. The Renewable Energy Target scheme is, as members will know, designed to ensure the equivalent of at least 20 per cent of Australia's electricity comes from renewable sources by 2020. In March this year the government released our response to the Climate Change Authority's review of the Renewable Energy Target. We confirmed that the 41,000 gigawatt hours large-scale target should remain and that this is likely to result in us exceeding 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020—it is a great thing.

However, the coalition has not indicated its full support for the full legislative target and has shown no willingness to exceed 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020. In fact, fairly recently on radio in Adelaide the opposition leader expressed his concerns about the current Renewable Energy Target exceeding 20 per cent by 2020 and called for yet another review as early as 2014. This is in addition to the comments by the proposed chair of his business advisory council, which I referred to earlier, and the comments of opposition members undercutting the RET and in opposition to renewable energy sources. Now, the coalition regularly bangs on about sovereign risk, but not when it comes to renewable energy investment, not when it is out there talking about scrapping or watering down the legislated RET, not when it is out there talking about repealing the carbon price, abolishing the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and duplicating state and territory planning requirements over windfarm noise. It fails to acknowledge that all of this poses a considerable risk for renewable energy investment certainty in Australia.

All the while, wind energy has been a significant contributor to our renewable energy mix and I am pleased this evening be able to speak in favour of renewable energy as a whole, the RET and wind energy. So let us see who on the opposition benches stands alongside the anti-windfarm campaign and who recognises the need for credible, responsible political parties in this country to stand up for renewable energy for the good of our country. If this is ideological, then say so. If this is just about constituents who do not want development in their backyard, say so. Do not jeopardise a clean energy— (Time expired)

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I say the previous member for La Trobe was strong, elegant and clear on his support for renewable energy. Let me begin by addressing the current member for La Trobe's motion this evening and let me begin by setting out three propositions. We agree on the science of climate as a coalition and as a government. We agree on the targets in our bipartisan approach. However, we disagree on the fundamental mechanism, which is the carbon tax. We disagree clearly, absolutely.

I want to deal with three parts in this particular motion. The first point of disagreement is on the carbon tax and the reason why that is a failed mechanism and actually fails to increase or decrease renewable energy—it has no effective impact on that whatsoever; it is just an electricity tax. The second point is to look at the incredible failure in the renewable space of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which, as we speak, is preparing to give $100 million to a New Zealand-based company for a wind farm that has already been built, and which the private sector was also willing to finance. It sort of makes you wonder what is the point because when you spend $10 billion you would hope you get some additional renewable energy, but this Clean Energy Finance Corporation will not deliver one additional watt of renewable energy over and above what was already under the Renewable Energy Target. And in the third point I want to deal with the target itself. We support the target, we created the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, which became the Renewable Energy Target. We gave bipartisan support to its creation, but we did clearly oppose the phantom credit scheme and the state Labor bonus tariff schemes, which created a spike in price and which distorted what would otherwise have been a good scheme. So those flaws were warned of, were identified; we endeavoured to stop them, but the two levels of Labor government proceeded nevertheless and with very damaging results.

Against that background, I also acknowledge that there are genuine and legitimate concerns in communities, and some of the members this evening will rightly express the concerns of their communities. Sometimes these communities have differing views within them on the impacts of wind on both human health and property values. I do not know the answer. I do think it is right and proper for the parliament of Australia to sponsor a full National Health and Medical Research Council independent science-based study using primary sources of actual testing to determine those. Nobody should have anything to fear because if there is a problem, we have a fundamental duty to find out. And if it is not a problem, then nobody need fear anything. It is our duty and our task to make sure that we are prudent wherever we are, firstly, spending public money and, secondly, and much more importantly, wherever there are claims of risks to public health. Some on the Labor side, including the previous speaker, the member for La Trobe, just dismissed the concerns of the community. I think this notion of dividing communities rather than recognising that both sides have a right to be heard is contemptuous in the extreme, and it is not the way we will proceed and it is not the way, if we are given the chance, we propose to govern.

So to the carbon tax. Let me be brief on this. The case is well known against it. Firstly, it was based on a false promise and pledge to the Australian people that there would not be a carbon tax under any government led by the current Prime Minister. Secondly, beyond the betrayal, the sad and tragic thing is that it does not even do the job. The thing that most amazes Australians is that we go through a $9 billion a year tax and our emissions go up, not down. Not our figures, not something that we have created, but the government's own tracking to Kyoto figures, submitted internationally, were that Australia's emissions during the period from 2010 to 2020 go from 560 to 637 million tonnes. Go figure that, for all of this pain, our emissions go up, not down.

And that comes to the fundamental flaw: it is an electricity tax, it is a gas tax, it is a refrigeration tax and, as a consequence, it is focusing on essential services. The iron law of economics is that, when you tax essential services, the primary effect is that it causes people to substitute out of other discretionary items rather than out of the essential service. So the consequence of the carbon tax is that it simply has an impact on people's cost of living and quality of life but, as is shown by the government's own projections—not ours—emissions go up, not down, because taxing an essential service in economic terms is taxing a largely inelastic good. In other words, if you drive up the price, you will have minimal impact on consumption. This is again demonstrated by the work of IPART in Australia and New South Wales and studies around the world that show that electricity is pretty close to the most inelastic of all the major consumer items. In other words, it is a bad idea to tax electricity because it hurts but does not do the job, according to the government's own figures.

There are many other reasons why we would not want to support the carbon tax, including the fact that on the latest projections, in this year's budget, only a month ago, we will still be spending $3.8 billion on foreign carbon credits in addition to the carbon tax to make up the difference because it does not do the job here in Australia. So you have a $9 billion tax and then on top of that you have to spend another $3.8 billion a year from 2020 onwards in perpetuity, rising to $57 billion by 2050, on foreign carbon credits. It is amazing.

This brings me to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Our dispute here, by the way, is with the government. We respect the board and we respect the executive. The fundamental flaw in this green hedge fund is it is a $10 billion fund using borrowed funds from the taxpayers—and that will have to be paid back at some stage—to invest in projects that are not producing any new renewable energy. The first cab off the rank is reportedly a $100 million payment for a wind farm in Victoria that has already been built and that could have gotten finance from the private sector, just not on such concessional terms. So there is no new renewable energy. Before the Clean Energy Finance Corporation there was a 20 per cent renewable energy target. After $10 billion of Clean Energy Finance Corporation funding there is still a renewable energy target of 20 per cent. In other words, we spend $10 billion on projects using borrowed money and we get no additional renewable energy. The best-case scenario is that you go from low-cost renewables to high-cost renewables. It does not make sense.

This brings me to the renewable energy target itself. The facts of the renewable energy target are these. According to the New South Wales IPART, in the year just past we had an 18 per cent price rise in New South Wales electricity, of which nine per cent was the carbon tax—10 per cent on average around the country—and 0.3 per cent came from the renewable energy target: one-thirtieth of the carbon tax and one-sixtieth of the RET. Those are the IPART figures that were published in the last year. Even when you build in the total cost, because that is a legitimate question, the work of the AEMC is that the RET has contributed 1c a kilowatt hour or three per cent to the total cost. It is not a trivial sum and I do not want to dismiss it—we need to be honest about the cost—nor is it the figure claimed by some. Those two independent bodies—IPART and the AEMC—have set the facts straight. The figure is neither trivial nor the figure represented by some.

Communities have a right to have a full investigation. As I said at the outset, I do not know what the impact of wind is on health. I do know that it is our duty as policymakers and legislators to allow a full National Health and Medical Research Council independent survey based on fresh testing to be conducted. Communities have a right to know. None of us should be dismissive, none of us should be contemptuous and none of us should ignore those community needs. So we support the RET and we also support the community's right to know. (Time expired)

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Link to 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.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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)

Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the private members' motion put forward by the member for La Trobe. For those listening to the debate, it is worth reading out the motion before I go to addressing the motion itself. The motion reads:

(1) wind energy is an important and safe source of renewable energy;

(2) wind energy generation will play a crucial role in enabling Australia to meet its existing renewable energy targets;

(3) bipartisan support for Australia's renewable energy targets is essential to reducing carbon emissions in Australia's electricity sector; and

(4) any move to diminish or abolish the current legislated renewable energy targets would have serious and detrimental impacts on investment in renewable energy, impede Australia's ability to reduce carbon emissions by at least 5 per cent below year 2000 levels by 2020, and undermine the move to a clean energy future.

It is important for this House to debate and to consider this resolution. In my electorate of Corangamite, there are three projects that have been fully approved and are in various stages of development. These projects will generate over 348 megawatts of energy at their peak, a significant contribution to reducing carbon and creating energy for our communities.

The Mount Gellibrand Wind Farm will play an important role in delivering renewable energy, having a generation capacity of 189 megawatts. This will make a significant contribution and will supply some 88,000 households or a city of a similar size to Geelong. This energy is carbon neutral and will help displace millions of tonnes of dirty brown coal power generation. Work started on this project in March 2012 and is progressing.

The Mount Mercer energy farm will have 64 towers which are currently under construction. They will produce some 131.2 megawatts of energy for Mount Mercer, which is just south of Ballarat in the top of my electorate. Work on this project is the most advanced in my electorate. Workers will have completed 39 of the towers, with some 60 per cent of the poles linking to the transmission network, in the not too distant future. This is a huge project and will have a very significant impact on Ballarat by providing clean renewable energy for that community. Further, once the third project, Mount Pollock in south-west Victoria, not too far from Winchelsea, is completed it will consist of 14 turbines producing approximately 28 megawatts of electricity.

These three projects are typical of projects being constructed throughout south-west Victoria and in South Australia and many other jurisdictions. These projects are important in terms of creating jobs during the construction period and they will play a substantial role in diversifying our electricity generation away from dirty brown coal generation. This will be important for cleaning up our carbon emissions to create new and efficient wind generation and electricity generation projects. Wind will play a very significant role in Australia meeting its obligations, both under the Kyoto protocol and under our desire to generate a significant amount of our electricity through clean energy. (Time expired.)

Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality of renewables at present is that they do not stack up, and the various renewable energy target, or RET, schemes should be dropped until such time as they become economically competitive. I fully appreciate the coalition will review the RET in 2014. We have seen the ludicrous proposition put forward by the wind industry that wind power reduces prices in the market. This is based on disingenuous use of data whereby a massive oversupply when wind is blowing, leading to the price going down, but relative undersupply when the wind is not blowing, significantly increases prices. The overall effect is that, for example, South Australian, the wind capital state in Australia, has the nation's highest electricity costs.

If the wind energy proponents were correct in their assertion that wind energy was economically competitive with fossil fuels then there would be no need for RET schemes or subsidies. The big problem for renewables is the requirement for backup when the renewable resource—wind here—is not available. At present storage is even more cost uncompetitive.

This is bad enough in the case of new turbines being erected. Even forgetting the problems related to grid instability due to variability of wind speeds and the incongruity of there being no wind power from South Australia to provide required power to Queensland during Cyclone Yasi, the issue of degradation due to age becomes a factor. The wind generation capacity of a wind farm is also not what the proponents would like to put out. The reality is that the turbines do not generate any electricity with too high or too low a wind speed. The power ramps up and down with increasing or decreasing wind speeds and only has a certain sweet spot in wind speed distribution where it can generate maximum capacity.

The average of all these issues leads to what is known as 'load factor' or the average power generated by wind turbines. A recent study conducted in the UK and Denmark provides a sobering picture. Data for the cost of wind power at present assumes an economic life of 25 to 30 years. Problematically, the data indicates that the load factor in the UK for new-build wind turbines is around 24 per cent, but after 15 years it is down to 11 per cent. The degradation is large but can also be catastrophic in terms of bearing or gearbox failures.

The numbers required are huge as well. If Australia were to have all of its energy generated using wind and if the average new build could be smoothed for an average load factor of 20 per cent, then Australia would need over 50,000 five-megawatt wind turbines.

What of the victims of wind farms—those who have dedicated their lives to living the Australian dream and who will see a substantial loss in property value due to planned wind farms on a neighbouring property. This is the case for Melanie and Craig, who have dedicated their lives to farming in Broomehill WA. They have an 18-month-old daughter, Grace, and hope to have more children in the near future. Farming is tough, but they accept the challenges and would love their life on the land if it were not for the proposed wind farm on the neighbouring property. Melanie and Craig's future and their life as they had planned it is now uncertain. For the past three years they have been fighting to stop the placement of a wind turbine one kilometre from their family home.

The subsidy for wind is more than 100 per cent. The CSIRO estimates that the levelled costs of power to be $168 per megawatt-hour compared with coal, which is $80. These figures are generous in terms of the load factor, but they do not expect wind to be any more competitive by 2030. According to the CSIRO, nuclear is the cheapest method of generating electricity now, and this will also be the case in 2030. Wind power is simply a feel-good option for electricity. It is inefficient and costly.

Investment should be directed at the cheap end of the innovation pipeline: research and development of electricity-generating technology. We must not mandate the use of expensive methods of generating electricity. Given economics and the goals for CO2 reduction, nuclear has to be considered.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by commending the member for La Trobe for bringing this matter to the House. Our climate is indeed changing. The past summer was the hottest on record. As scientists have been predicting for some time, we will see more frequent and more severe bushfires, floods, cyclones and tornadoes. It is now very clear that extreme weather events are becoming all too frequent all around the world, causing loss of life and property, loss of productivity and loss of biodiversity and the natural environment.

When we look at the causes of these extreme weather events one has only to look at the work of John Cook and his colleagues from the University of Queensland. They examined over 12,000 peer-reviewed climate science articles published between 1991 and 2011. That is over a 20-year period. Their conclusion—and that is the conclusion of over 97 per cent of the articles they peer reviewed—was the view that climate change is being caused largely by human activity. Their study was in fact supported by other similar studies carried out by other scientists.

The overwhelming number of climate scientists around the world are in agreement that climate change is real and serious, that humans are contributing to it and that if we change our behaviour it will make a difference. I cannot, and will not, ignore the very clear scientific opinion on this matter. Scientific opinion is that rising carbon dioxide levels and greenhouse gas levels are contributing to global warming and changing our climate. It seems that both sides of this House—in fact, all members of this House, I understand—acknowledge that. That is why both sides of this House support a 20 per cent renewable energy target by 2020.

What can we do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in this country and across the world? The first thing we need to do is to reduce our use of fossil fuels for the generation of electricity, bearing in mind that electricity generation accounts for about 35 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in this country and in most parts of the world. The reality is that we do have choices. We have choices such as hydro-electric power, geothermal power, solar energy and wind energy. The reality is also that those forms of energy are being used and they are making a difference.

Under Labor, over one million solar panels have been installed around the country and wind generation has trebled. The result is that we have seen a reduction in emissions from the National Electricity Market, now down by 7.4 per cent. And at the seven most highly-polluting power stations, emissions are down by 14 per cent. In addition, the renewable energy industry today employs over 24,000 people. So those people who also talk the renewable energy industry down on the basis that jobs will be lost in other sectors need to take a good hard look at the fact that some 24,000 people are today employed in the renewable energy industry.

Concerns have been raised with respect to the health effects of wind generators and wind electricity generation throughout Australia and perhaps around the world—effects such as noise, vibrations, appearance and injuries to birdlife in particular. I do not dismiss those concerns, and I acknowledge that they need to be addressed. But what I make very clear is that by contrast with the health, environmental and climate change risks associated with fossil fuel burning, the risks associated with wind energy pale into insignificance. If we look at some of the health effects alone with respect to the burning of fossil fuels in this country, there are health effects that affect the nervous system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system and that have now been found in many parts of the world. There is no question about them, and it is undeniable that the health effects associated with the alternative to wind energy, which is fossil fuel burning, are much higher than those associated with wind energy. I was pleased to hear that the member for Tangney referred to the state of South Australia which, in fact, is the state with the highest use of wind energy across the country. I think it is a commendable achievement. It is one that I am proud of and one that I know that the South Australian government has implemented through careful regulations and the use of the EPA (Time expired)

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not support this motion. I quote from Mike Smithson who is Channel 7's political reporter who is also heard on FIVEaa, who had a very interesting article in the Sunday Mail Adelaide. I am sure the member for Makin would be aware of that commentator and certainly that newspaper and probably the article headed, 'Ill wind may hurt farmers'. He writes:

There’s a growing speculation that some of the benefits of wind power generation are a load of hot air. the State Government’s own hand-picked expert, who’s canvassed opinion throughout regional communities, has dished up plenty of food for thought about future wind approvals.

He goes on to quote the former South Australian National Party MP, Peter Blacker, who was the member for Flinders from 1973 to 1993, who told a parliamentary committee recently of:

… the growing downsides, especially in prime agricultural areas. His dark-cloud observations came as the Government prepares to approve a 199-turbine facility on the Yorke Peninsula, worth about $1.3 billion.

I know the member for Hume—if he were available—would be speaking against this particular motion. He has stridently advocated against wind turbines as he knows the downsides, particularly in his electorate. I see that the member for Hughes is following on from that tradition of putting the facts into this space. I quote from the member for Hume from his 19 March 2012 speech when he said:

It is a shame that I will not have more time to expose the great fraud on the Australian people that is the wind turbine industry. Communities in proximity to wind turbine complexes are experiencing health and noise impacts that interfere with their lives. They did not experience these issues before the turbines came online.

Mr Alby Shultz is correct. There are adverse effects from having wind turbines near you. There are dizzying effects, nausea, and all these sorts of complaints he has had to experience firsthand because his constituents have been complaining loudly and often to him.

He railed against the wind turbines in another speech on 12 February this year when he said:

Wind turbines should not be classed as renewable energy as the industry is unsure of whether they are actually reducing greenhouse gas emissions or not. Studies of performance based data suggest that wind turbines do not reduce emissions. Wind turbines are industrial power generators that require baseload power to operate and are inefficient, intermittent, damaging to the environment and very expensive to the electrical consumer in Australia.

Alby Shultz is correct.

Wind-turbine farms will not create an abundance of local clean, green jobs in Australia. They are not a clean, green source of energy. Wind farms require backup fossil-fuel powered generators which negate any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Wind farms take up large tracts of land which should otherwise and could otherwise be used as prime agricultural land to grow food. We have so often heard this government talking about feeding the Asian century and feeding the global food task, but are ever yet to produce public policy that does that. They have—as we heard from Mr Schultz time and again—negative health effects on humans: wind turbine syndrome, infrasound which causes headaches and dizziness, deep nervous fatigue, symptoms akin to seasickness as well as irritability, depression, concentration and sleep problems.

Nobody would want one of these huge things next to them but, unfortunately, if you listen to all the nonsense and rhetoric coming from the other side you would think that these are the great panacea for all our energy problems and certainly for our clean energy problems. I know in my electorate we have irrigators using diesel power to pump their water systems, because they cannot afford to pay for electricity. But this is not going to solve the problem.

We heard the member for Hughes and we know that tomorrow there is going to be a loud protest on the front steps of this parliament talking about the wind power fraud and how Australia cannot afford it. Australia cannot afford the clean energy bills. We certainly cannot afford the carbon tax and we certainly cannot afford to spend the billions upon billions of dollars going down this wind power fraud. It is a fraud, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I do thank you for letting me speak on this motion. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.