Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Labor-Greens government is so engrossed by hitting climate targets they are willing to do absolutely anything to meet their goals, even if it means that they flood one of Australia's most pristine rainforest wildernesses and decimate prime agricultural land for a renewable energy scheme. The Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project will be located 75km west of Mackay, in the stunning Eungella and Pioneer Valley. Plans for this project include the construction of a 60-metre-high wall right across the valley floor for the lower dam and a further two dams at the top of the Eungella range. Rainforests, thriving with unique flora, waterfalls and platypus that swim in the Broken River, will be destroyed. Land which yields some of Australia's finest produce will be completely inundated—decimated in the name of renewable energy.

Over 100 people are being forced out of their homes. Families who have lived and worked on their land for generations are being forced to leave. I have visited locals in the Eungella and Pioneer Valley region multiple times since this announcement in September last year. This community is devastated, still in shock that their lives are being uprooted without any consultation prior to the announcement last year so that those in the city can feel warm and fuzzy that they're using renewable energy when they switch on a light. It is hypocritical of those opposite to criticise the mining industry when they are so easily destroying the environment in the name of renewables.