Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Carr would be a tremendous source of power for any wind turbine placed in front of his mouth. Senator Wortley’s question is a very important one. The department did in fact advise that we do this cumulative impact assessment. The reason for that is that the coalition government brought into law a thing called the mandatory renewable energy target, which has seen the number of wind turbines, which was roughly 20 under the previous Labor federal regime, increase to 600 under this government. The Victorian government made a decision to ensure that you could not develop wind farms to the west of Port Phillip Bay along the Great Ocean Road, which forces wind farm developments into a relatively small stretch of coast in Gippsland. There have been a number of developments there. One wind farm may have negligible impacts on any species, but we know from Victorian government reports and from Australian government reports—and I make the point that the Victorian government’s own reports on the impacts on orange-bellied parrots have been kept secret to this day, and that Rob Hulls, the state minister, refuses to release the report; I have got a report that fell off the back of a truck that gives Mr Hulls the same advice that I received—that the cumulative impact of wind farms along that coast could be catastrophic for orange-bellied parrots. He not only chose to ignore that report; he chose to hide it for the last couple of years. I have written to Mr Hulls, asking him to make that report public.

Senator Wortley would understand that the orange-bellied parrot is not the only threatened species in this area. All of the reports say that the species flies through this area regularly, on an annual basis. The bird flies through this area at a height where the blades can destroy it. Tasmanian senators will know that birdstrike, although it is a relatively new phenomenon for most Australians, occurs very rapidly.